Bartholomew* with Grand Rapids, Michigan-based Mission India explains, “Our old website was about 10-years-old, and we really wanted to give it a new refresh that really told a story of what God is doing in India in a very compelling and mobile-friendly way. So we went ahead and expedited the process of creating this new website.”

Screenshot of Mission India’s new website.

The website makeover took them three months, and the update has some neat features.

“We have a new section of our website. It used to be our blog, but now we rebranded that as stories. Every month we’re releasing these stories, and these stories are stories from the frontlines in India, where you can read and watch as God is just taking hearts that have once been hardened to Him, and just opening up to His love and His grace,” says Bartholomew.

“We also have a really great feature called downloads. You can download different photos and share with your friends just the impact that God is making in India.”

Also new is the ease with which visitors can get involved by financially supporting Mission India through the website.

“Our donation side of things now is mobile-friendly, so you can easily pull it up on your iPhone or Android phone and quickly give a gift, and that will go instantly to our children’s Bible clubs or adult literacy classes or our church planting training!”

But maybe one of the most exciting improvements is Mission India’s ability to impact an even wider audience with news of God’s work in India.

(Photo courtesy of Mission India)

“So we actually improved our search engine optimization, also known as SEO, and what that allows us to do is to really reach even more people throughout the world and tell the story of what Mission India is doing. So we’re really excited about that! We have more traffic coming in from the European nations than we did before.”

Bartholomew emphasizes, “We’re thrilled we can now reach even more people with our mission, and that mission is to transform India with the love of Jesus Christ.”

Mission India’s work includes three major branches of ministry: their children’s Bible clubs, adult literacy programs, and church planter training.

“Our children’s Bible clubs, we do ten-day programs or year-long programs, and those programs are geared to help further the education of younger people in India,” explains Bartholomew.

“Our adult literacy classes are good for adult males and females where we come alongside them and share the news of Jesus Christ, but we also further their education and give them a fifth grade reading level, as well as a fifth grade math level and science level after they’re done with their one-year class. And we’ve heard stories coming out of this where women are starting their own businesses now and providing for their families, where they weren’t doing that before.

(Photo courtesy of Mission India)

“Then our church planter training, we come alongside hand-selected individuals and we train them for one year where we’re giving them the tools to plant churches in their villages and communities.”

Click here to check out Mission India’s new website! There are a couple of ways you can interact with it, and even join in Mission India’s outreach.

Bartholomew explains, “If you go onto MissionIndia.org, you can give a gift today of any amount. One dollar would send one kid to a ten-day [children’s Bible] program, $30 would send an adult literacy student to one of our classes. You can also go onto our website and look at all our new stories and share those on your Twitter or Facebook or even email it to a friend.”

As Mission India looks to the upcoming months and years of ministry ahead, they would deeply value your prayers and encouragement.

“We just really ask for prayers with our year-long Bible clubs as they’re getting started. We ask that listeners join in praying that those go well, and that numerous amounts of children get to know the name of Jesus and fall in love with Him,” asks Bartholomew.

“[Also] prayers in general as we’re reaching the nation of India for Christ, that doors would be opened and hearts would be changed!”

*Name changed for security purposes.

"We, of course, have a Facebook page, and we maintain that as well. It's a way of keeping people updated, those that are on Facebook," said Bob Creson of Wycliffe. It helps followers stay up-to-date. Though Creson said they are not experts, they're trying to understand how best to accomplish the goals they have for social networking. "We have several people now who keep us focused on this issue, who are doing research and helping us understand how best to use it in terms of our own corporate mission and vision for Wycliffe."   

Wycliffe is also blogging, but in the Twitter age, blogging may seem like a passive technology to the technologically savvy.  Twitter allows users to send immediate "tweets" to single users or all their followers. Tweets can be viewed immediately on cell-phones or online. 

Creson says Twitter allows Wycliffe to keep its supporters up-to-date with day-to-day activities and events. Social networking can feed people's desire for immediate news and
information about the things that are important to them–even those who are passionate about Bible translation.

A concern with the constant rush of information that social networking provides is that important information just becomes part of the "babble." Creson said, "It can be a bit overwhelming and, I think, often why some people are ‘Twitter-quitters.' They don't see the need for it, or they don't take the time to start
filtering information in ways that are helpful to them on a personal or professional level."

Creson visited a missionary couple in an extremely remote village in northern Uganda a few months ago. Still, "in the middle of nowhere," Creson said he had four bars on his cell phone and he was able to update his Facebook status and send tweets. After returning from the trip, Creson still gets constant updates from the couple; he was actually able to help them because of that connection. "I happen to follow them on Twitter, so when I saw something come up, I was able to report immediately to a group of about 300 people in Orlando who were gathered for chapel, and I indicated that the missionaries needed prayer for certain things."

If you'd like to stay up-to-date with Wycliffe through Twitter or Facebook, go here and click on the links.