Lee Allen, WEI Director of Development and Teacher Support, spent two weeks in Albania late last summer and came home floating “on cloud nine.”
Lee later sent an e-mail that pulsates with excitement and inspiration.
Lee says, “One of those special moments in the life of a WEI teacher is when you get an opportunity to meet one of your precious students face-to-face. I was blessed to meet and spend time with Aurela Kola and her family during this past summer while I was in Tirana, Albania. Tonight, I want to share the following e-mail I received from Aurela on October 12th.”
These are some excerpts from her e-mail: “The best things sometimes happen just by coincidence, and that’s how I found WEI. As time passed, I realized that a very special someone planned this special gift for me.”
“I never thought a website could change my life in such a great way. This awesome course has given me the opportunity to learn so much about the English language. But there is one thing I’ve learned in this course that is way more important than any other lesson. This ‘something’ is our relationship with God, which should be the main thing in our life. I mean, is there something more important than our relationship with God? Of course not! I can say without a doubt that this course is amazing! It has become a part of my daily routine. Reading the Bible and studying God’s Word has made me reflect a lot about my life-style, my attitude, and the way I face problems.”
“I’ve become a better person who wants to do what is right. The Bible has taught me to forgive, to care more about others, and the most important thing, to love each other more and more. I never imagined that the day I enrolled in this course, an ordinary afternoon, that I was beginning a wonderful journey and that the destination would be awesome.”
“God never forgets us! His love for us never fails! God gave me the chance to become a part of WEI. Thank you, God!!! Thank you, WEI!!!”
On October 24th, Lee received another e-mail from Aurela saying, “I want to be baptized as soon as possible.” During the next several days, Lee and Aurela had several lengthy discussions and Bible studies via Viper, a service that allows Albanians to make free Internet calls to any country. Later, Lee virtually shouted, “I am very excited to share that Aurela confessed her faith and was baptized this past Sunday morning at the Tirana Church of Christ with all of her family present. I asked my brother and best friend, Erik Qirjaqi [cheer ee ah′ chi], to baptize her. Erik also happens to be the WEI Director of Albania.”
Then, Lee said, “There is more exciting news! Her parents are very interested in becoming Christians, too. In fact, her dad is a WEI student. Erik and his wife, Anila, will begin studying with them very soon. I will also begin online studies with her brother. Isn’t God awesome and great?”
“Remember Aurela and her precious family in your daily prayers.”
Following the baptism, Erik wrote to Lee, “Brother, this is a great day! Anila and I are on fire! The Tirana church of Christ is on fire, too, brother! Thank you Lord for blessing us on this Lord’s Day in this very special way.”
“Brother, thank you so much for your encouraging words! Thank you again and again for allowing me to be a part of your WEI team. It truly is a tremendous blessing.”
It works both ways, Brother Erik. You are also a tremendous blessing to WEI.
Kay Banta is a long-time WEI teacher and short-term missionary from Arkansas. She was a member of the first team of teachers that Bill McDonough and I led in Tirana, Albania in 1992 following the fall of communism.
Kay is a missionary at heart. Even though she teaches school nine months a year, she becomes an overseas missionary during the summer whenever possible. She has taught children and adults in Albania, Ghana, Guyana, Malawi, and Zimbabwe. The following picture was taken while Kay was on a mission trip in Ghana last summer.
Kay began teaching Dr. Adi Hunderawak on the Internet in August 2016. He is a 34-year-old pharmacist and cataract surgeon at Jimma University Hospital in southwestern Ethiopia.
Kay writes, “By Lesson 2, he was asking questions and was really hooked on the Bible. He never asked a single English question.”
Dr. Hunderawak wrote, “I grew up as an orphan. My mom and dad died when I was 7. When I was in the 10th grade, I really needed my mom and dad. I lost my academic intelligence because I was crying all night.”
Throughout his childhood and during his college years, Adi attended the Lutheran Church where he grew up as an orphan. He thought the ceremony was good, but when some of the priests did not practice what they preached, he became disillusioned. He looked upon their teachings as academic, not as spiritual and divine truth. He said to Kay, “It [their teaching] was not as clear to me as now your teaching is.”
