Global Partnership Updates for Sovereign Grace

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Benjamin Kreps:

Hey everyone, and welcome to the Mark Prater podcast where our aim is to connect our global family of Sovereign Grace churches with our executive director. Mark, anybody who's been following the podcast or what's been going on in Sovereign Grace over the last several years knows that God has increasingly given us just a wonderful opportunity to partner with the nations and there have been many fruitful partnerships that have been developing, growing, being solidified, and you have some updates for us about some of the things God is doing through our partnerships globally.

Mark Prater:

I do. In fact, I had to sort of keep this list short. I had to shorten this list because there's just a number of exciting things that God continues to do through our small family of churches throughout the world as he does in other denominations. But we're grateful that he's doing 'em in Sovereign Grace and we get to participate in the advancement of the gospel, the equipping of pastors, the planting of churches throughout the world so that more people will come to know Christ so that the nations will be discipled and Christ would receive more glory. So let me just run through a number of these real quick. We have an official new partner church in Italy, they have their website up, which is all in Italian. So I'm going to try to pronounce the name of this church.

Benjamin Kreps:

This is going to be fun.

Mark Prater:

Alright, so I apologize to Ed and Rocco if they're listening to this or any listener or reader of this podcast who speaks Italian. I must apologize, but here I go: Chiesa Grazia Sovrana in Torino, Italy is our new church being planted by Ed O'Mara and Rocco Dahlia. If you go on our Sovereign Grace website and you go on the churches page and you scroll down to Italy, you can click on a link to their website. It's all in Italian, but there is usually a translation option in your search that you can hit and it'll translate into English. It's just wonderful to see though, a new partner church there in Italy.

Also, Jacobis Aldana, who is the senior pastor of Iglesia Biblica Soberana in Santa Marta, Columbia, has officially completed the ordination process. He will be set in place and ordained in a service next month in October. And when he signs the Emerging Nations partnership agreement, we will have our first partner church in Columbia. They're in Santa Marta, Columbia.

In terms of training pastors, young men to be future pastors, let me just give you three exciting four exciting updates. First of all, Mexico has started a pastor's college. They just welcomed three new students that are beginning classes now, all from three different states in Mexico, which prepares the nation of Mexico to continue to reach out with the gospel throughout their country.

Jeffrey Jo is starting another Philippines Pastors Institute on September 21st that has 14 students in it. Now, they don't meet throughout the week. They meet on Saturdays for a complete day. I think they do that monthly or something like that, I could have the schedule wrong. But the whole purpose is to invest into men who are either serving in churches or will plant churches. And with this class in particular, they're looking to invest in the Mindanao region of the Philippines.

Trinity Fellowship Pastors College in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia will graduate their second PC class comprised of nine men on September 15th. So that's just wonderful to see the fruit from that particular pastor's college. And here in the States, I think it was last week, the US Pastors College kicked off, and we have nine men from two different nations, the United States and from Australia. Again, those men will be deployed into the states and into Australia for the purpose of pastoral ministry and advancing the gospel. So those are just some equipping categories in terms of just mission.

A couple of other updates. Pat Tedeschii, who is a pastor at Greentree Church in Egg Harbor Township, New Jersey, will be leading a short term missions trip to London, England with a group of folks and they'll be working with Oasis International Church, a church that Greentree has partnered with for well over 18 years. And the purpose of that short-term mission trip is to reach out to that area of London with the gospel. And there's many Muslims that live in that area. So there'll be a Muslim outreach in particular. So pray for that particular short-term mission trip, again, September 13th through the 23rd.

And I just got a wonderful video from Jeffrey Jo in Manila, Philippines of a one year celebration video of a new church plant that he planted a year ago in Dasmariñias City, Cross of Christ Salvation Gospel Ministries was sent from his church, and that church will shortly, I'm sure, become a candidate church in Sovereign Grace. And to see how the church has grown in a year, just from the pictures I saw was truly amazing. God is blessing that church plant in that part of Manila. Dasmariñias City is in the metro area of the Philippines.

