May 8, 2012
During the past eighteen months, John Reese, Ron Pottburg, Tom Langley and I and our boards have been discussing the possibility of a WBS/WEI joint-effort to share the good news with people all over the world. After much thought and prayer, we are happy to announce that a plan has been finalized and approved. We are scheduled to launch this joint-effort on January 1, 2013. Notice that it is “a joint-effort,” not a merger. WBS and WEI will continue to be separate entities as we work together for the Lord.
Jonathan Towell, grandson of Bob and Jan, has developed an excellent WEI teaching web site during the past six years. He has done such an outstanding job that WBS has now hired him full-time to develop a similar web site for them. WBS will allow Jonathan to give 10% of his time to WEI. Our goal is to develop and maintain identical web sites.
All WEI English and Bible courses will be downloaded on the WBS web site, and WBS’s 1,000 Internet teachers will be trained to teach the WEI lessons to students who want to include English in their studies. At the same time, our 200 WEI Internet teachers will continue teaching their students as usual.
We are expecting hundreds of thousands of Chinese students to enroll during the coming year. Our ability to seize this tremendous opportunity depends on two things.
(1) We need 800 more WEI Internet teachers. If you have a computer with access to the Internet, you can be a WEI Internet teacher. The true-false and multiple choice questions are graded automatically by the web site. Internet teaching is easy. “Try it. You’ll like it.” God needs you!!!!
(2) We must also raise at least $100,000 by the end of this year in order to expand and maintain our teaching web site. To grasp this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, we must hire a computer specialist to work closely with Jonathan Towell on the WEI web site. We must also pay other expenses associated with the Internet teaching ministry as it expands and as we enroll more teachers and students.
Tom Langley has developed a fund-raising plan called I-40-$300 (Internet, 40 churches or individuals, who give $300 a month). We hope you or your congregation will be one of the “40.”
Please pray that this historic joint-effort between WBS and WEI will bear much fruit in 2013 and will bring glory to God.
