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I was very sure of my convictions...

Witnessed by his home church in Saint Petersburg and current students of the seminary, Victor Amelin received a much-deserved Master of Divinity having finished 360 hours of course work, including Greek and Hebrew, and writing an 80-page thesis paper. Congratulations Victor!

By Evgeni Kruzhkov, Vice President for Russian Operations, HopeRussia

For Ezra had set his heart to study the Law of the Lord, and to do it and to teach his statutes and rules in Israel. Ezra 7:10

Ezra 7:9-10 is the theme verse of HopeRussia Seminary because we want men to develop Christ-like character in addition to knowledge. Sunday we got to see the fruit of our labors, by God's grace.

When Elder Victor Amelin graduated on September 29th, we heard him testify to how vividly God had changed his character and behavior during the 4 years he was with us. He said that he came to the seminary sure of his spiritual convictions, and always got extremely agitated when anyone disagreed with him. During his sermons and oral reports he, sometimes, seemed to boil inside. Gently we began exploring this with him, "Victor, do you know that when you address the group you seem to be very uptight. Breath calmly and speak calmly. No one is attacking you. God is with you. Everything is OK!" Even so, nothing helped for almost 3 years.

However, at the March intensive he shared that he came to the seminary feeling and acting like a Soviet hooligan but God had been working on him. He jokingly, said he was now almost a wallflower. We saw evidence of this at the graduation ceremony where he was humble and poised giving glory to God.

Thou dost keep Him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee, because He trusts in Thee.

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