In all that we might be facing today, we are challenged to make sure we don’t hold on to the things of this earth too tightly. SGA-supported Pastor Yura and his wife Luda are missionaries in Israel, and graduates of Israel College of the Bible, which is also supported by SGA.

For the last three years Luda has been fighting terminal cancer and has now completed 50 rounds of chemo. She has decided to pause her treatments given her declining health and the pain. While she has improved in comfort, Luda knows the pain and decline is mere days away. 

She recently recorded this message for all of us, even confessing that she was holding on to life itself a bit too much. “Death is a gain,” she says. “It is the gain of the One you love most in life.” May this video be a challenge to us all, to join with her and the Apostle Paul declaring . . . For to me to live is Christ, to die, gain (Philippians1:21).