30th Anniversary Stories
ISP News: From Fall of Communism to COVID-19, ISP Celebrates 30 Years of Ministry
In 1990, as Communism crumbled in the former Soviet Union, the JESUS film was shown in Moscow for the first time. Afterward, a deputy minister of education asked Paul Eshleman to help him show the film in every school throughout Russia.
The First ISP Curriculum
The First ISP Curriculum Helen with the set up crew. These three did all the set-up for the Convocations and worked tirelessly behind the scenes during the conference. God did work miraculously. The team developed the first draft of the ten-lesson curriculum for elementary and secondary teachers for the May 1991 conferences. The Foundations of
The Power of Relationships
The Power of Relationships First I learned to love my teacher. Then I learned to love my teacher’s God, Henrietta Mears once said, referring to the viewpoint of a student who has decided to follow Christ because of his or her teacher. Relationships are a vital link between unbelievers and the gospel. No one understood
The Hunger for Hope
The Hunger for Hope For the first ISP Convocations in May 1991, thousands of pieces of literature were shipped to Russia. But we had a major problem. “We didn’t have our materials for the first Convocation,” recalls Vernie Schorr Love, the elementary workshop leader. “We were told that the truck had been detained at the
How do you follow up a fruitful harvest?
How Do You Follow Up a Fruitful Harvest? Thousands of public school teachers attended the early Convocations across the former Soviet Union, eagerly receiving the gospel’s truth and embracing the person of Christ. They wanted more. There was a field “white to harvest.” No one had fully anticipated this type of response. “When we started
Still More To Do
Still more to do “We realized that we couldn’t just walk away from these teachers after seeing them one time,” says ISPs Founding Director Blair. “We had to somehow help these people.” As the CoMission was drawing to a close in 1996, most people assumed that International School Project (ISP) Convocations would also be finished.
Returning To The Teachers
Returning To The Teachers How do you follow-up teachers in 60+ cities? By the end of 1996, ISP had conducted 136 Convocations in 116 cities in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. CoMission teams had gone to 53 of these “Convocation cities” where they were building relationships with teachers. But 60+ cities still had
“We’re Going to Mongolia!”
“We’re Going to Mongolia!” In 1996, ISP was holding a Convocation in Ulan Ude, Russia. Warren and Diane Willis, country directors of a large organization in Mongolia, and a contingent of school and government officials from Ulaanbaatar traveled north to observe the teacher convocation. Dick and Margaret Ivey, Bonnie Laing and Anna Mae Detwiler were
A Passport into Central Asia
A Passport Into Central Asia Faced with a Dim Prognosis, a Humble Servant Helps Change a Country Wesley was different. Despite a terminal medical prognosis, Wesley wanted to use his last days to make an eternal impact, so He followed God’s lead and traveled to Kyrgyzstan as a missionary. When he arrived, he found a
Latin America
Going To Latin America How did ISP end up in Latin America? It all started in a city called Mixco. Boasting a modest population of 452,000 and hiding in the shadow of its neighboring metropolis Guatemala City, Mixco is not one of the better-known locations in Guatemala. But, in this city, the mayor’s wife, Carolina,
Introducing the DreamMaker-DreamBreaker curriculum
Introducing the DreamMaker-DreamBreaker Curriculum In Eastern Europe around 2004, the major topics concerned teen pregnancy, alcohol abuse, and drug abuse. Educators saw an urgent need to adequately tackle these issues. Leon Berg, an instrumental team member from the early days and beyond, recalls, “In an ISP planning session in San Clemente, Blair Cook introduced the