March 24, 2018
In searching for our marriage certificate, Jan found my baptismal certificate. I had forgotten the date, but it showed that I was baptized just a few days before my 12th birthday.
Many changes have occurred since then, including how we do evangelism. In the 1950s, all we had were books. In the 1960s, Jule Miller developed film strips. Some will remember they required a 35 mm projector and a portable record player. The presenter had to keep the projected image coordinated with the record player. This worked out well until a student asked a question. Then there was the problem of getting the audio back in sync with the picture. That was the face-to-face evangelism in my “good-old-days.”
Postal correspondence evangelism had its own problems—one of the worst being the “lag time” between when the lesson was sent and when the student’s answers were received. This made communication and building relationships difficult.
Jan and I have lived long enough to participate in developing programs to adapt computers to correspondence evangelism. The Internet allows almost instantaneous exchanges between teachers and students anywhere in the world. And websites keep records stored safely and indefinitely.
We feel blessed to be experiencing such an amazing era, especially when we read student responses like this: “I moved to the US from China in 2016. English and religion are two big questions in my head. I try to learn from daily conversations and YouTube classes, yet I need more formal English for my job.
“It’s a big surprise that WEI uses Bible to teach English. I have wanted to read Bible ever since I married a Christian. My husband says I don’t have to believe what he believes because God gave us free will. I did believe the theory of evolution, but I am in doubt about that more and more. I am glad I can learn English and Bible at the same time. And the Easy-to-Read Bible just suits my reading level.” Please join us in this worldwide endeavor. When we meet God, may we hear him say, “Well done, good and faithful servants? Enter into the joys of your Lord.”
Bob and Jan Towel
Wouldn’t you like to lead someone to Christ? Chances are you can. You can become a WEI Internet teacher by logging on to our web site and signing up at :
www.worldenglishinstitute.org/register/teacher.
