ITEM Missions

Bolivia

In the fall of 2017 Will Hesterberg and Norris Lessley flew to Cochabamba, Bolivia to teach Romans and Old Testament Introduction and Survey and to determine if Bolivia might become ITEM’s fist field in South America. They found a vibrant group of about 50 students, both men and women leaders, and a young denomination beginning to develop out of persecution for their taking a stand for the Biblical Reformed faith.

They have developed the Seminario Reformado Latinoamericano (SRL) in Cochabamba to train pastors, lay leaders, and church planters for a growing church planting movement throughout Bolivia and even into Argentina. Led by Gerson Cruz and a Board of Governors, SRL has an excellent new facility with student and instructor dorms, classrooms, and other accommodations. ITEM is excited to join with them in establishing the Reformed faith in South America.

In 2011 the Presbyterian Church in India, Reformed (PCI,R), a denomination of over 10,000 members in 4 presbyteries with over 40 churches in Northeast India, Myanmar, and Cambodia entered into a formal agreement with ITEM. They requested that we send professors to help train their current pastors as well as set up a new training program at their Reformed Bible Institute. Since then we have sent numerous instructors to train their pastors and church officers with about a dozen modules. Costs for transportation and visas total about $2,000 with accommodations, meals, transportation in India, and translators being provided.

 In August of 2013 a second new field opened in Bangalore, a city of over nine million people in the state of Karnataka. A large network of pastors and church planters are being trained using a twenty course curriculum already developed. The training occurs in Bangalore and Chennai. The cost for travel here is less than $2,000.

 In February of 2016, ITEM began sending trainers to cities in Andhra Pradesh to train teaching and ruling elders in a recently formed reformed denomination there also. Again, costs of travel are in the $2,000 range.

In the fall of 2016, Will Hesterberg, Director of Development, traveled to Indonesia to explore a potential new field. This began as a result of Will meeting Jon son Dethan at the United Reformed Church’s synod in Grand Rapids, MI, in June.  Will and Jon son talked at the synod about the potential in Indonesia and then continued their discussions by email during the summer. By August it became clear that Indonesia might indeed be a good location for another field for ITEM.

When Will arrived in Kupang on the island of Timor in Indonesia, he found many nationals eager for more training. The 3-day class on Biblical Theology saw an ever increasing attendance with 50 the first day, 150 the second day, and 170 by the third day. These leaders were pastors and elders from the Calvinistic Reformed Church of Indonesia (GGRC) and administrators, teachers, and some high school students from their schools on the island.

Indonesia is a nation of over 17,000 islands with 250 million inhabitants, predominantly Muslim; in fact it is the largest Muslim nation in the world. The southern island of Timor has a rich heritage of Dutch influence since the 1600s as the Dutch East Indies but in the 1950’s the churches planted by Dutch reformed missionaries in Timor drifted into theological liberalism. The GRCC began with the work of Jon son’s father in the 1960s and continues under Jon son’s visionary leadership. Although a small denomination with less than 2,000 members in approximately 20+ churches and missions, the denomination has an ambitious vision of winning Indonesia for Christ and realizes it must have well trained leaders for its churches and its 18 schools with about 1,800 students if it is to progress in its vision.

ITEM’s board approved adding Indonesia as a field at its November meeting. Four instructors will teach in Kupang in 2017 and this may well expand in the following years.

In the fall of 2016, ITEM Board members Mike McLaughlin and Will Hesterberg responded to an invitation to teach in Kenya at All Nations College. There near the capital of Nairobi, they discovered a school already seeking to train pastors and church leaders but needing help. All Nations College, established in 2008, has provided classes to pastors from many denominations from the countries in East Africa such as Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi, and Rwanda.

While there are many Christians in East Africa, they often lack depth in their teaching and training. Consequently, in countries such as Kenya, Christianity has not impacted the culture significantly and many false notions infiltrate the churches. It is the desire of Daniel Muindi, director of All Nations College, to partner with ITEM to provide solidly Biblical training that will equip pastors to teach their congregations how to follow Christ, counter false teaching and make a difference in their communities.

At ITEM’s 2017 spring meeting, the Board unanimously decided to begin sending instructors to Kenya as our newest mission field and our first on the continent of Africa. We foresee that serving in Kenya will open up to us other opportunities in Africa as well. Kenya, with the 7th largest population in Africa is neighbors with Ethiopia (2nd largest population), Uganda (10th), Sudan (8th), Democratic Republic of Congo (4th), and Tanzania (6th) with a combined population of 370 million.

When Latvia emerged from the ashes of the Soviet Empire in 1991, no reformed congregations existed there. Baltic Reformed Theological Seminary (BRTS) began in 1998 when Dr. Gerard Van Groningen gave a series of lectures in Biblical Theology. Working with the pastors of three Lutheran congregations, he developed a curriculum that has developed into the only evangelical seminary in Latvia which is also thoroughly reformed as well. The study program at BRTS offers the equivalent of a Masters of Arts Theological studies degree. The 3-year program of five to six 5-10 day evening courses offer intense study that is then supplemented with the students doing reading assignments, essays, and work outside of the classes. Each seminary student gains deep understanding about Scripture, the original languages, defense of the faith, issues of systematic and practical theology, as well as historical theology. The courses are taught by professors from the US and Europe as well as four Latvian men with masters degrees from Covenant Theological Seminary in the US.

BRTS is also now offering two other levels of training for church leaders and for laypeople desiring a deeper Christian foundation.

 BRTS offers a small but growing library where the students can find all the most important works of the Reformed theologians and authors. Students and laymen are able to come and study the Bible commentaries and Bible references. Currently approximately 20 students from a variety of congregations study at BRTS. The seminary, located near the Latvia State University, has a conference room, library/lounge, office, a two-room apartment for visiting lecturers.