Kay says, “He proceeded to study with me daily, and within a month said that he had been baptized as a child and asked if he could do it again. After reading the lesson on Acts 8, he said, ‘What prevents me from being baptized?’ Chills!”
Dr. Hunderawak wrote, “I want to be baptized like Jesus Christ was by being immersed deep into the water into the name of God, his Son, and Holy Spirit, because Jesus himself ordered this baptism.”
Kay contacted an Ethiopian preacher in Jimma by the name of Deggu Mossissa. On November 27, after studying the Bible with Deggu, Dr. Hunderawak was baptized into Christ in the baptistery pictured below.
Kay says, “Adi spoke of his joy in the kingdom and told me that my teaching was exactly like Deggu’s. He said that he wants to teach others and that I was like Philip to him. It is such a rare blessing from God to see the harvest so fast from this distance!”
“This week, Dr. Hunderawak asked for guidance in teaching his wife and their four-year-old saying, ‘We have a teacher.’ I am sending him some materials as well as advising him to start now with what he first learned in Genesis.”
Justin Speer, Deacon of WEI in Katy, Texas, made his first short-term mission trip to Fier, Albania last summer, and he returned home more excited about missions than ever.
Justin wrote, “That place and its people stole my heart. They taught me far more than I could ever teach them. I have a new respect for the work and the life of a missionary.”
The day Justin arrived in Fier, Esmeralda was baptized by Altin Koci in the Adriatic Sea.
Esmeralda is seventeen, speaks multiple languages, and wants to be a lawyer. Justin says, “I had the good pleasure of teaching this newborn Christian. She has known only deep poverty her whole life. Her voracious appetite to learn, and her ability to devour what I believe were difficult lessons, impressed me.”
“Esmeralda walks 2 plus miles to class through rough streets alone. One day she literally ran to class because she didn’t want to be late. This highly intelligent and kind girl was so excited before and after her baptism. She asked her Muslim father for permission to become a Christian.” He gave it, and he smiled as she was immersed.
By the end of the campaign, four young women had been baptized into Christ: Esmeralda, Xhela (Jella), Sara, and Keidji (Kady). Justin says that Alda, the eighteen-year-old young lady who was baptized last year, was more excited about these four baptisms than anyone. “She indicated it’s very hard to be a Christian in Albania, particularly if from a Muslim family. She was lonely, so God sent her four new sisters.”
Justin says, “I am so pumped for the church in Fier. I miss all of my friends in Albania. I didn’t want to leave, and that feeling hasn’t left my heart.”
During the past three months, Prabhu Kumar, the Director of WEI-India, has reported the baptisms of thirteen people, twelve of whom have come from Hindu backgrounds.
In the Chittoor District, brother Payani baptized four of his WEI students, all Hindus.
In the State of Odisha, WEI teacher, Brother Ajith Kumar Tandy baptized seven of his students, all from Hindu backgrounds.
Perhaps the most interesting conversion story that Prabhu reported is as follows:
“Mr. Vookoti Venateswara Rao (55) and his wife Bhagya Lakshmi (46) live in Gandigunta Village. They are both from a strong Hindu background. Their second son-in-law sold us the site on which we built a church building. From the beginning they have participated in congregational activities, but they have not taken baptism.”
“Bro. Kishore is working in that place. He and I have both taught them several times about the importance of salvation, but we have never found interest in their eyes regarding baptism. But suddenly, as I was preaching at Gandigunta last month, Mrs. Bhagya Lakshmi stood up in the congregation and announced that she and her husband were going to take baptism October 19th.”
“What a great surprise to all of us. How the word of God worked in their hearts! About them, many times we have all been disappointed. For years, we have been waiting for their conversion. Now God made it possible.”
“On the 19th, they came to the Punadipadu church building, along with their relatives and friends and some local congregation members. Nearly 40 people reached there by 12:10 p.m. Those who attended were all perfect Hindus but have respect for Christianity. We conducted a prayer meeting for one hour, and everybody listened very carefully. Then, we took them upstairs for the baptisms. The newly baptized couple was so happy.”
