Director Oleg Korotky Biography
A New Gospel Frontiers Background Paper
My name is Oleg Korotky. I was born insouthernUkrainein April 1960. While my parents did not rejectthe existence of God, they did not belong to any church. My father died when I was 15 years old, leaving my mother with three children. I have two sisters and they live in Israel now. Even though I lived much of my life (school, army and working) during the time of the communist system, I always knew for sure that there wasa God in heaven and that He saw me.
In 1978, I was conscripted into the Soviet militaryfor two years. When I returned from the military I went to Eastern Russia, near Japan, where I cut wood to make a living. It was there that I met a man who was a believer. He was from Ukraine, but went to that far place just to preach the Gospel. In those times it was very dangerous; he could have been killed or put in prison for Christian evangelism. This man told me about Jesus. Some time later I returned toUkraine and God gave to me a new life. I repented on June 1982 and the next month I was baptized. This occurredwhile L. I. Brezhnev was in power, and there were severe persecutions ofbelievers. A few days after my baptism, some men who worked for the Committee of State Security visited me. They continued to visit me periodically and threatened to put me in prison or to kill me. But in that time of testing, I did not feel fear about continuing my Christian life. When the workers from the Committee of State Security did not achieve what they wanted, I lost my job. I was able to find another jobas a fireman. However, underthe communist government, Christians did not have the right to work in fire prevention. I began to preach the Gospel to firemen. One man repented and was baptized and others ceased to deny the existence of God. Some time later officers arrived to check on me, and when they discovered that I read the Gospel they ordered that I be dismissed from my job. In this way, I lost my second job.
In 1983, I met my future wife and the next year we were married and started a family. At that point there was increasing freedom in our country, so I was able to workas a youth leader in our church and after that in our region. Our church then appointed me as anevangelist in 1991.
It was at this time that Ukraine obtained freedom and my strongest desire was to study at a theological Bible school. I understood that it was very important for me to better serve my Lord. Several families of American brothers and sisters arrived in our city to open a BibleCollege. I was a student of this college,being in the pastoral studies programfrom 1994 to 1997. After I finished at the BibleCollege, the Director of this college proposed that I continue my education atthe Irpin Bible Seminary where I was a student for two years from 1997 until 1999 when I received a Bachelor’s Degree in pastoral ministering. I continued on at Irpin's Bible Seminary as a student in the master's program for three more years. This program was from John MacArthur's seminary, and I received a Master’s Degree of Divinity. While working on my Master’s degree, I also taught students in both Irpin's seminary and Chernigov's BibleCollege. My subject was systematic theology.
In 1999, I was invited to theChernigov region as a missionary. My family and I moved to that area and we opened a church. Initially, there was only a small group of elderly people who attended, but bysummer we baptized 18 new people and most of them were young brothers and sisters. They had been unbelievers but God gave them a new life and that was the beginning of the new church. I was the pastor of this church for three years. On September 2002, my family and I moved to Almaty, Kazakhstan. I was invited to work at theAlmaty Bible Institute, and I am now theDirector of this Institute and teach students systematic theology and other subjects.
My wife and I have four children; two sons and two daughters. The eldest daughter is 18 and the youngest is 8. Our boys are ages 16 and 17. Three of our children have repented. Two of them were baptized three years ago and one son was baptized this year. They have ministered among the youth here. Our oldest daughter finished musician school and is now a student at our Institute in the musicians group.
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