New National Presbyterian Church

One of the highlights of the past few weeks was traveling to Odessa on April 15th-16th for the organization of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Ukraine (EPCU). As of last fall, the EPCU has 3 particularized churches and 8 mission churches. It also has 13 ordained Teaching Elders and approximately 600 church members nationwide.

At the beginning of the Organizational Service.

The main celebration was the organizational service at which we reflected on God's faithfulness to His Bride in Ukraine and the power of the Gospel in giving dead souls new life. Most of the national pastors had a role in the service and their was a lot of joy as they were prayed over and set apart as the leaders of a new presbyterian church.

MTW Ukrainian Team Leader Eric Huber and Pastor George Kadyan of Kotovskogo, Ukraine.

After the organizational service I was a guest at the first presbytery meeting of the EPCU. Previous to the organizational meeting, there were presbytery meetings but the leadership and voting was joint nationals and ordained MTW missionaries. Now, the leadership is the national pastors but they are still in need of MTW missionaries for support, advice and counsel. The Ukrainian pastors still want the partnership of MTW in the development of existing mission churches and in new church planting efforts. It is an exciting time to look forward to how God will work in the coming years.

Missionaries and Nationals Rejoicing Together.