In 1993, Christianity Today published the story of a young Indian woman named Alila who stood on the bank of the Ganges River with her infant son in her arms. Tears filled her eyes as she waded out into the river. When the water came up to her waist, she stopped and stood there for a long time clutching her baby to her breast and staring off into space. Then quickly, she threw her six-month-old son to his death in the water.
Alila was kneeling on the sandy beach crying loudly and beating herself on the breast when national missionary, M.V. Varghese, came along. He knelt down beside her and asked her what was wrong. Sobbing, she told him, “The problems in my home are many, and my sins are heavy on my heart, so I offered the best I have, my firstborn son, to the goddess Ganges.”
Mr. Varghese’s heart ached for her, and he told her about the love of God and how, through Jesus, her sins could be forgiven. She looked up at him with surprise and said, “I’ve never heard that before. Why couldn’t you have come sooner? If you had, my child would not have died.”
Millions of people go to the city of Hardwar every year to bathe in the Ganges River thinking that this Hindu ritual will wash away their sins. For multitudes of people like Alila, missionaries arrive too late, or they don’t arrive at all. There are simply not enough faithful teachers to go around.
God can use you to help reach the one billion people in India and more than seven billion people on earth. No matter how hard missionaries work, they can never get the Word out to everyone. We must all work together to spread the good news about Christ. Please join other WEI teachers around the globe by logging onto the WEI web site at www.worldenglishinstitute.org/register/teacher and signing up as an Internet teacher.
To those of you who are already sharing your faith with others through WEI, and to all of you who support this world-wide ministry financially and with your prayers, we express our deepest thanks. We are grateful for your fellowship. God bless you for doing what you can to save the lost. We love you with the love of the Lord.
—Dick & Maudine
What an incredible year 2016 was for WEI. With the addition of Lee Allen as our full-time Director of Development and Teacher Support, we have experienced unparalleled growth. Working hand-in-hand with our Technical Director, Justin Acuff, together they have multiplied the number of active Internet teachers and thus shared the word of God with many more thousands of WEI students.
Our fundraising efforts, also, have been more fruitful than in any previous year, but the challenge of funding this ministry still remains.
We are thankful to God for blessing us with a staff of talented and gifted servants who are fully devoted to the great commission. The future of WEI has never been brighter.
It’s that time of year again to start recruiting WEI short-term summer teachers and mission site hosts all over the world. I do not believe there is anything more thrilling and life-changing for Christians than to have the opportunity to share their faith and the word of God with a lost soul in a one-on-one setting.
Every summer, we are doing exactly what Jesus commanded us to do. We are going into all the world and teaching the Gospel. The WEI material systematically guides students through the Bible; and after they finish the Intermediate Course they know what they must do to become a member of the kingdom of God. The material teaches itself. Our teachers are simply facilitators and conversation partners with their students as they share their faith and Bible knowledge. All of our students learn about God. Some will believe, and some will even make that important decision to commit their lives to God through his Son.
If you have a desire to teach for two weeks or four weeks in one of these short-term missions, please contact us. We will be sending teams to Romania, Albania, Myanmar, and Guatemala to name a few locations. If you serve as a missionary at a mission site that would like to host a WEI team, please contact us as well.
To all of our supporters, we sincerely and humbly thank you from the depths of our hearts for your support and prayers. We love you all.
—Tom and Angie
Rejoice with Kay Banta (AR), Tish Snider (IN), and Polly Scott (NC), who have reported three baptisms this quarter—two in Ethiopia and one in Colombia.
When we asked teachers, “Why do you teach with WEI?” we hoped for enough responses to fill this column. Instead, we received enough to have filled the entire newsletter! Here are three that summarize what many wrote:
“I was so blessed to go on mission trips twice, but my health has made it impossible now. WEI gives me the opportunity to bypass physical problems and share the gospel all over the world. I also have an enlarged vision of evangelism when I work with the local church.”
