3/5/26
Introducing Our Alumni Coordinator
In past years, Wittenberg Door has had only a limited number of people from our local Lutheran congregations who have stepped forward to join us in our desire to care for others with Christ's love. It's always been part of our desire, but for one reason or another it didn't really happen.
However, after several years of interactions, we're very glad to introduce our first-ever Alumni Coordinator, Weiping Gong, originally from Beijing! With a past history of teaching English to Chinese people, Weiping came to Mizzou in 2024 to begin a new adventure. She answered an invitation to one of our dinner and conversation evenings, and has since then not only become very involved with our campus ministry community, but also with the congregation of Alive in Christ Lutheran Church! She's the proud mother of a son who attends Rock Bridge Senior High here in Columbia.
Weiping has a great track record as one of the people who networks with other Christians, as well as with those who aren't Christians, in the community. She's very good at staying in touch with others via social media and a variety of other means of communication, building and maintaining caring friendships regardless of physical location on the planet!
What will she be doing as our Alumni Coordinator? Her goal is to build a network of people who have been involved in Wittenberg Door Campus Ministry in the past. We have a number of people, mostly who came here from other countries, and many of whom have returned to their native countries. They're still part of the Wittenberg Door family! I'm hoping Weiping can help us all know about important milestones in the lives of our "graduates." How are the children doing? How are the careers going? What are people publishing? What have they been doing since they were in Columbia? Are they sending more people in this direction?
Networking like this helps people from our past meet people from our present, as well. Who knows what doors can be opened in lives when we make friends with others who have similar interests? Who knows when one person's milestone will bring encouragement and inspiration to someone else? The possibilities are virtually endless. It even crosses my mind that as we bring people with similar specialties together, sometime in the future we might even have special live or virtual seminars, discussions, or other collaborative efforts.
Drawing our alumni together is something we've never done in a systematic way. We've got about ten years of catching up to do. We'll be pulling information about people from Wittenberg Door's past together, and Pastor Spotts will be helping Weiping get in contact with our alumni. We plan to set up a special password-protected area at www.wittenbergcomo.com for our alumni in the near future. We hope to get some conversation going using WhatsApp as well.
I'm excited about the possibilities here! I look forward to what Weiping can do as she helps us stay in touch!
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