In 1999 Bill and Cherry Ritchey officially started the World Missions Academy. After 15 years of teaching Missions and Church History in a theological seminary in Venezuela, they felt the Lord leading them to branch out and offer the same type of training in missions that they had offered through the seminary, but now in a format and at a level that would allow this training to be given to and through the local church, thus facilitating the equipping of a much broader population base.

That same year saw the opening of the WMA’s pilot program in Gilgal Evangelical Free Church, the Ritchey’s local church in Venezuela. This pilot program accomplishes three key objectives.

• It supplies training in missions for this local church’s leaders, its congregation, neighboring churches, and future missionaries.
• It gives the WMA an on-site, hands-on proving ground for testing and perfecting its materials and courses.
• It provides the WMA with a sounding board, formed by the program’s advanced students, that offers leadership, strategy, counsel, and support to the WMA.

This pilot program continues to function today as our senior study center.

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