“I can be a missionary where I am. I have studied with people who have never heard the story of Jesus. Now, they have. Beginning with the Prodigal Son story, every student gets to hear how much God loves them. Even if they don’t continue, they will know this. I pray it will give them the desire to learn more.”
“Students’ responses give me a fresh look at the wonder of God’s Word. They help me see how powerful it is. Their stories are heart-breaking at times, but they have hope through the Word.”
“It’s a golden opportunity to reach around the world. WEI uses the Bible for its textbook, and the free English lessons meet a compelling need of folks around the globe. I can share the ‘bread’ and the ‘water’ of life that students may not know they need. I struggle with social anxiety, so I can teach one-on-one without teaching face-to-face.”
“I have learned much about others’ lives, cultures, and beliefs. I have been humbled and encouraged through the exchanges with elementary girls, university students, young mothers, and older women.”
“I’m learning more Bible myself! We’re never too old, and it’s never too late! WEI provides excellent Tech and spiritual support for us teachers! I believe WEI is worth every penny spent to support this program!”
God calls, “Who will go?” Let’s answer, “Here am I. Send me” (Isaiah 6:8).
—Bob and Jan
Brother Charles Mungu, a national preacher in Sierra Leone West Africa, has been teaching classes of WEI students for more than a year. Two of his recent students were Muslims when they began their studies. Now, they are Christians.
Charles says, “Mohamad Kamara was born in a Muslim home. Both parents were Muslims. Through WEI, he came to know Jesus Christ, and now, he has become one of us through baptism.”
Aniefiok Akpan writes, “One of our WEI students in Nigeria, Rebecca Ezekiel Udofia (a graduate of Guidance and Counseling at the University of Harcourt), was baptized this morning. She took her studies very seriously and completed the WEI basic courses within a short period of time.”
“Rebecca called me on the phone early this week from Uyo and asked for directions to Rhema Christian Academy. She said she would be coming on Thursday (today) for her baptism. She arrived on our campus this morning, and we proceeded to the stream where she was baptized. Brother Akaninyene Moses Ukanga and another brother from our campus church, Nsenam Japheth Idiong accompanied us to the stream and witnessed the baptism.”
During the past decade, God has used Aniefiok to lead many WEI students to Christ.
In September, we received an e-mail from Geoffrey Nyaboga, a young preacher in the Kisii region of southwestern Kenya. He had run across the WEI web site and was eager to use our materials in his local outreach ministry.
Geoffrey has virtually no income, but he is a dedicated, selfless evangelist who weeps over the lost souls in Kenya. Since he first contacted us in September, he has taught and baptized at least six students.
Geoffrey is a graduate of the Andrew Connally School of Preaching in Tanzania, a school affiliated with Bear Valley Bible Institute in Denver, Colorado. Daniel Gaines, one of Geoffrey’s former Bear Valley teachers, wrote to me saying, “I remember Geoffrey as a good student.”
Even though Geoffrey is busy preaching for a small congregation, evangelizing door-to-door, and teaching in a small Bible school several days a week, he is also working toward a Master of Divinity Degree from Bear Valley.
Geoffrey writes, “The congregation here is small, and it is currently not supporting me. I am surviving through God’s will, and it’s my prayer that I and you can accomplish much through his love. Right now, brother, I am enduring hardships with no support, and I am looking for a congregation to oversee my work. God is good, and we are telling people the truth to set them free.”
“Please pray for the Lord’s work here. We leave everything to the Lord. The moment we rely on him is the moment our plans come to pass, bro!!”
“I am prepared to work with WEI and save the lost souls. May the Lord be honored as we work together. I need nothing other than a sponsoring church that will help me with food, water, clothing, and shelter—the necessities of life that Jesus promised his followers in the Sermon on the Mount. Our Father knows we leave everything to Him through prayer. How glad it will be, brother, when one day our heavenly Father will say, ‘Well done, my children.’”
If you would like to communicate with Geoffrey, you may contact him via e-mail at geoffreynyaboga@yahoo.com.
