YFC Taiwan

Taiwan YFC ministers to younger age young people through school assemblies, clubs, literature, concerts and prayer ministries. It has recently launched a state-of-the-art Internet web ministry to reach the many young people on the web called Walei.

The Walei Internet Initiative

Challenges of the Electronic Age

Twenty-first century Taiwan is entering the electronic age at a very rapid pace. According to statistics for the first half of 2002, more than 7,500,000 people on the island use the Internet: about 35% of the population is online and 42.3% of all families have Web access. Even the most remote villages are fully wired and Internet ready. From grade four in elementary school, children start technology-infused classes, so by the time students reach junior high school, about 80% of them have become habitual users of the Internet.

In terms of per capita broadband usage, Taiwan and Hong Kong both rank second in the world, behind South Korea only; moreover, in terms of "E-Readiness," both Taiwan and South Korea are considered to be among the top three nations worldwide.

But the advances of the information age have also taken their toll on the youth of today. The problems that parents and teachers are most concerned about include: addiction to the Web, sexual content on the Internet, and socializing on the Internet. Teenagers are attracted by the freedom of the Internet space and use the Internet to find friends and play computer games, so the number of students who participate in extra-curricular activities at school is decreasing and general teen entertainment choices and patterns of making friends have changed: the Internet café has become the teenagers' favorite place of entertainment.

Taiwan Youth For Christ (YFC) has seen the need for youth evangelism on the World Wide Web. Attempting to spread the gospel as widely as possible, Taiwan YFC began work on the Internet in the year 2001, setting up a Web Site for youth called "Walei" and training volunteers to enter the virtual world of the Internet to reach the souls of the youth of today. Within just one year, the Web Site has signed up more than 17,000 members, 72% of whom are still non-Christians.

Through Walei, we have been able to reach many youths that we would otherwise not have been able to reach. We hope that more Christians will join our ranks in accepting the challenges of the Electronic Age and participate in the Internet evangelical work that Walei has started.

Vision and Mission

The target audience for Walei is Chinese youths between the ages of thirteen and eighteen who frequent the Internet, including junior high school, senior high school, and junior college students, as well as university and technical college students.

Matthew 5:16 says, "Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven."

So the purpose of Walei is to establish a presence in the virtual world of the Internet to witness the new life that God has given us, and through Web interaction:

1. to bring to youths a value system that is based on Christian beliefs
   
   
2. to encourage the development of God-like qualities in all of us
   
   
3. to provide a perspective that is different from that of the secular world
   
   
4. to help youths resist the temptations of the world
   
   
5. to care for the various needs of the minds, bodies, and souls of youths.

On the Walei Web Site, we hope to

1. create a Christ-centered environment, which will give every member the opportunity to learn about the Christian faith
   
   
2. move from virtual relationships to real relationships, in order to bring youth members to the heart of the Christian faith
   
   
3. work with churches and school-based youth fellowships to promote Internet evangelical work among local churches.

Strategies for Evangelism

The goal of Walei is to attract youths to our web site by offering what commercial web sites cannot offer and to promote the value system and beliefs of the Christian faith. We have outlined four strategies:

1. Emphasize the Artistic and Interactive Aspects of the Web Site. To give the site a sense of the imaginative and the artistic, we based its structure on the concept of planets in space. We put the members on various planets and gave cute, humorous, and fanciful names to the houses that they occupied on those planets; we also designed the interiors of those houses to look like spaceships. In addition, we also included special planets whose mission is to provide entertainment, counseling, and advice to the residents of the various planets. And finally, every member's house was equipped with a complete interactive system, which includes a bulletin board, a diary, a mailbox, a pen pal system, instant messaging, a virtual café chat room, and a special topics discussion area, to encourage members to communicate with each other and develop friendships.
   
   
2. Create the Best Environment for Evangelical Work. On the site, we have tried to create an environment that will make non-Christians feel at ease so that they will not feel put off by its religious background. The site will also provide plenty of opportunities for non-Christian members to get to know some Christian friends and learn about the Christian value system, which hopefully will make them recognize the uniqueness of the site and encourage them to open their hearts to share their problems and seek help.
   
   
3. Cultivate Teams of Volunteers who will Enter the Web to Become Fishers of Men's Souls Aside from a group of Christian teachers and university and seminary students who serve as the Christian friends of the youth members, a complete volunteer system has also been set up on Walei:
   
   
   • Basic volunteers: Members who are more mature are selected to be area leaders who take on the responsibilities of caring for other members, developing site content, and encouraging member participation in site activities. They also engage in cultural and religious discussions with the members. Presently, there are about 250 student members who have been designated as basic volunteers.
     
     
   • Core Counselors: Aside from training a group of mature and net savvy Christians called the "Guardian Angel Team" who reach out to non-Christian student members through friendship and sow the seeds of the gospel, Walei has also trained a group of about forty core counselors whose mission is to spread the gospel on the Web. We hope that the number of core counselors will reach a hundred by year's end.
     
     
   • Secret Counselor: A "Secret Counselor Mailbox" has been set up and six Christian ministers and teachers respond daily to the messages that are sent in. The mail sent in usually deal with problems about religious beliefs, romantic relationships, friendships, family, academics, as well as questions about homosexuality.
   
   
   
4. Create Bridges between Churches and Various Organizations to Promote Mutual Cooperation
   
   
   • Gospel Meetings: Apart from regular meetings for Web members, Walei also works with school organizations and churches during the winter and summer breaks, to encourage students to participate in mission teams as well as to train retreat counselors to use Walei in their work, thereby eliminating the limitations of traditional boundaries.
     
     
   • Church Fellowships: Currently, there are thirty-three churches that have established youth fellowship discussion boards on Walei, which enable church counselors to communicate more easily with youth members during the week and help facilitate the work of the fellowships in general.
     
     
   • Seminaries: Walei is often invited to seminary classes on youth counseling to give two-hour training sessions on counseling in the electronic age.
     
     
   • Gospel Teachers: Walei works with students at different levels and creates a planet for every school. Currently, we work with 28 junior high schools, about 40 senior high schools, and about 50 colleges and universities. We also work with Christian teachers so they can use Walei to interact with students and establish friendly teacher-student relationships beyond classroom boundaries.

Our Prayers and our Needs

This is the age of the Internet, and many youths live almost completely within the virtual world of the Internet. Their loneliness exceeds those of previous generations, and they are in great need of friends and people who will truly care about them, but the Web is full of traps and temptations. We hope that in these difficult times, Walei can become a safe haven for the souls of the youth of today and help them find their own values and realize their dreams. We hope that you will pray for us and for the youth of this electronic age.

Here are our needs:

• That more people will participate in the evangelical work of the "Guardian Angel Team" and pray for the Walei members' safety on the Web
  
  
• That more people will pray for Walei and make donations to enable the continuation of the work of Walei
  
  
• That God will watch over us as we develop and prepare to launch the second generation of Walei, and give us sufficient grace and creativity as we work on code design, artistic elements, activity planning, and counselor training.