Globetrotting in the Pandemic

How does a “global consultant” serve, when “globetrotting” is out the window and out of the question?

I would bet that the answer is, “Probably a lot like you!”

Some of my work has continued just the same as before.  Some has been radically transformed.  Some has been postponed for… “later.”  Though, honestly, nearly six months later, it is anybody’s guess when that “later” will become “now.”

In the “just the same” category is the international teaching I have been doing as part of the partnership between International Ministries, American Baptist Home Mission Societies, Palmer Theological Seminary and several Latin American seminaries.  Over the last five years, this partnership has provided an online Master of Theological Studies program to Spanish and Portuguese speaking students throughout the hemisphere.  I began the year with a group of students from Brazil, Bolivia and Mexico, continued in late spring with a group from Mexico and Ecuador.  This week I begin new group, with students from the U.S., Mexico and Brazil.  I am grateful for the chance to continue training leaders for churches throughout the hemisphere, even while unable to join them physically.

In the “radically transformed” category is… more teaching, planning and coordination and pastoral care.  The intensive course in the Gospel of John that I was scheduled to do in South Asia in April has turned into an opportunity to do parallel one-on-one mentoring with students dispersed in villages with poor connectivity… via WhatsApp text messages.  That is a radical change.  And, what should have concluded in May, is still continuing!  

Given the adjustments your own local church has been making, it may not surprise you to know that online tools have been just as important for my local service, as for work throughout the hemisphere and on the other side of the globe.  In June and July I taught an adult Sunday School class in John’s Gospel for our local congregation—entirely online.

Zoom, Teams, Skype, Facetime and Webex have also been crucial for pastoral counseling work and for sessions devoted to planning, coordination and mutual encouragement.  In all of them, it has been hard to shift from previous habits and patterns in the world of physical contact, to new patterns in cyberspace.  Still, I have been grateful to be in the pandemic of 2020, instead of the pandemic of 1918.  How on earth did they cope?

With a number of partners around the world, I am engaged in an ongoing effort to discern when it will be possible to reschedule visits, courses and events that had to be postponed.  A couple of weeks ago, a multi-national planning group discerned the need to postpone yet again, a vitally important event that was originally scheduled for March 2020, then February 2021, and now…?  You probably feel a deep need for wisdom and patience as you do planning for your church and your family.  I and the groups with which I serve need lots of the same!

I suspect that, in the midst of the coping and adjusting, I suspect you may have discovered—or rediscovered—soul-nourishing practices that were not part of your pre-COVID routines.  I have been reading both Black and White authors on the reality and history of race issues in America, in the American church and in American theologies.  That continues to be hard, but very important to me (reading list available on request).  As I found myself walking outside rather than working out in a gym, I also dedicated more time to photography—especially of flowers and tiny creatures.  As COVID-19 ravaged (and ravages) the land, new life was bursting forth aall around me.  Sharing what I was seeing and recording turned out to be a source of encouragement for others, and a source of worship backgrounds and program graphics for still others. (If you have not seen anything posted on my Facebook page, you can find the photos at https://unsplash.com/@rofostan and also at https://www.flickr.com/photos/sladephotos/albums/72157713597966127.)

My prayer is that you will experience God’s nearness, even as we are physically distanced from one another, and that the Lord will enable you to see encouraging beauty and opportunities for service, even in quite unexpected ways.