Weaving a community of learning and care: The Latin American Biblical University Online during the pandemic

Abstract

The Latin American Biblical University (UBL) was one of the first institutions in Costa Rica to offer distance education. As the UBL moved to online education, it adopted a community of inquiry model. In the context of the pandemic, the UBL developed this model further with innovative educational experiences and a focus on intercontextual education in real time. In addition, online support groups helped students cope with the stress of the pandemic and modeled new forms of pastoral care.

In 2022, our institution celebrated one-hundred years of providing theological education in Latin America. What today is the Latin American Biblical University (Universidad Bíblica Latinoamericana – UBL) was birthed by a faith mission with a continent-wide vision to spread an evangelical version of the gospel. In October 1921, Harry and Susan Strachan arrived in Costa Rica to establish the headquarters of the Latin America Evangelization Campaign. They believed the small Central American republic provided the perfect launching point for taking evangelistic campaigns to countries throughout Latin America. ¹

From the beginning, the Strachans realized that the task of evangelizing Latin America as well as building up the churches which resulted from such evangelistic outreach required the training of Latin Americans. In October 1922, the Women's Bible Training School opened in San Jose with five students from El Salvador and Costa Rica. Initially, classes in Bible and other subjects were offered during the evangelistic campaigns organized on a country-wide level. Though women generally were not barred from participating in these courses taught by Harry Strachan and local evangelical leaders, it was considered more appropriate for women to receive training in a stationary setting. Soon however, men also wanted the opportunity to take part in a multi-year study process in San Jose. The eight Nicaraguan men who arrived in August 1924 became the first male students at the institution renamed the Biblical Institute of Costa Rica. ²

Distance Education in the History of the UBL

For nearly 90 years of our century of existence, distance learning has been part of the institution's educational outreach. The evangelistic campaigns attracted people to the particular theological vision promoted by the Bible Institute of Costa Rica, but not everyone had the luxury of being able to travel to Costa Rica and spend several years. The Mensajero Bíblico, the magazine published by the Bible Institute beginning in 1926 and circulated throughout Latin America, also fomented interest in theological studies (Randal, 2001: 98). The question became how to respond to this growing demand.

The Bible Institute of Costa Rica offered the first correspondence courses in 1934. Thus, the Bible Institute became one of the first institutions in the country to implement distance learning, though as Edgar Salgado has recently pointed out, this has seldom been recognized in the official histories of distance education in Costa Rica (Salgado, 2017). Materials prepared and printed in San Jose, 12 modules divided in 4 units, were mailed to men and women in different countries. Each module contained exercises that students were to write and send into San Jose to be graded. Students earned certificates for each course they passed as well as a certificate at the end of the 12 courses. Courses by correspondence opened the possibilities for theological education beyond those who served as pastors or church leaders. The registration forms for these courses in the historical archives of the UBL report vocations as varied as medical doctors, farmers, mechanics, and housekeeping, among many others (Pérez, 2015: 176).

The courses by correspondence continued when the Bible Institute became the Latin American Biblical Seminary (Seminario Bïblico Latinoamericano – SBL) in 1941. The name reflected the higher academic level of the courses offered as well as the continental focus of the institution. By the decade of the 1950s, the number of students enrolled in courses by correspondence reached 434 (Salgado, 2017). In contrast, there were only 45 students taking classes in San Jose in 1950 (Pérez, 2015: 172). In 1963, the SBL began offering university-level bachelor's degrees to people studying in Costa Rica, but the correspondence courses carried on much the same. Though the correspondence courses reached a greater number of people than the residential program, little research has been done to track the impact of these courses and the people who participated in them.

In the 1960s, the Latin America Mission, the name taken in 1939 by the mission agency to which the SBL belonged, sought to “latinize” the structures of the institutions it had founded. For the SBL, this meant not only incorporating more Latin Americans into its faculty, but also efforts to engage more fully with the Latin American context. Already new theological impulses were surging throughout the continent as both Catholics and Protestants began to ask why so much of the population remained poor after decades of economic development and to propose new ways of doing theology. In its endeavor to train future church leaders to respond to the social crises in Latin America, the SBL found an ally in the ecumenical movement, specifically the Theological Education Fund (TEF) of the World Council of Churches. ³

