This has been and is still a tremendous benefit to me as a follower of Christ and a citizen in this short, uncertain earthly life. I want to share my takeaway points from what we’ve been learning in this time of the covid-19 pandemic.

From the class on the book of Exodus: In the course of learning this book, I saw the book answers the question ‘Who is Yahweh?’: The God who wants to be known.

• The God who delievers, redeems his people and wants to be known for His great redeeming power.
• The God who demands obedience from his people. Thank God, we now have grace to obey him through faith in Jesus Christ.
• The God who wants to dwell with His people. It is a great privilege to realize the Creator of the Universe wants to dwell among us his people.

From the class on ‘Gospel Frames’: I remember the first session on this topic as if it was yesterday. The teacher gave us the illustration of a door trying to explain “frame”. He said that just as the frames of a door determine its shape and boundaries and secure it in the wall, if we understand these gospel frames, whatever teaching or readings we will have will be correctly handled. I can summarize it in my own way:

• Authority: The Scriptures
• The issue: Sin
• The ground: Grace alone
• The Solution: Christ alone
• The way in: Faith alone
• Chief end: God’s honor and glory alone

With all this I recognize that I am not the center of things, but God is, and that I as his creature and child exist for him rather than he for me.

I joined PTW (which later on came to be WIM) after campus. From the very first classes I was very excited to be part of it because I was eager to learn and to know more of Christ; not only to learn but also for my life to be changed through it all.

That has indeed been my experience throughout this year. I can summarize one aspect that impacted me most. I have discovered how God’s wisdom surpasses ours: what we like to call basics of the Gospel are in fact the essentials and deep doctrines which are hard to correctly grasp though most of the time we are tempted to think we know them. Sometimes when a truth which you already know (like say FAITH) is spoken, you feel like saying; “let’s jump this, we all know that, let’s talk about something more profound and sophisticated”. That’s what comes to our carnal mind full of pride. It sometimes happened to me but my prayer was always to overcome such evil thoughts because I knew it would happen so, my mind was at war.

I eventually came to realize the Gospel is not like the newspaper which expires just after it is read. Rather, it is always new, amazing, interesting, challenging. All this is because the Gospel is not our story, it is God’s story and since it is His, it surpasses us and probes us so deep we never get fed up with it. I thank God Almighty for giving me opportunity to be a part of WIM classes in the first year and I hope for further and greater grace in this second year.

Testimonies by students from different class intakes.

I really thank God for this opportunity to study his Word and the grace to attend consistently. I am gaining a great deal from the teaching in many but related ways.

1. From the class on ‘How to study New Testament Letters’ I learned how to get the most from this type of book – so different from what I used to do. There are features I was not used to spotting and yet were key to understanding the message of the writer. I now particularly pay attention to connecting words which helps me to teach the flow of the message as the writer intended it to the letter’s recipients and to do appropriate applications instead of always directly applying to every sentence I read.
2. I used to feel unable to study the Old Testament books because I thought they were complicated and I was not sure I would get relevant applications to me today as a believer. As we studied the book of Exodus our facilitator helped us through the book, chapter by chapter, and helped us to see relevant applications to us. This dispelled all my former fears and opened my eyes to actually see that even those OT books are for us; I saw how they also reveal God and His redemption plan as clearly as those of the New Testament. I now now confident and hope soon to begin to study on my own other books in the Old Testament.
3. From our Bible studies in the ladies’ fellowship I am learning especially from the way the study guides are prepared. Our sister helps us to come to the big idea, and aim sentences. I am still struggling, but feel encouraged to keep on. Overall, the material we have gone through has boosted my hope of salvation and I am growing in my trust in God.