The apartment offers excellent accommodations where breakfast and snacks may be enjoyed. A tram is right out front for going to the Center which offers a great Latvian cafeteria/smorgasbord called the Lido, to a good bookstore, an Internet café, museums and Old City. 60Ls (not quite $100 US) is more than adequate for a week's food/eating out, tram fares and other expenses. A small, but quite adequate western-style supermarket is only one tram stop away, or an easy walk.

Riga, a vibrant city of 750,000 with a resilient steadily growing economy, is a pivotal city in the Baltic region with close proximity to Russia. It is also the home to three new Reformed churches who are aiming to impact the entire Baltic region with the reformed faith and teaching. BRTS also trains leaders for a small but historic reformed denomination in neighboring Lithuania. Students either travel to Riga for classes or take classes by extension. This training is beginning to provide revival in the reformed churches of Lithuania.

Lithuania, though independent from the former Soviet Union for almost 15 years, still shows the effects of living under communist occupation. The Evangelical Reformed Church of Lithuania, a small reformed denomination with 5 active congregations and just two ordained ministers hope to re-establish the reformed faith that was once quite vibrant in Lithuania. Under the leadership of the Rev. Algimantas Kvedaravicius, a former physicist for thirty years and now a pastor of the Evangelical Reformed Church of Lithuania (ERCL), the ERCL is in the early stages of replanting the denomination and more vibrant churches.

 Students from Lithuania are eagerly desiring to study biblical theology and while working out the details of the program in Lithuania, some of the Lithuanian Christians have already started taking classes at the Baltic Reformed Theological Seminary supported by ITEM with finds and professors.

ITEM’s lengthy history of working in Romania began in 1998 with Pastor Ion Vasile, whose vision was to plant churches in and around Campina, a city an hour’s drive north of Bucharest, Romania’s capital. Pastor Ion wanted to utilize trained leaders from his home church to plant more churches. Thus was born Maranatha Bible College (MBC), meeting in the facilities of Pastor Ion’s home church.

Soon instructors began traveling to Romania to teach at MBC. Pastor Ion, thinking ahead, had built a spacious home to accommodate his family of six children and instructors for the new school and for visiting students. From 1998 to 2007 dozens of students from the growing network of churches being planted attended MBC and received solid Reformed teaching over those years to became leaders in the church network, now numbering around 5 churches.

Then in 2007 Romania joined the European Economic Union. Within a short time, many young Romanians began moving to Western Europe to find better paying jobs in such places as Italy, Spain, and France. By 2008 MBC experienced such a loss of students that ITEM and Pastor Ion reluctantly decided to suspend classes after that May’s graduation.

Then in 2014, sensing that perhaps it was time to re-examine Romania, Director of Development, Will Hesterberg, himself a former instructor at MBC, contacted Pastor Ion. After discussions with Pastor Ion and a board of supporters, ITEM decided at its 2014 fall board meeting to begin sending some instructors early in 2015 to determine the feasibility of a longer term of training. After 6 well-attended training sessions in 2015, ITEM is pleased to continue sending instructors to Romania.

ERSU: Celebrating 20 Years of Training Church Leaders and Four Gifted New Graduates

On May 29 the Evangelical Reformed Seminary of Ukraine (ERSU) celebrated its “20th” anniversary (really 21st since COVID delayed the celebration). Since 2000 ERSU has been training pastors and other church leaders for Ukraine and surrounding countries. That was the year that ERSU united the work of Odessa Presbyterian Seminary (organised by PCA missionaries) and the informal “kitchen seminary” in Kyiv (organized by missionaries from the Reformed Church of Netherlands (liberated)).

ERSU is the official seminary of two national Ukrainian denominations – the Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Ukraine (EPCU) and the Ukrainian Evangelical Reformed Church (UERC) and is governed by a Ukrainian Board of ten men appointed by (and from) each denomination. While during our first ten years of existence, almost all of our faculty members and guest lecturers were from Western countries, in the past ten years we have gradually and increasingly been able to find well-qualified local men to teach. In 2019 we appointed our first Ukrainian voting faculty member, and our latest good news is that, God willing, we expect to appoint two more local men to faculty by the end of this year. All of our lecturers subscribe to the Reformed Confessions (Westminster/3 Forms of Unity), but we welcome applicants from any evangelical denomination, as long as they desire to serve the church in some capacity. Indeed about 60% of our 33 students are from other denominations (or countries).

During our ceremony on May 29 the academic lecture was given by Dr Willem VanGemeren, Professor Emeritus of Old Testament and Semitic Studies at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He taught our course in Wisdom Literature and Poetical Books the following week. The previous week I taught our course in Acts and the Pauline Epistles.

ERSU’s graduates to date include at least 18 men serving as pastors, 5 as seminary lecturers, 2 as chaplains, 2 as consultant Bible translators, one as a biblical counselor and one as a missionary.

Indeed, for those of us on faculty, the main reason for joy on May 29 was not so much in marking a round date as celebrating the graduation of four of our best students and sending them on into new stages of ministry in God’s Kingdom! Unfortunately, Sergei and Ben, who were due to fly from Minsk for graduation could not attend in person as planned due to the cancellation of all air travel from Belarus after the recent “plane-jacking”! They joined others via live online broadcast. As Academic Dean (and incoming president from September) I had the privilege of giving the charge from God’s Word to these men to “keep on keeping on,” despite all challenges, until the end, for the honour of Christ. In many ways, these men’s graduation is the real fruit of ERSU’s existence, insofar as God has allowed us to contribute to their preparation. I would like to share with you their brief stories in their own words of how God has been calling and using them already.

Alister Torrens, ITEM Missionary to Ukraine