It was an exciting discovery for me, during the worst periods of covid, with its shutdowns of many churches across the world, that there were many churches using livestreaming and video meeting rooms to continue connecting with their members.
I found two Zoom English-speaking Sabbath School classes in Brazil where I felt particularly comfortable and included. Even though I knew none of the members personally, they made me feel welcome and valued. At first, it felt odd that everyone in Sabbath School had an accent, until it dawned on me that actually, to them, I was the only one with an accent—an American English accent!
When churches started having their services in person again, these classes, where I no longer felt like a “visitor”, continued to meet online. There were obviously many of us who, for various reasons, would find church attendance either too risky for their health, or the health of their loved ones. Besides, it was an adventurous feeling to “attend” Sabbath School with people in different parts of the world. You could be from anywhere and not feel left out.
I was eventually able to attend my local church in person from time to time, probably less often than most, because of my particular pulmonary issues, which demanded I be more cautious with such a death-producing pathogen.
This fall, when I was fully vaccinated and able to attend live services again, I felt disappointed that I would miss one of the Brazil classes because they would be meeting during the same time as my local church would be having Sabbath School.
But then another happy thought occurred to me. Why couldn’t I go to both classes virtually? The time difference would work, but only while we were still on daylight savings time where I live in Nebraska. The Brazil church fortunately had their church service before Sabbath School, which also helped the time difference to work out.
So, one Sabbath in October, two Sabbath School classes on different continents were able to meet each other virtually and have our Bible study discussion with each other in real time. The Seventh-day Adventist church never felt more global to us than on that Sabbath. We truly are a world-wide movement of like-minded believers!
