CMO 2010 is over, and we are once again rejoicing as we witness the increase God has given. We were able to show the film and preach the Gospel in 10 mountain villages this summer. We also did literature blitzes in 7 new cities we have not visited before. Over the course of the project our team distributed approximately 160,000 tracts and other forms of Bible literature. Since CMO 2010 commenced on June 1, 168 new students have enrolled in our correspondence Bible course. This year we also made our first trip to Eastern Ukraine, where we did a ten-day literature blitz in several towns and villages in the Dnipropetrovsk area. So far we have gained 21 new students as a result of that outreach alone.
As of this writing, we have 574 students in active enrollment, studying the Bible through our correspondence course. Over the years we have seen the great potential that such a course has as an evangelistic tool, and for some time now it has been our vision to make this course available to other believers, churches, and missionaries. More specifically, we would like to incorporate it into the training that CMO men receive while they serve with us in Ukraine. During their time here, these men learn by experience how to reach a city through literature, and we would like to be able to send them back to the US with a complete Bible course in hand.
Many of you who follow our ministry have also asked about using the course once it’s ready…whenever that will be. So what’s taking so long? The problem has always been a lack of time and manpower. Keeping up with several hundred Ukrainian Bible students, plus new lesson development, plus CMO for three months every summer equals more than a full time job for our small team. That said, the end is in sight and we fully intend to launch our course in the US sometime in 2011. We are currently writing the last two lessons, and going over some final cleanup and revision on our existing lessons.
As you might imagine, we are focusing all our available resources on the 2011 course launch and all the extra details that go into such an endeavor. For this reason, we have decided that it would be prudent to skip next summer’s CMO project and resume in 2012.
Our first CMO project was held in 2006. Since then, we have done CMO every summer, and we’ve seen quite a number of young men come over to learn about missions. The one thing that has always been lacking is our ability to give them a working correspondence course so that they can go home and replicate what they’ve learned here. We believe that by taking a break from CMO in 2011, we will be able to finish the development of our Bible course and bring CMO back in 2012 as a much stronger project than it ever was before.
In the meantime, lots of exciting things are happening over here at ETO headquarters in L’viv. Stacks of completed Bible lessons continue to pour in from our Ukrainian students, new material is being written and translated, and of course, preparations are being made even now for the printing and distribution of our course in the United States. As always, we ask for your prayers for our team as we move forward into an exciting new phase of our ministry. More details about the launch of our Bible course will be forthcoming in the next few weeks.
And by the way, we already have our first CMO 2012 applicant. Lord willing, more will follow in the coming months. So put it on your calendar, and start praying now for new laborers. Carpathian Mountain Outreach 2012 begins on June 1, 2012.
