For many, March 2020 will be a month that will go down as a time to never forget. This was the first time any of us have experienced the global shut down that we did. Too many things came to a screeching halt to list here, but for me, there was the sudden cancellation of an annual Missions Media conference to be held in Chiang Mai, Thailand. I was booked to attend that conference and teach people to build their own websites which would help them achieve their ministries goals.
This year’s (2021) conference was supposed to take place in The Netherlands, but was obviously cancelled as well. However, the organizers of the conference were able to pivot and develop an online platform to be able to offer many of the in person trainings available in a virtual format. We were asked to provide our Website Building workshop to interested participants.
We were able to offer a 3-hour daily online training track over two weeks. We had participants from countries (and/or places of ministry) including The Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Botswana, Nigeria, Niger, Uganda, Germany, UK and the US. It was a challenge to meet with people in over 10 different time zones at one time. Many people had to attend at odd times, either very early in the morning or late at night. Our trainers split into two teams in order to best serve the participants during their working hours.
I miss being able to meet people face to face and work alongside them (which is also way more efficient!), but for this season we are in, I am thankful that the technology allows us to virtually meet together from different parts of the world.
At the end of the 10 day program, we were able to launch 11 new ministry websites, and 2 more are coming soon.
Some of the websites launched:
One of the participants was building a site for Grace Ministries of India. On their website they have published Study Bibles in several languages of India, and they are promoting the use of many Scripture Apps in these languages (Hindi, Telegu, Malayalam, Kannada, Marathai) as well as English.
The training you provided was very helpful and assisted me to build a website in a few days. This website will be our biggest tool to establish our ministry widely in a short time. I remember John 4:38 when our Lord says 'I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor.'
- Website Manager from India
