The amazing story of a Christian leader changed through your gifts and prayers

Sergei Andreev
Pastor and Student at Irpen Biblical Seminary

I received Christ as my Savior in 2010 while I was in prison. While in my cell, I began reading the Bible and realized that I was a lost sinner. So I turned to the Lord in a prayer of repentance.

Next, I began praying that the Lord would put me into a prison where Christians were ministering so I could receive ministry. The Lord answered my prayers and shortly made it possible for me to be transferred to a prison in the Zaporozhye region of Ukraine. One of the faculty members from Irpen Biblical Seminary was involved in prison ministry and he was visiting that prison. Currently this man is the pastor of the church where I am a member and an associate pastor.

When I got out of prison, I made the decision to stay in the same area and minister where the Lord had saved me. The church where I minister has a rehab center for former prisoners. I stayed at the rehab center for about a year. I was baptized, then found a job and a place to live. The Lord gave me a wife, so I have a family. And I began ministering in the same prison where I had been an inmate.

Yet I felt the need for a deeper study of God’s Word. That’s why I became a student at Irpen. Today, I serve as a chaplain at the prison, and we try to expand our work to follow people who are released from prison and ensure that they are connected to a church. Our first step was to develop rehab centers, then when the prisoners are freed, we help them get adjusted to life in the normal world.

I am in the pastoral program at Irpen. I never had a full comprehension of the New Testament. But now, I think of the words of the Apostle Paul, who said he was preaching the full counsel of God. Irpen Seminary develops ministers’ character and provides all the necessary tools to clearly communicate God’s Word to people.