The SBL became independent from the Latin America Mission in 1971. This institutional autonomy coincided with the third mandate period of the TEF (1970–1977) and its emphasis on the contextualization of theological education around the world. As part of its contextualization strategy, the SBL reorganized its distance program. In 1976, the SBL launched its Diversified Distance Program (Programa Diversificado a Distancia – PRODIADIS). The program was inspired in part by the movement for Theological Education by Extension (TEE). This movement has its genesis at the Evangelical Presbyterian Seminary in Guatemala in the early 1960s as professors there wrestled with the problem of how to provide theological education across that country's multiple cultural contexts. The TEE model combined printed materials with an inductive methodology, small group discussions, and the incorporation of practical experience in ministry. ⁴ PRODAIDIS offered a flexible academic program that allowed students to combine a number of educational modalities in their path toward a bachelor's degree in theology or pastoral ministry, the same level of degrees as offered in San Jose. Such modalities included distance courses offered by the SBL and courses offered by local institutions as well as a process for assigning academic credit for practical experiences in ministry. As PRODIADIS expanded, the SBL developed relationships with a series of institutions throughout Latin America who offered PRODAIDIS courses using materials provided by the SBL (Pérez, 2015: 115).

In 1997, the SBL became the UBL, an institution of higher learning recognized by the Costa Rican government. The university has two schools, a School of Theological Sciences and a School of Biblical Sciences, each of which offer bachelor's, licentiate and master's degrees. The decentralized model of the new university sought to combine the strengths of the SBL's residential and distance programs. Students were able to do the majority of their studies for their bachelor's degrees within their own contexts. Various institutions around Latin America functioned as branches of the UBL, offering UBL courses with materials provided by the UBL. Faculty members of the UBL also traveled to the various branches to offer intensive courses. Students who did not live close to an institution offering UBL courses had the option of taking distance courses directly with the UBL. During periods of study in residence in Costa Rica of varying lengths, students were able to interact with UBL faculty as well as students from other cultural contexts and ecclesial experiences in a classroom. Time in Costa Rica also allowed students to study and do research in the Enrique Strachan library (Pérez, 2015: 125–128).

Journey Toward Online Education

By 2012, 270 women and men had earned degrees from the UBL. During that same period, hundreds more throughout Latin America had taken UBL courses at one of the regional study centers. In that year, the Ministry of Public Education in Costa Rica determined that there was no basis in Costa Rican law that allowed the UBL to provide academic credit for courses held outside of national territory. Even before the government's decision eliminated the possibility of working with branches outside of Costa Rica, the decentralized model was showing some strain. A growing number of institutions around Latin America were beginning to offer university degrees in theology, which gave people more options for theological studies. Due to shifting priorities and limited resources of several donating agencies, the scholarship funds on which the residency program depended were diminishing.

However, the UBL remained committed to providing theological education to people through Latin America and the Caribbean. The UBL was still authorized to offer distance courses. Students registered directly through the UBL. Once again, course materials were sent through the mail or carried by hand by people who were traveling. Students submitted coursework via email. In the next step, digitized materials were placed on our server. Students were sent a link which allowed them to download the course readings. For people in places without easy access to the internet and e-mail, course materials could be copied onto a CD and sent. At times, direct contact was made by professors with individual students via Skype, but there was as of yet no way for students to interact with each other.

At this time, online education was just beginning in Costa Rica. Our team explored the available options for an online platform and settled on Moodle, an advanced and complete platform that is user-friendly. Faculty members received some initial training in how to use the spaces and tools on the platform to develop courses. Looking back, our first courses were lackluster affairs for small groups of students, with the platform serving to distribute digitized course materials and receive student work. Neither students nor faculty had yet developed the skills and discipline to use interactive tools such as forums. The platform did provide a framework that allowed professors to structure interactions with students.

As the UBL began moving our education offerings online, we realized that it was not just a question of adopting a new technology. We needed to think carefully about the pedagogical model we wanted to implement online. Inspired by the work of Brazilian educator Paulo Freire, the UBL had long privileged a dialogical pedagogy centered on students and their needs. As the SBL became independent from the Latin America Mission, the institution embraced much of the methodology of Latin American liberation theology. No longer did the SBL seek to transmit to students an imported theology through a banking model of education. Those who came to the SBL to study needed to be able to construct their own theologies in response to the needs of their communities. As a first step, they needed tools with which analyze the social processes that were generating different forms of exclusion in their contexts. Exegetical tools and hermeneutical models allowed students to interpret the biblical texts for themselves. Students were encouraged to elaborate their own theological responses and develop pastoral strategies for transforming their churches and communities. Professors accompanied this process as facilitators of a learning community that together sought to discern God's presence in history and proclaim the good news of God's Reign of justice and peace. Students who came to the classrooms of the UBL from other institutions were often amazed to see professors sitting around a table with students, engaged in dialogue. Students discovered that their experiences and their opinions were an important part of the learning process.

