Letters form Garth Moller
November 2010
May 7, 2009
November 1, 2007
May 16, 2007
March 1, 2006
May 13, 2005
Garth Moller
Garth ended mission service with the PC(USA) in 2011.
The Rev. Garth Moller is a mission diaconal worker serving in St. Petersburg, Russia, as the director of the Kargel and Baedeker School and of Sluzhenia, "The Ministry" or "Service" in Russian. Garth is supported by World Mission of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and San Gabriel Presbytery.
The Kargel and Baedeker School includes two schools — a Russian and international Christian day school and a Russian language school for foreign workers. The Christian day school enrolls approximately 85 pupils with more than half in the Russian program. The Russian language school trains mission workers, consulate personnel and others while also providing visa support and orientation to Russian life. Sluzhenia is a charitable organization that provides a common platform for a variety of mission and charitable organizations while concentrating on work with children in crisis. Its work with children focuses on street children (whose numbers are higher than after the Second World War) and children caught up in the justice system (in jail, for example). Sluzhenia provides some schooling in jail, a drop-in center with vocational training, and a small orphanage. For instructions on how to give to the Kargel and Baedeker School, see below.
In addition to work in the school and Sluzhenia, Garth teaches Old Testament, Greek and Hebrew at two Korean Presbyterian schools and at the St. Petersburg Christian University, where he heads the Biblical Languages Department for the master's degree program. His work continues on the Greek and Hebrew resources for the study of the Bible, a project that began when he provided staff support to the Bible revision project of the Northwest (Russia) Bible Commission.
Garth has lived and worked in Russia since 1989. For four years, he was a cataloger of ancient manuscripts for the Ancient Bible Center in St. Petersburg. In 1989, he worked on a project to photograph the world’s oldest complete manuscript of the Old Testament, which is in the collection of the Russian Public Library in St. Petersburg. The finished volume was published in 1999. In 1989, by invitation of Intervarsity Christian Fellowship (IVCF), Garth worked with their summer evangelistic team to Kiev to establish a college ministry at a teaching institute. From 1990-1992 he did the same at the state university in Rostov-na-Danu.
Since 1991, Garth has lived in St. Petersburg, where he established the college ministry for IVCF, organized a school for training Christian workers in Russia, organized a summer Bible camp for university students and young adults, provided short training courses for Russian pastors and worked on several projects for providing Bible study materials.
In 1986, prior to living in Russia, Garth was ordained and was the youth minister at Northminster Presbyterian Church in Diamond Bar, California. Garth is a clergy member of San Gabriel Presbytery. In 1970, Garth graduated from Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, with a B.A. in Russian area studies and philosophy. Then in 1976 he received an M.A. in theology from Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California, and in 1984 earned an M.A. in religion, Old Testament, from Claremont Graduate School in Claremont, California. Garth is married to Lyudmila, a native of Russia. They are the parents of two children, Ksenia Maria and Zachary Michael.
Birthdays:
Garth - March 25
Lyudmila - November 26
Ksenia Maria - March 7
Zachary Michael - April 28
Contributions from individuals may be sent to Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), P.O. Box 643700, Pittsburgh, PA 15264-3700. Contributions from churches should be sent to Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), P.O. Box 643678, Pittsburgh, PA 15264-3678. Write the title (Kargel and Baedeker School) and the ECO number (#048549) on the memo line of the check and put it on your cover letter, too. Send a copy of the cover letter to Europe Office, 100 Witherspoon St., Louisville, KY 40202-1396.
