President’s Update from the Road
By Brian Rex Davis
We have had a busy first of the year as God is providing amazing open doors of opportunity for the Gospel around the globe! Mission work can often be described as trying to see what God is doing in the world and getting aligned with His opportunities in productive work. WBS has been greatly blessed with some great opportunities to participate in important Kingdom work over the past few months.
At the end of last year, Tim Brumfield was able to host a unity meeting for the churches of Christ in Mozambique as a part of our Portuguese outreach. Unity has been a difficult challenge in this nation torn by years of civil conflict. One thousand leaders in the church gathered to pursue the unity of the Body of Christ as presented in Ephesians 4:1-6. This opportunity for unity is creating a synergy for student recruitment for our Portuguese World Bible School work and opening doors for new church plants.
Right, a new brother in Christ, Bro. Andassane, is already planting new churches as he volunteers in WBS follow-up.
Tim Brumfield, as he leads our Portuguese WBS work, spends many hours mentoring the enthusiasm of new Christians into productive evangelism in new areas of outreach in Mozambique, Angola, and Brazil. These three countries comprise 90% of the Portuguese speaking world. 
Expansion India
Sondra and I spent much of January in the sub-continent of India as we followed-up on our recent efforts to expand student recruitment in this, the most populous country on earth with some 1.4 billion people.
While visiting Bro. Paul Ranganathan in Chennai, we were able to visit with young evangelists-in-training from the breadth and width of this beautiful nation. Students from the state of Assam, who have oriental features, to students from Tamil Nadu State, who have the more typical Indian features. All were excited to see how WBS tools are available for their evangelism efforts. 
Paul and I pray with a new congregation. Paul has been volunteering in WBS followup since 1974 when Jake Coppinger (from California) began working with him in WBS student recruitment and follow-up.
Thirty-four precious souls obeyed the Gospel during our visit as we followed up on WBS students and the doors of opportunity that are opened by WBS tools of “Good News”!
As the mission of Christ has expanded in the nation of India over the past 100 years, what used to be small pockets of receptivity, separated by many miles in this vast land, has become a brotherhood ripe for the blessings of collaborative and cooperative evangelism.
Last year, as we introduced WBS tools to many brethren in India for the first time, some didn’t think that the brotherhood in India could work together in unity to accomplish great evangelistic outreach as the Indian church. Often, we fear that our human shortcomings will prevent what Jesus calls us to do as His Body on earth today, as the church of Christ.
We patiently shared the vision of what Jesus calls us to be in Ephesians chapter 4 with those who showed interest in using WBS tools last year. Our newest Advanced WBS course, Unity in Christ, has been a powerful resource for this vision. On this year’s visit, Sondra and I were blessed to see the roots of unity and cooperative evangelism begin to produce a harvest that will be eternal in scope.
A number of church leaders organized meetings with churches from several states in the southern part of India. Many church leaders expressed their desire to work together in using WBS tools to reach the masses of lost people in their communities.
Sondra was invited to share with a gathering of ladies from many different churches. The hosting church expected 200 ladies to participate. Over 400 showed up!
During one of my presentations to church leaders, a young church leader, Bro. Dyakar, stood up and gave a 20-minute testimony of the difference WBS tools make when the Lord’s church works together to share the Gospel of Jesus!
“WBS is like a well in a dry land. People may not see the water immediately, but when the bucket goes down, life come up!”
Another important area of progress for our expansion of WBS tools in India is the completion of our first digital translation of our WBS Master Series in one of the major Indian languages. Translations have been made over the years of the WBS courses, but last year we realized that no current translation exists in digital format and updated modern language.
Bro. Anil Kumar (right, sitting), who coordinates our printed WBS materials, was kind enough to transform his hard copy translation of the Master Series in the Telegu language into digital format. Below you see the work of respected church leaders like Bro. Saha Vanga (left, sitting) verifying the translation and updating the language to modern Telegu (95 million speakers). Bro. Saha’s son, Sahan (standing), is going to help us mount this completed digital translation onto our WBS Library on www.worldbibleschool.net .
Additionally, we are also working to provide the Indian brotherhood Advanced WBS Courses in Telegu. Our first advanced course will be entitled God’s Big Picture, an overview of the Bible. This course is especially helpful to those from a Hindu background. You can read this in English in our WBS Digital Library at the website listed above.
It is great to see the older and the younger generation working together, combining their wisdom and skills, to advance the work of the Lord in India!
While in India, Sondra and I were invited to visit the printing company that is printing the WBS Study Edition Bible in Spanish. Last year, our WBS managers decided that we needed to diversify our printing options. The Thomson Press company in New Delhi is the second largest printer of Bibles on earth. We were truly impressed with their world-class print capabilities.
These Spanish Bibles should be in our warehouse mid-year. This has been a need of our brotherhood in the United States, Central America, and parts of South America for many years. Because of your very generous gifts at the end of last year, we have been able to move forward with this project.
For those of you who have been contributing to and praying for our expansion in India, we are so grateful for your trust and generosity. Many volunteers have been busy laying the groundwork for our expansion in both print and digital formats. We look forward to seeing many new students and many participating churches emerge in India as we walk through God’s
open doors!
We met this young man last year. He completed his WBS studies this past January and was baptized during our visit. For those of you who adopt Indian students, it is important to realize that students who come from a Hindu background have a long way to go to begin to see reality as God reveals it in the Bible. It is not uncommon for studies with Indian students to last a year as they compare their Hindu upbringing with the vastly different truths that God reveals in His Holy Word. Your diligence and patience in sharing Jesus with our Indian students is greatly appreciated!
