Dear Praying Friends and Family,

First Things First:We are thankful to report that a man by the name of Bogdan received Christ as His Savior! He was in the middle of a separation from his wife and moved back to his old home in Yakovlevka. He visited Sasha with a fishing pole in his hand, who replied to the invitation with, “It’s Sunday! Let’s go to church instead!” He came and got saved! It was a blessing to see him faithfully attend services and grow in the Lord. He was reconciled to his wife, which is good news, but they live in another town and cannot attend services anymore. We gave him literature and hope he will continue to grow in the Lord. I also wanted to report that Nina Sergeovna, of whom I wrote in our last letter, went home to be with her newfound Savior.

Bible Institute:Twenty-plus years ago I asked the Lord to allow me to train men for the ministry. It has been my privilege to have taken part in the training of dozens of men, several of which are in full-time ministry today. We are close to graduating our third batch of Bible Institute students from our fullest curriculum yet. They have been taught every verse of Genesis, Daniel, John, Acts, Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians through Colossians, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, Hebrews, James, and Revelation. I expounded the books paying attention to doctrine and practical application. In addition, when occasion required, we dealt with textual criticism and showed them what the Authorized King James Bible says and compared it with the Russian Synodal and a few other versions with corrupt readings. Other subjects that we taught were: Soul Winning and Visitation, Evangelistic Song Leading, The History of the New Testament Church, Old and New Testament Survey, Manuscript Evidence, Baptist Missions, Missions Methods, Theology I, Advanced Theology, Preparation and Delivery of Sermons 1 and 2, The Preacher and His Problems, The Local Church, and the Life of Christ. 
The curriculum requires three years to complete but due to a few setbacks, we will have to finish the last semester in the fall of this year when we will finish up four or more subjects. These have not been just a few condensed short courses. Each subject required an average of 36 class hours to teach. The preparation and translation of the material demanded more. I am thankful for the help of Casey Kline who taught some of the courses along with another brother who also helped lighten the load.
I wrote the lesson plans and syllabus’ myself for many of the classes and had them translated into Russian. My translator was kept busy full-time translating the textbooks by Dr. Ruckman for Church History 1 & 2, Advanced Theology, and Manuscript Evidence. We also translated “World’s Bible Handbook”, for O.T and N.T. Survey and “The Preacher and His Preaching” by Gibbs, for Preparation and Delivery of Sermons. Time and space will not allow me to list all the other handouts, charts, booklets, and materials that we have translated to equip these men for the ministry. Our prayer is to prepare them as best we can for them to not only start New Testament Baptist Churches from scratch by personal work and evangelism, but to also give them the materials needed to root and ground them in the truth, deal with problems common to the church life, and counsel the saints.
The students have worked hard and we are excited to see what the Lord will do with them in the future. I am asking the Lord to let me move the Bible Institute to Odessa where we are planning to start another church. It should be much easier now that the materials are written and translated into Russian.

Ministry Changes:There have been some recent changes that will affect our ministry in the future. Brother Sasha Taraniuk, of whom I have mentioned several times in past letters, was offered the pastorate in another church. He prayed about it and agreed to the arrangement. It is not yet set in stone but we will know for sure in a couple of months. The reason this is going to have such an effect on our ministry is because I’ve worked with him for over fifteen years and we were planning to create a local church-planting mission board to reach the unreached regions for Jesus Christ. He was probably the only man qualified for such a work and without him I do not think that such a ministry will be possible for now. This new arrangement may move the date for us to begin the work in Odessa even sooner. Please pray for us during this time of change, which took us all by surprise. The workload that Sasha had carried is now placed on the shoulders of others, who already have a lot to carry. We are adjusting and praying about what the Lord would have us to do in the upcoming summer months.

Rue Crew Review: The last two months have had quite a few family events. Christopher turned 12 in April, and Benjamin turned 18 in May. Naomi and I celebrated our 26th(!) wedding anniversary. There is a lot of business in Benjamin’s life as he graduates high school. We traveled to Kyiv for a few days in April for him to take the ACT test. I left the country with him before his eighteenth birthday so that he could re-enter Ukraine with a tourist visa. We then submitted the necessary paperwork and waited for his letter of invitation from the Department of Religious Affairs. After we had that letter in hand he then left the country again to go to Moldova and applied for his religious visa. There was the standard drama at the border because they do not know what to do with children of missionaries. We thank the Lord that we were able to take care of the problem over the course of a few days and now Benjamin has his religious visa and is legal. Thank you for praying! Our homeschool was wrapped up for the year and we are thankful to have a looser schedule just in time for harvesting our trees and canning food for the coming winter!

Prayer Letter Delays: We want to apologize for our last letter not going out on time. There was a miscommunication with our board and it did not go out as intended. I’ve also had several churches say that they have not received a letter from us in months! I average sending out bi-monthly letters, totaling six a year. Now that our Bible Institute is on break we are going to go over our mailing list with a fine-tooth comb and see what’s going on. Thank you for your patience. We want to thank you all for your friendship, prayers, support, and all that you do for the Lord that gives us the privilege and opportunity to serve our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. May the Lord bless you as you serve Him! Until our next prayer letter or our meeting in the air!
That Ukraine May Know Him, 
Philippians 3:10 

Christopher Rue