I Zoomed from Kansas City to South Korea

Last week I had the amazing privilege of teaching this wonderful group of students at Word of Life Bible Institute on Jeju Island in South Korea. Marlene and I originally planned to travel to South Korea so I could teach them in person, but the coronavirus changed all that. So I ended up teaching them live over the internet using Zoom technology. That meant I could stay at home in Shawnee, Kansas, and by the miracle of Zoom, I could teach Galatians (plus two chapel services) for 12 hours last week.

I taught from 6-10 PM Tu-Thursday. Because of the 14-hour time difference, that meant the students were taking my class from 8 AM-12 Noon each day. Even though we were separated by 8000 miles, we had a blast studying Galatians together.

Here’s the picture I saw on my screen. The students come from Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam, Haiti, Singapore, the Bahamas, Brazil, and the US. They were bright, eager, inquisitive, and a joy to teach.

Here’s the set-up I used. I put the PowerPoint on the screen to the left. Then I had my iPad with teaching notes on the higher platform with the Blue Yeti microphone next to it. On the right you can the laptop that I used to actually teach the class. Our son Mark taught Psalms by Zoom to these students in early February. He told me I needed to stand up to generate enough energy. That turned out to be good advice. I discovered you can’t do a typical lecture if you want to get your point across. You’ve got to use all your energy so your message survives the 8000-mile distance between KC and Jeju.

I thought it was one of the best weeks I ever had teaching at the BI. I hope to be there in person next year, but I’m grateful for the technology that made it possible for me to teach Galatians from my office at home to a classroom in Asia.