Dear Praying Friends,

   What a joy to wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year this year! 

   While thinking about the significance of Christmas again, my mind was drawn to the prophecies of the Messiah.  Depending on who is speaking, there are at least 324 to 456 specific prophecies relating to the birth, life, death, resurrection, coming and identification of the Messiah.  The identification of Messiah is central to Christianity, as we believe the Scriptures clearly teach that Jesus of Nazareth is the God-Man, fully God and fully man in one person, and it is He and no other, who is the Old Testament Messiah. 

   Why are the prophecies so important?  Because they narrow down, point by point, to eventually focus on only one Person in all of history of all the people who have lived on earth.  For example, by taking only 48 of the prophecies and calculating the probability that all 48 be fulfilled by one person, the result is 10^157  or 10 plus 157 zeros.  There are about 6 billion people on the planet, and that is only 9 zeros.  And that is only 48 of the 324 to 456 of the prophecies.  The end result is that the Bible clearly, unquestionably and definitely points to only one person in history as the Messiah Jesus of Nazareth, or as we know Him, Jesus Christ the Son of God who was born in Bethlehem as prophesied, lived a perfect life as prophesied, died and rose again as prophesied, and is coming again as prophesied! 

   Interestingly, only about 50% of the Bibles prophecies have been fulfilled to date, but those 50% have been fulfilled exactly, literally and precisely.  What does that tell us about how the rest will be fulfilled?  Thats right exactly, literally and precisely!  Christ is coming, His kingdom is coming, heaven is real and waiting, and the future is brighter than ever for the believer in Jesus Christ!  No wonder we can say Hallelujah!  Merry Christmas!  Christ is coming!  Maybe this year, maybe today! 

   Thank you again for your faithful prayer and financial support through all of these years; 5 in the Washington, DC area, 10 in the Norfolk, VA area, and 8 in Ukraine.  What a joy to serve the Lord!  Merry Christmas, dear friends, and keep looking up He is coming!

   In His Service,

Dear Praying Friends,

   Greetings in the wonderful Name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

   In our last prayer letter, I wrote a little to you about the value of failure in the Christian life.  Those thoughts were from experiences that we have been going through in Ukraine over the last several years.  Letters like that one, and this one, are always hard to write.

   Our next ten years with MTM were in the Norfolk, VA, area, where we saw the Lord raise the funds, materials and workers to build a new Military Christian Center that would house up to 20 servicemen.  There again were many, many opportunities for daily contact and ministry with servicemen.  There were many professions of faith and quite a few who went to Bible colleges upon leaving the military, and are serving the Lord today. 

   Eight years ago, the Lord led us to Ukraine.  I knew that my military background would be both a blessing and a curse (lieutenant colonel, US Marine Corps Reserve).  It would have been too dangerous to try and conceal it, so I never hid it here, even putting it on our business cards, so that I could never be accused of hiding behind a missionary cover while actually being a spy. 

   After arriving in Kiev in September, 1998, we came into contact with a Christian military group that turned out to be anything but.  It was more of a political organization with no Christian foundation, direction or interest, so we stopped participating with them.  Over time here, we noticed that our mail was always opened before we got it, that we were being followed on the street from time to time, our phone was being monitored and it was safe to assume that our apartment was electronically bugged.  My military background was becoming the curse that I feared that it would.

   In addition to that, we went through the deaths of three of our parents, bouts with colon cancer, pancreatitis, thyroid problems, emergency surgery and various other things.  We went through Russian language school for two years where our teachers did not speak English, not a word.  We were able to get Abundant Life and Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth translated and printed in Russian.  And the Lord was always faithful, taking us through each event while caring for us to the glory of His name. 

   And while that was going on, the Lord gave us opportunities to train three retired military officers who were Christians for military ministry, Sasha, Peter and Oleg, who were willing to be Bible trained and take the Gospel to the military, even though we could not do that because of lack of access to the military. 

   In fact, during our eight years in Ukraine, I have had about five opportunities total to minister to military men personally which was quite a big change from our ministry in the US.  The last was in 2002 and ended abruptly when a jet fighter crashed into the crowd during an air show in western Ukraine and many were killed.  We prayed, we sought open doors, we waited on the Lord for opportunities for military ministry, but none have come.  Yet, the ministry that Sasha, Peter and Oleg have is thriving and doing well, they are reaching many and training many military men for Christ and conducting a multitude of evangelistic summer camps at the Black Sea.  The principle is clear: God is ministering to the military in Ukraine, but doing it through Ukrainians and not us.

   To fill in the time while waiting and praying, I took opportunities to teach the Bible whenever possible in seminary classes, Bible college, Bible institute; and we taught English using the Bible.  I get to preach once a month in the Russian Baptist church where we are members.  Yet none of this, while fulfilling, was what the Lord called us to or sent us to Ukraine to do.

   So what should we do?  Continue to stay in Ukraine, doing little with no open doors for us in military ministry, and just fill the time with whatever is possible?  That would be the easy thing to do but it is not what the Lord called us to.  The truth is that the Lord called us to military ministry and we simply miss it terribly; these other things are good, and valuable but are not what the Lord called us to.

   We believe, as do our leadership and our sending church, that it is time to return to the U.S.  All are in unanimous agreement.  Our main office at MTM wants me to work there doing several things including overseeing the Ukraine ministry by visiting Sasha, Peter and Oleg once or twice a year; helping our other MTM missionaries as needed; and representing MTM to churches and Bible schools.  The plan is to return to the U.S. on November 1st to start this new phase of ministry.

   Two things: 1. Military ministry in Ukraine will continue.  We will continue to support and train our missionaries, as well as plan to add a new family who are in their final year of Bible college in about a year.  All that changes is that we come and visit them periodically from the U.S. to see how they are doing and what they need, which is what we are doing from Kiev now.

   And  2.  we want you to know that we are NOT leaving the mission field.  This is simply a new phase of ministry.  We understand that this could lead to misunderstanding and may cost us some support, but that is a better alternative than being deceptive and making you think that all is going well here with us.  We must be honest with you about our lack of opportunity for military ministry.  We need desperately to be involved in the ministry to which the Lord called us.

   We trust that you will continue to pray for us, support us as the Lord leads you and know that we appreciate you and know that we owe you a debt that we cannot repay.  May He richly bless you as He knows is best.

John and Betsy Sargent