History

The seed of IPÒs vision grew on the soil of the International Schools Project (ISP) and CoMission project. In 1991 the Ministry of Education of the Soviet Union opened the doors for ISP to all the schools of the country. ISP conducted conferences in 136 cities of the Soviet Union with more than 42,000 participating. As a follow up to the conferences, CoMission teams (4-5 western missionaries) came for up to 3 years to some of the cities and established Bible study groups among teachers. During the five years of the CoMission project, about 60 cities had Western teams ministering to teachers.

In 1997 the CoMission project came to an end, but the need to bring the Gospel to the most unreached segment of society, the educated people in the former Soviet Union, was still great. For seventy years people with University education went through intensive atheistic brainwashing. Their view of Christians being uneducated fanatics created a big barrier toward Christ and the church. We saw a need to develop a unique approach to these people that would allow them to make their own discovery of Biblical truth that would lead to their reconciliation with God.

God gave us a vision to continue bringing the Gospel to educated people and through them reach thousands of other people for Christ. In January of 1997, the International Partnerships ministry was established. First there were just three teams in Kherson, Lutsk and Chernigov.

In August of 1997, God brought many new people into IP who shared the vision and passion and wanted to serve God. At the first official training, there were 19 IP staff. Twelve of the people from that first IP generation are still committed to IP.

IP staff for the most part are young people who grew up in non-Christian families and who came to Christ during their University years. These young professionals were working as or getting ready to be doctors, teachers, managers, lawyers, engineers, military officers and musicians. But God had a different plan. He called them to leave their professional field and serve Him in full time ministry. When they heard GodÒs calling they responded, ÓHere am I, send me!Ô

Now IP is made up of 12 teams in 11 cities (Kherson, Sympheropol, Cherkassy, Kharkov, Zhitomir, Zaporozhie, Lviv, Dnepropetrovsk, Odessa, Vinnitsa and Kiev). There are 46 people on staff and through their ministry thousands of people have the opportunity to hear the Gospel and study the Bible. Many people commit their lives to Christ and become passionate evangelists themselves. ItÒs the greatest joy and blessing to see them starting their own Bible study groups with their friends and colleagues.

We started this ministry as a movement of multiplying Bible study groups, but now IP is also a church planting movement. IP staff has planted new churches in Sympheropol, Kherson, Cherkassy, Kharkov and Yalta and we are praying that there will be many more multiplying churches planted in those cities and other cities.

Today IP staff are:

• Conducting seminars and presentations of materials in schools, hospitals and other places. Though this educational approach they are trying to get people interested in participating in Bible discussion groups.
• Establishing Bible discussion groups.
• Equipping lay leaders.
• Conducting evangelism and leadership training conferences.
• Organizing summer camps.
• Participating in church planting.
• Pastoring new churches.
• Cooperating with other organizations and ministries.