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Greater Europe Mission (GEM) first started
to investigate the use of technology
for training pastors in 1999.
Partnerships started to develop in
2000, with a key one being with Moody
Bible Institute (MBI). GEM agreed to work with MBI in the development
of its new online program. MBI
agreed to give us all of its
courses to be implemented in our
missions context. In 2000 GEM formally started a
Distance Learning Department that
was later renamed eDOT.
Partnerships
continued to develop in 2001, with a
strong effort being placed on
determining a model for computer
centers. The eLearning Center
concept was first implemented by
Mission Aviation Fellowship's
Learning Technologies ministry that
year. By year-end, we had developed
the initial specifications for an
eLearning Center. We only had two
full-time missionaries with eDOT at
the time, so we relied heavily on
short-term missionaries, volunteers,
and partners.
In 2002, three full-time missionary families joined our
team along with an additional 19 short-term missionaries. We installed our
first four eLearning Centers, wrote
computer training manuals, developed
Web sites, and continued the
development of eBible courses.
The following
year was an
historical year for us as we completed
our first eBible course and
installed six more eLearning Centers
in 2003.
Two more families joined us full
time, and a number of
volunteers devoted significant
amounts of time to the ministry.
Up to this
point, our main emphasis was in
Ukraine and Romania. In 2004 we
started working with ministries in
the French-speaking world and
visited many other countries in
Europe. We launched our monthly eNewsletter
Connect! and converted
two more eBible courses for use in
Europe. The evangelistic course on
the Life of Christ was also launched
in Russian. It has been reaching
thousands of Russian-speaking people
around the world. We did not install
additional eLearning Centers during
2004. We took time to evaluate how
they were being used and develop
further partnerships to oversee
their use.
 We continued
to
develop relationships with
ministries in Europe in 2005.
Ministries in Portugal and another
Bible school in Ukraine also began
working with us. We completed two
more eBible courses and continued
with our installation of eLearning
Centers. We also
concentrated the development of
eBible courses to be used in the
centers. Four more eLearning Centers
were installed this year.
So far in 2006,
we have seen a fast increase in the
number of ministries desiring to
partner with us. We have started to work in
the Ukrainian, Italian, and
Farsi languages. We have also
developed a new outreach program for
teams to use from North America when
they install an eLearning Center. We
hope to complete four more eBible
courses by the end of 2006.
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