How would it be possible to maintain this pedagogical disposition as courses moved online? Through a process of study and faculty training, the UBL adopted the community of inquiry model. This framework, based on constructivism and collaboration, was developed for online education by Garrison et al. (2000). It continues to be a dialogical model, though the dialogues are mediated by technology in different ways to facilitate learning.

The community of inquiry framework posits the interaction of three presences in an educational experience that supports learning. Social presence refers to the interactions among students and with the professor as they engage together in the process of building a community. Students develop and apply skills in communication and collaboration. Interactions help to develop affective ties among students and with the professors. Cognitive presence refers to course materials, which have diversified far beyond the texts in the original model, as well as the pedagogical mediations for the structured process of inquiry supported by the course materials. This cognitive presence, designed and facilitated by the professor, allows students to develop an understanding of course content in addition to increasing their critical thinking skills. As the teaching presence, the professor designs the course content and structure. As the course begins, the professor facilitates both the social and cognitive processes. As the course progresses, students often become part of the teaching presence, developing and presenting content to each other and taking responsibility for cultivating the interactions of the group. The community of inquiry model requires the active participation of all members of the learning community. Through each course we offered online, we made this model more and more our own.

UBL Online During the Pandemic

However, our pedagogical model came to fruition during the pandemic. We had some classes operating online when the Costa Rican government ordered all universities to suspend in-person classes in mid-March of 2020. Unlike many other universities in the country, we did not have to scramble to figure out how to continue our classes. In some cases, those studying in San Jose were incorporated into existing online courses. In other cases, a new online course was set up for the students in Costa Rica. This change was felt very acutely by students who had recently come from another country to take courses in residency.

When the second term of the academic year started in May, we were surprised by the growing demand for our courses. People who found themselves in lockdown in various countries suddenly had time to study. In the context of the pandemic, it was impossible for churches to operate as they had been doing. In addition, many long-held theological certainties suddenly seemed a lot less certain. Perhaps theology would be able to provide some new answers. With the support of our donating agencies, we were able to redirect our scholarship funds, usually designated for room and board as well as academic fees for students in residence, to provide scholarships to cover the cost of online courses. To accommodate large classes sizes and provide personalized attention, we incorporated advanced students as teaching assistants. At the same time, some students living in Costa Rica decided to suspend their studies until they could return to the classroom.

The pandemic impacted our educational project in various ways. It spurred us to become more creative in our online courses as we sought to engage students more fully in their learning process. It allowed us to provide intercontextual theological education in real time. In response to student needs, we created an online pastoral care program that supported students in their individual contexts while building a stronger international community.

Innovative Educational Experiences

The pandemic forced us to become more innovative in our online courses. It also overcame the last faculty resistance to teaching on our platform. Now we had no alternative. With larger groups of students online, it has become easier to encourage interaction among students.

Imagine the Council of Nicaea held in a digital space. The imperial messenger sent a video invitation to bishops throughout the empire. The participating bishops were instructed to post their arguments to an online forum. They could make submissions in writing, in an audio-recording or in a video. Participants were to respond to each of the postings to evaluate the persuasiveness of the arguments, all under the watchful direction of the emperor. Though the online version was not quite as theatrical as reenactments done in the classroom, students were able to offer much more developed arguments.

Another session of the same history of Christianity course asked students to build an online museum dedicated to the Eastern Orthodox churches using a Wiki, a collaborative tool on the Moodle platform. Groups of students, each working under a designated student curator, explored the history and current situation of the Coptic Church, the Syrian Orthodox Church of Antioch and related churches, the Eastern Syrian Orthodox Church, the Armenian Church, or the Church of Ethiopia. Students combined maps, images, texts and videos found on the internet with materials of their own production. The technical director, in this case my student assistant, send out digital tickets for the opening of the museum to the entire university community. Students and visitors alike were encouraged to leave their comments in the visitors’ book.

In a course on the Pentateuch, students created a mural in a Wiki that compared the Biblical accounts of conquest with contemporary situations using images combined with short comments. An important part of the decolonial turn here in Latin America requires an examination of how Biblical texts have been and continue to be invoked to justify invasion and colonization.

