November 8, 2000
Dear Friends and Supporters of the College of Theology and
Education:
As the year of our Lord 2000 comes to an end, it seems to be a perfect time to share with you blessings that the Lord had bestowed upon us - students, faculy, and administration of a large Christian family called the College of Theology and Education in Kishinev (Chisinau), Moldova. We have every reason to be thankful to the Lord and to all of you from the bottom of our hearts for great things that we were able to achieve in the life and growth of our institution during this year.
We are grateful to God for our graduates. On May 29 a graduation commencement was held at the Jesus our Savior Evangelical Baptist Church of Kishinev, where diplomas were awarded to more than 40 students. They received their degrees in the fields of Social Assistance (2.5- year program) and Christian Education (2-year program). We hope that our graduates will be able to fill gaps in the much needed ministry of education in Christian churches in Moldova as well as provide counseling, comfort and necessary help for children in more than 60 orphanages exisiting today in Moldova as well as other needy people.
This year we witnessed growth and expansion
of the college property. Construction
of a new addition to the main building of the college started in May of this
year in cooperation with the Union of Baptist Churches in Moldova and Keys
Ministries.
We are grateful to God for our friends in Christ from Keys Ministries – a Christian organization from Pennsylvania, USA that we have partnered with for several years – for their enormous contribution toward financing of the construction project as well as providing significant encouragement when needed. We are especially thankful to God for Mr. W. Palmer Long and Mr. David E. Siwert who tirelessly labored helping us raise funds and manage the construction project.
We are grateful to the Evangelical Free Church of Hershey, Pennsylvania as well as to many individuals for their generous contributions, which helped us move forward with the construction of the new building. The new complex will have a new spacious dining hall that will seat 150 people at a time, a kitchen, a student lounge, a suite for visiting faculty from overseas, 3 spacious classrooms, dormitories for 50 female students as well as a recreation area, offices for the college administrator and the campus minister, and much needed storage space for food and furniture. We hope to complete the first phase of the construction by January 2001 and the whole building by the end of 2001.
We are praying that the Lord would provide finances needed to buy a house next to the college campus that is perfectly fit to hold our growing academic library. At the present time our library contains more than 6,000 volumes.
We are thankful to Mr. and Mrs. W. Palmer Long and Keys Ministries for providing a construction team to help with the new building and several teams of English language instructors to teach students at the College of Theology and Education. We witnessed their love toward students and those long-time friendships that were started between students and team members from the United States. Many individuals have shared their hearts with us, and will be long remembered in our prayers.
One of the main emphasis of our institution is to offer students an opportunity to learn English so that they are able to access the enormous amount of theological literature written in English. We believe that the access to English language books and resources is one of the key steps toward exposing the students to various Christian perspectives in spreading the Kingdom of God in the world. It also gives the students an opportunity to learn from the life experiences and ministries of Christians in different countries of the world.
We are grateful to God for the opportunity to bring to our school 15 new students from countries in Middle Asia: Azerbaidzhan, Uzbekistan, and Tadzhikistan as well as from the Caucasus region of Kabardino-Balkaria in Russia and Gagauzia in Moldova. Our hearts were touched by the testimony of Ugyun Temirov, who served in the mountainous region of Uzbekistan for 13 years, leading a 30-member Christian congregation in the midst of a Muslim country. We are grateful for our partnership with Keys Ministries in this endeavor. It is through the help of Christians from the United States, whose many names only God knows, that we were able to bring our Asian students to the college in Kishinev.
In addition to the students from Asia who are studying missions, this year we admitted a group of 14 students to the Social Assistance program, 22 students to the department of Christian Education and 27 to the Theology program. Our goal is to gradually increase the seats for missions students up to 100 over the next several years.
In the year 2000 we moved forward with the accreditation of the Bachelor of Divinity program from the Euro-Asian Accreditating Board of Theological schools in the former USSR by getting a status of candidates for accreditation. We plan to get the Bachelor’s program fully accredited by the fall semester of 2001.
April of this year witnessed the publication of the first issue of Pulse of Ministry – a magazine for Christian ministers published by the College of Theology and Education. It seeks to provide spiritual nourishment for pastors in Moldova as well as in the republics of the former USSR. The magazine publishes articles from the fields of theology, missiology as well as counseling and Christian ethics.
We acknowledge our gratefulness to God for the new faculty and staff members that were added this year. Mr. Serghei Namesnic this year assumed the responsibilities of Director of CTE while college Director Feodor Mocan took a sabbatical leave.
After completion of his Masters of Divinity program at Beeson Divinity School of Samford University (Alabama, USA), Mr. Oleg Turlac joined the staff as an Assistant Dean. He has responsibility for the library development, college publications, and academic advising. He was also appointed a faculty member as a lecturer in theology.
Mr. Arthur Popov joined the faculty as an adjunct lecturer in systematic theology. He is a graduate of Lancaster Bible College (Pennsylvania) with the Bachelor’s degree in youth ministry. He also graduated from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary (Wake Forest, North Carolina, USA), with the Masters of Divinity degree.
Mr. Oleh Rusnac joined the library staff as an assistant librarian.
Several faculty members were able to further their theological training. Ms. Irina Bondareva, lecturer in Church History at CTE, was able to start her studies at International Baptist Theological Seminary (Prague, Czech Republic) pursuing the Masters of Theology degree.
Mr. Dumitru Sevastian and Mr. Alexander Garbu cotinued the work towards a Master of Arts degree in Practical Ministries from the TCM Institute for Biblical Studies at Haus Edelweiss, Austria.
Mr. Mihai Malancea enrolled in the doctoral program at the University of Bucharest, Romania.
Mr. Feodor Mocan, Director of CTE, is about to complete his thesis in the field of history of missionary activity of Christians in Russia in pursuit of his Masters of Theology degree.
As
we look forward to the year of 2001, we ask God to guide us in further growth
and development of our school in the new millenium. Would you please join us in
prayer and support of the College of Theology and Education in the year to
come, so that we are able to fulfill Christ’s great call to study the Word and
spread the Gospel in the World.
Merry Christmas to you and Happy New Year!
Rev. Serghei Namesnic
Director
Rev. Mihai Malancea
Academic Dean
Mr. Oleg Turlac
Assistant Dean and Lecturer in Theology