Following is a Jan 22nd article from the Presbyterian News Service about the Sunday School by Skype class that I led from Honduras for a church in Pennsylvania. 

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January 22, 2010

Skyping out the mission field

PC(USA) missionary to teach PA Sunday school class from Honduras

BY JERRY L. VAN MARTER
PRESBYTERIAN NEWS SERVICE

The Wright family (left to right): Ethan, Ashley, Elliott, Mark, Gabriel.

LOUISVILLE — This Sunday (Jan. 24), Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) missionary to Honduras Mark Wright will teach a Sunday school class at Second Presbyterian Church of Carlisle, Pa.

Without leaving his home in Tegucigalpa, the capital city of Honduras.

According to Vicki Lantz, director of Christian education at Second Church. Wright will be at his home computer in Tegucigalpa, connected via audio and video to his “class” in Carlisle by Skype, the free Internet-based communication tool.

He has titled his presentation “Where Do We Start?” because, he says, “that’s the first thing I asked myself about this class.”   

Wright and his wife, Ashley, and their three children, have been in Honduras since July 2009. They are the first Presbyterian mission workers to serve with the Presbyterian Church of Honduras. Mark Wright will tell his Carlisle students about the family’s new life in Honduras and the situation of the very poor Presbyterian churches in that country.

The Wrights’ work is primarily leadership training and theological formation — promoting congregational self-sufficiency in the Honduran context. They also nurture and resource the PC(USA)’s network of churches involved in mission in Honduras.

The Presbytery of Carlisle has been working on a partnership with the Presbyterian Church of Honduras. Carlisle Presbytery has a number of congregations in direct relationship with the Wrights and with Tim and Gloria Wheeler, also in Honduras.  

The Wrights’ position was created as a result of conversations between the presbytery, led by the Rev. Mark England-Kreiger, the Honduran church and Presbyterian World Mission officials in Louisville.

“Skype is cutting edge technology for a Sunday School class, and Second Pres is very excited to be one of the first churches in the Carlisle Presbytery to bring our missionaries into the classroom in real time,” Lantz told the Presbyterian News Service.