Forums continue to be the primary tool for online interaction. Larger groups of students create opportunities for more active participation. In some courses, students have been appointed, on a rotating basis, to monitor a small group in a given forum. This includes posting questions to generate debate and discussion, responding to the contributions of group members, and providing a synthesis of the group's discussion for the whole class. This is just one of the ways students have been taking more responsibility for their learning process and becoming part of the teaching presence.

The suspension of in-person classes and the isolation brought on the pandemic made us aware of the need to add a synchronic component to our online courses. We did this by adding weekly or biweekly Zoom sessions to our courses. Not all of the people who are taking courses with the UBL have reliable access to the internet or a work schedule that allows them to participate in Zoom sessions. Our students are spread out across many time zones, including Latin Americans who for one reason or another find themselves now living in Spain or Portugal. For these reasons, we were not able to make Zoom sessions obligatory during the pandemic. Since our courses were taking place through materials and activities on the platform, the Zoom sessions were not used as a space for introducing new content. In general, we were not providing online lectures. Instead, synchronous discussions allowed for a deeper exploration of specific topics. Students were able to voice their questions as well as to receive ideas and encouragement from their professors and each other about where and how to seek answers. Zoom sessions also served to build community, allowing students in Costa Rica to get to know students in other countries.

From Contextual to Intercontextual Theological Education

From the time the SBL became independent of the Latin America mission, contextualized theological education has been a hallmark of our institution. We have strived to provide theological training that responds to the needs of communities throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, especially the demands of groups that have been excluded from circles of power in society and in the churches. Though we encouraged students to analyze their own local contexts and construct theologies in response to their own contexts, on an institutional level we often referred to our context in broad terms like “Latin America and the Caribbean.”

There were intercontextual aspects to the decentralized model of the UBL at the time it received government authorization as a university. As had been true from the beginning of the institution, students brought perspectives and experiences from their different contexts into the classrooms in San Jose. Community life in the student residence provided many opportunities for learning about each other's cultures. As UBL professors traveled to the centers in different countries to offer intensive courses, they were able to get a taste of a variety of contexts.

Online education allows us to work intercontextually in real time. The students connect on Zoom from their own contexts. Students appear not just as faces on a screen. Their homes and settings come with them to a certain extent, and we learn about the conditions in which each of us lives. A single bare lightbulb hanging from a beam under a tin roof above a computer screen communicates about living conditions in ways mere words cannot describe. Sometimes a student has to carry his cellphone to a spot up on a hillside to get to where the internet signal is strong enough to connect.

By connecting information and analysis of what is happening in specific contexts around Latin America, we are able to deepen our reflection. For example, in a recent course on climate justice, students pasted into a Wiki images and media reports of the impacts of climate change in the areas where they live. The resulting document not only showed how widespread and varied the impacts of climate change are at the local level. It also encouraged students to realize that their communities are not the only ones that are suffering. In another Wiki, students in the same course posted information about the organizations and movements working for climate justice in their local and national contexts. Thus, in addition to mapping the problem, we were able to picture the expanding movements for climate justice and ask why the religious communities are not more involved in efforts to protect ecosystems and the human communities within them.

Working online also allowed us to expand our intercontextual connections. During one term in 2021, the various institutions that make up the Latin American Community for Ecumenical Theological Education (CETELA) published a joint list of courses to encourage students to take courses at other institutions. Three of our students took courses through the Theological Community of Mexico. Two students from the Evangelical Association for Theological Education in Peru took a course with the UBL. Our intercontextual connections also reached across the Atlantic Ocean. On two occasions, faculty members and students from the Augustana Hochschule, a seminary of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Bavaria, participated in a month-long unit in one of our courses. In this case, both the faculty members and the students from Germany spoke Spanish. Language differences remain a great challenge for efforts to expand our intercontextual connections.

Before the pandemic, we held quarterly lectures or theological discussions on our campus for a local audience. In recent years, we had begun to transmit these events via Facebook Live or videotape them to present later on our Youtube channel. As the pandemic isolated people in their homes, we felt an urge to offer a space for theological and pastoral reflection on what people were experiencing. We began to hold biweekly seminars online. Topics we explored in 2020 included “Compassion in the Time of Covid” with Juan José Tamayo, “Bodies, Rituals and Grief” with our former president Violeta Rocha, COVID-19's impact on women in Latin America by communications specialist Sharo Rosales, COVID-19 and Pentecostal spirituality with Elizabeth Salazar-Sanzana, among others. Holding these seminars on Zoom allows for dialogue, as participants from different contents have an opportunity to interact with presenters. We also transmitted the seminars on Facebook Live. The videos are available on our Youtube channel or through our Facebook page. In 2021, we moved to a monthly format.

