In 1938 the Lord gave Ed Harlow, a young missionary in the Belgian Congo, a desire to establish a Bible school in North America. Shortly after, Harlow left his mission station and traveled to Toronto, Canada where, in 1941, he (along with John Smart and Ernest Tatham) founded Emmaus Bible School. During the first year of classes, 144 students enrolled to study God's Word.

After that first year, it became obvious that many other people wanted to learn from the solid Bible teaching that Emmaus Bible School offered. However, not everyone could attend the school in Toronto. So, the Lord led Harlow and Smart to create correspondence courses from the curriculum being taught at Emmaus. The first three studies offered were Doctrine, New Testament, and Child Study. Within a few months, 137 students (from Alberta to New Jersey) were reading and studying the Bible lessons. The Correspondence School continued to grow, and by 1948, 17 titles were available, with over 2,000 studies distributed. At that time, the school moved to Oak Park, Illinois.

By 1965, more than 35 titles were available, three million courses had been distributed worldwide, and 80 languages had at least one course in print. In 1977, William MacDonald wrote the study “Born to Win.” This course (specifically written to address issues relating to those incarcerated) was an instrumental tool that led to many of our studies being used in prisons across the U.S. Our presence in prisons across the U.S. continues to this day.

In 2002, now located in Dubuque, Iowa, ECS Ministries became an independent ministry. In 2020, we rebranded as Emmaus Worldwide. Today, over 80 years after the Correspondence School was founded, with over 63,000,000 studies distributed in over 100 countries in over 80 languages, our mission remains clear: to glorify God by providing biblically sound resources and structured study materials that teach people from every nation to accept Christ as their Savior and Lord, grow in Christ, and share their faith with others.