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Our web site, WesternTractMission.org
came about because of a chance conversation our Director, Arnold Stobbe, had
with a former student of his, Ernie Werezak in the summer of 1999. A committee
was formed with some Board members, who invited Ernie, and myself to take
part in this.
At our first meeting we discussed what it would take to put up a web site. I
had just begun to design my own, and agreed to do up some sample pages. After
our second meeting we communicated with each other by email and I worked hard
to have about 30 web pages ready to upload or publish to our free site at
HyperMart. I did all this at home.
It involved learning a lot about the mission and determining what we most wanted
to accomplish. We wanted to introduce ourselves to potential supporters, so I
used the contents of the "
Introducing Our World" pamphlet for one set of pages.
We wanted to reach the lost and Biblically illiterate, so another section was
for our tracts. I also
put each issue of Reflections
up on the site after it goes to print.
I had not learned yet how to do inter-active forms or order pages, so that was
on hold, as was fun activities for the
Kids Korner.
How much I've learned in the past nearly six years astonishes me. My own online
ministry and business ventures take up long 10-12 hour days, but I reserve Monday
evenings for working on the Western Tract Mission site (or Reflections). This
year my goal has been to put up a shopping cart so visitors may order and
purchase our tracts and booklets through PayPal. It has been a much longer
learning curve than I first expected, but I now hope to soon have the shopping
cart functional.
Besides the Kids Korner, there is still much to do in putting up the tracts in
a simple format and in a printer-friendly version so folks can print out and
make copies of them without paying us,. (All our literature is copyright free).
There is also the promotional work that needs to be done so the site is
discovered more easily by seekers. It will never be completely finished. It
has become a technical ministry that calls for a full-time missionary!
-- Ruth Marlene Friesen
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