Getting PhD to Stay on Mission Field
As I read a statement on personal blog of one of our seminary professors my heart is lifted up and it gives thanks to God for committed faculty members of Kyiv Theological Seminary:
Well, I have been in Ukraine for 9 year now. I feel like there are some areas that I need help on. So if you are a teacher, how do you get further education? You go back to school. So I am pursuing the next level. I am not planning to get this degree so that I can leave Ukraine. Rather, I want to receive further instruction so that I can do what I am doing in Ukraine better.
Get degree and leave the mission field? My understanding is this is not uncommon practice, unfortunately. I personally have not witnessed examples of this but I already heard of such tendency from several of our seminary professors. I speak of doctoral level degree here. But I did witness (I heard of more examples, though) as few of Ukrainian seminary graduates immigrated to other western countries, particularly to US. My point is not of addressing the issue now but highlighting positive example set forth by our seminary professors.
Mark McDonnel, KTS Professor and Biblical Studies Program Director, continues with such prayer request:
Please pray for me during this process, that I can learn and do the work, and that we can afford the tuition. The benefit of this program is that I will only be required to be in Belgium one week out of the year. So I will not need to leave ministry in Ukraine in order to study. And I am already putting my studies into use in my teaching, so it is very practical. Thank you for your prayers.
Thus my prayers are flavored with praise for commitment to the call that our faculty exemplify in their lives. I also pray for our local Ukrainian faculty to be raised up and being able to remain in ministry provided with sufficient resources to keep on with such important task as teaching God’s truth to text generation of believers how to impact their generation for Christ.
