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No wonder we’re called SEND International! Not only do SEND missionaries serve around the world—they also come from all over the globe. SEND missionaries include Japanese serving in the Philippines; Filipinos serving in Poland, Spain and Taiwan; East Indians serving in Taiwan; Taiwanese serving in Ukraine; and the list goes on. Here’s your chance to meet the members of the Far East Russia team!

Ken & Bertha Guenther

We come from Saskatchewan, Canada. Along with our children David and Rachel, we have been in Far East Russia since October 1998. We served with SEND in the Philippines for ten years, and then SEND’s General Director invited us to transfer to Russia in order to provide leadership for a new field with many new missionaries. We now live in Khabarovsk, not too far from Far East Russia Bible College, where the SEND FER office is located.

Ken serves as Area Director for FER and is responsible for the administration of the field. He works with the Russian Baptist leadership to find appropriate assignments for SEND missionaries and to discern the most strategic use of SEND resources.   He is currently coordinating all the short-term church construction teams that come to FER each summer.   He also teaches at the Bible College on a part-time basis.   Bertha and Ken are both involved in ministry at the Khabarovsk Central Baptist Church, where Bertha teaches Sunday school, and Ken serves on the church council and preaches occasionally.

On a typical day Ken works in the SEND office from about 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM. Correspondence with the home office and on-field missionaries takes a lot of time, as does the financial accounting. A number of different Russian pastors or Christian workers may drop into the office, sometimes with an appointment but more often without one. Ken is very thankful for the help of Lena, his secretary, who works on visas, airline and train tickets, and government registrations.

Along we have tried a few different ways of educating our children, currently David, our oldest, is attending high school in a Christian boarding school in South Korea. Rachel is a student in our one-room school here in Khabarovsk, along with the children of two other SEND families. Bertha assists our teacher with some of the subjects besides keeping our home running and continuing to build relationships with neighbours and market vendors in an effort to share the Gospel with them.

We are excited about the opportunity to assist our fellow SEND missionaries and Russian Baptist co-workers to become effective church planters and leaders in Far East Russia.

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