‘I was one’: Online Bible teachers search for receptive students

Bob and Jan Towell, WEI coordinators

ROUND ROCK, Tex. (BNc) — In her daily email to World English Institute teachers, coordinator Jan Towell shares updates and motivates them to find that one student who will finish the course and respond to the gospel.

On Wednesday, she included a piece from Katheryn Haddad, who has taught more than 3,600 students, and recalled a conversation with a Ghanian in her own home.

“Willie Gley from Ghana had stayed with us overnight and, over breakfast, we were discussing the drop-out rate in all ministries,” she recalled. “He said, ‘Ah, but the one — and I was a one.’ He told how 30 years before, he had seen a paper in a mud puddle, picked it up, took it home, washed it off, and — he laughed as he said it — ‘I even ironed it.’ He wrote to the contact and in time went on to teach in a Bible school and take the gospel into Togo and other surrounding countries.”

Katheryn’s reminder applies to all Christians who share the gospel. We reproduce it below, with permission.

WEI teacher Katheryn Haddad

Do you think Paul quit teaching because he preached to a crowd of 1000 and no one became a Christian? No, he went to another crowd of 1000 and preached to them. And if no one responded there, he moved on to yet another crowd. He spent 35 years doing this, never dropping out.

Students do the introductory lesson for a lot of different reasons.

Some do it because it’s like a puzzle or a challenge and they just want to know how they would do. Others do it because they want to learn, but realize they don’t have the time required. Others realize they cannot afford the money to go to the internet cafe enough times to graduate. Others use their work computer because they don’t own one themselves, and are told they can’t use it for personal things. Others want to learn, but the electricity in their country is so unreliable, they finally get discouraged and drop out. Others find out the lessons are based on the Bible and are not interested in religion or the Bible, and drop out. Others just aren’t self-disciplined.

But there is the one! The one who has the time and resources and money to stick with the lessons. The one who truly wants to know what is in the Bible because they think they’d like to please the God of the Bible. This is the one you are seeking.

Jesus went out to “seek and save” the lost. We are fishers of men. There are thousands of fish in the sea, but we are looking for the one who is drawn to the bait — the Bible taught in English.

Keep fishing! Keep teaching! Don’t worry about the dropouts; God will take care of them. Keep seeking the one! The one out of a thousand who wants Jesus and doesn’t know it yet! Keep teaching! And keep teaching! And keep teaching! Never give up! Never, never, never give up! Keep teaching! For the one.