So just some mission updates. A lot is going on. I can share more. But first of all, let all of this humble us that God would use our small family of churches to advance the gospel. We're not worthy of that and he could do it without us, but he's choosing to use us. So may it humble us, may all that we do bring God glory and may all that we do be in dependence upon God and his wisdom and his power as we continue to reach the nations with the good news of Jesus Christ.

Benjamin Kreps:

Amen. It is humbling and it is gratifying to see not just simply that we're partnering with pastors and other nations, but there's this cross-pollination going on that's just the fruit of our relational way that we pursue ministry together. We have Australian men in the States at the PC. We've got us guys planting a church in Italy with help from Rocco and so forth. So it is wonderful and gratifying to see God using our little denomination in wonderful ways.

So those are all very encouraging updates, but being in partnership also includes taking on burdens and embracing hard things that our brothers and sisters are going through around the globe. And Ukraine is an example of that. And you want to give us an update about what's going on in Ukraine?

Mark Prater:

I do. I've mentioned this before in a previous podcast and maybe our listeners are familiar with the Ark church in Dnipro Ukraine led by Michael Ostanin. And we continue to send him funds for the relief efforts, the war relief efforts that he's doing there in Dnipro. As long as we have money designated for that, we will continue to do it. He just sent several of us an update last week, and this update came the day after Russia's largest missile attack on Ukraine since the war started. As Michael says in his email, that one day 127 missiles and 109 drones hit different parts of Ukraine. Some of those were power plants. And so he was saying in Nebra, they were in a blackout for 16 hours. But he writes this, he says, "we continue to minister to hundreds of refugees giving them food and preaching the gospel because Russian troops are occupying more and more territories. Hundreds of people are evacuating to our city every day and asking us for help." And on this particular day, he knew after that missile attack that more would be coming and that's been the case. And then Michael just ends it with this. He says, "the scale of grief and suffering of people overwhelms us, and the faithful Lord cares for our souls with his grace and mercy and does not allow us to despair." And then he just thanks us for our support and for our prayers. And I just thought, oh, my life is not like that. My ministry world is not like that. Here is a man ministering in difficult circumstances, kind of hard to imagine what he's facing day in and day out. And yet he remains faithful. He remains faithful. The members of his church remained faithful. He mentions in this email that they've sent people from his church to be chaplains at the front lines. They'll send them in, they'll care for soldiers, they'll make it back. It's that kind of faithfulness. It's that kind of risky faith. It's that kind of sacrifice that marks what he's doing. And he's remaining right there at his post. Of course he's grieved as he says, but he is strong in knowing what God has called him to do.

So I just wanted to mention that because if you have some heart to give to the relief effort there in Ukraine, you can make a contribution designated for Ukraine to our Europe Development Fund, and we will make sure that that gets to Michael Ostanin. As long as we have funds, we will send them along to a man and a church that are doing good gospel work in difficult circumstances. So thanks for praying for them.

Well, one other thing as we end this global update, just got to thank God for Dave Taylor, our Director of Global Missions. Also want to thank God for our area leaders like Rich Richardson who's doing such a great job in Mexico and Latin America, Ed O'Mara in Europe, who I mentioned before, Bart Lipscomb in Africa, Greg Dirnberger in the Asia-Pacific region. And Dave leads those men and he leads Sovereign Grace globally so well for us. So just thanking God for Dave and each of those area leaders and just ask the listeners that you would pray for each of those men; may God continue to give them grace to do, to really respond, to all that God is bringing our way for the glory of God.

Benjamin Kreps:

Yes. Amen. I trust that many of us checking out the podcast, we'll be praying for Michael and the brothers and sisters in Ukraine. I think something that we are wise to make sure that we don't miss in this partnership with Ukraine is that they have much to teach us about suffering and faithfulness. And so we thank God for you, Michael, and for the brothers and sisters there. We thank God for you, Dave, and your hard work on our behalf globally.

And so thank you, Mark, for the update. Thank you all for checking out the podcast. We'll see you here next week. Lord willing. Bye for now.