ONCE leave of absence has been obtained from the Western Presbytery, I hope, God willing, to visit Eastern Europe for three Sabbaths, leaving on Friday, 7th November, and returning on the 25th.
On this occasion I intend to fly to Odessa via Kiev. I hope to spend some days in Kiev, visiting our small group there. However, I intend to spend the three Sabbaths in Odessa with the small gathering of believers who assemble every Sabbath for public worship. I expect to spend much of my time explaining to them, at their request, some doctrines of Scripture as summarised in The Shorter Catechism and The Westminster Confession of Faith.
It is my intention also, on behalf of the Dominions and Overseas Committee, to purchase food in Kiev and Odessa at wholesale prices to give to certain needy persons in Kiev and Odessa.
I had hoped to travel to the Ukraine by our mission vehicle as usual, but the requirements for entry having become more stringent recently, it was not possible to prepare in time to travel this way. This is a great pity because we are not able to take the Bibles and literature we normally take to the Ukraine. Prior to the implementing of these stringent regulations, the Trinitarian Bible Society had granted us “Words of Life” Scripture calendars for distribution in the Ukraine: 10,000 in Russian and 10,000 in Hungarian. However, when the TBS was notified of our difficulty in preparing for the Ukraine it undertook to dispatch the calendars to three addresses in Kiev, Odessa and Nagydobrony. I hope the calendars for Kiev will arrive there before I do, for there are numerous contacts in Kiev to whom we normally distribute calendars and other literature.
We are still searching for a suitable van to replace the present vehicle, which has covered many thousands of miles and has served us well. The new vehicle must be an integral van to serve the dual purpose of carrier and sleeping quarters. The state of our Eastern Europe Fund at the moment does not allow us to buy a vehicle, and we appeal to our people to consider this need and endeavour to help.
We hope that our printing of The Westminster Confession of Faith in Russian will be ready this month. We have obtained the copyright of the translation from the Reformation Christian Ministries, U.S.A., to whom we are greatly indebted. We are also preparing the Confession of Faith and the Larger and Shorter Catechisms for printing in the Ukrainian language. These have been translated by a Ukrainian, the Rev. M. Fesenko, in Canada, who also printed them. He has distributed almost all that he printed, and had little hope of doing another print. He was more than delighted when he heard of our interest in the work and our wish to print more copies. He is 98 years old and very alert. However, in his translation only some of the Scripture proof texts are given in full, the large majority being Scripture references only. Mrs N.
Hopkins, in England, is presently changing the Scripture references to full proof texts, and is also making some small improvements to the translation.
We commend this work also to your prayerful interest and support. “But to do good and to communicate, forget not: for with such sacrifices God is well pleased,” Hebrews 13:16. Rev. D. A. Ross