In 2021, our Green Team also began to organize conversations on climate justice online. In these events, students and graduates of the UBL interact with faith-based activists from around Latin America and the Caribbean. An activist from Costa Rica spoke of the impacts in rural communities from the expansion of pineapple production. A speaker from ACT Alliance helped us understand how vulnerability of communities to the impacts of climate change is historically and socially constructed. When a lawyer from Iglesias y Minería (Churches and Mining) in Peru spoke of the environmental and human damages caused by mines in the Andes, a student shared what it is like for her to pastor a church in a community where a mine dominates all local economic activity and people accept environmental degradation with its concomitant health impacts as necessary and inevitable.

Weaving a Community of Care Online

Prior to the pandemic, our student pastoral care office provided support to the students in residence in Costa Rica. As cases of COVID-19 increased throughout Latin America and governments implemented restrictions on people's movements and interactions, faculty members were increasingly in contact with students in different places who were experiencing difficulties either because of illness or due to the economic stress produced by the shutdowns. Initially, a letter went out via email to all students encouraging them to contact the pastoral care office to receive accompaniment. A few students reached out, but not very many. At the same time, the faculty was aware that every one of our students, in one way or another, was being affected by the pandemic.

Online support groups emerged as a strategy to provide pastoral accompaniment to a larger number of people. The pastoral team consisted of our vice president, Dr Edwin Mora, who in a trained psychologist as well as a theologian; Professor Ruth Vindas, director of pastoral care; Mia Umaña, a student with extensive experience in trauma counseling; and Sharo Rosales, the chair of the UBL's board and an expert in communication who has done work with women's groups throughout Latin America. All of the students were invited to join one of the groups. For those who did participate, these groups became an important source of moral support. Students who felt alone realized that other people were having similar experiences such as the illness and death of family members or the loss of employment. They discovered that they were not the only ones feeling helplessness, anger, and despair. Students were able to share with one another the strategies they had found helpful for living in pandemic times. Each group session ended with a time of prayer. The support groups provided an intimate space and drew people together across physical borders (Vindas, 2023). As student Isabel Casilla told me, the support groups provided an opportunity for students to get to know each other as people outside the structure of a course.

The support groups also served an important pedagogical function within our pastoral education. Many of our students are pastors and as such are the ones their congregations and even their families look to for answers and comfort. Church members often look on pastors as superwomen and supermen, persons with an unending supply of power and available every hour of every day to provide care. Several people in the groups mentioned that they did not know how to handle the emotional burden of not knowing what to do to help people. In the support groups, students were able to identify and embrace their own vulnerability. They had permission to talk about the difficulties they were facing as pastors, something many of them had not experienced previously. They were reminded that being a pastor does not mean one has to have all of the answers or provide all of the care that is needed within a congregation. The support groups also served as a model for a strategy pastors could implement within their own congregations to encourage church members to support one another (Vindas, 2023).

The pastoral care office also reached out to students in different ways. Digital cards were sent to students experiencing illness or the death of family members. We tried to mark celebrations as well, such as birthdays and the birth of children. The director of pastoral care also continued to hold individual sessions via Zoom or Whatsapp with students in need. Even when students had to drop out of classes due to illness or for other reasons, the pastoral care office continued in contact with them.

It is this human aspect of caring that distinguishes the UBL. Over and over again, students have mentioned to us that they have not this kind of space or attention in other institutions. We grew much closer as an international community during the pandemic.

Ongoing Challenges and Limitations

Now that the pandemic has been declared over, we find ourselves challenged to carry the learnings we gained through our experiences into our new context. As we continue to develop our pedagogical model and academic offerings to reach greater numbers of people throughout the region and beyond, we face many of the same challenges as before the pandemic.

Synchronicity remains a challenge. What at the beginning of the pandemic served as a response to the deep desire for connection in the midst of isolation has become Zoom overload for many people. As in-person activities resumed a close to normal schedule in many places, activities online also continued. As students and professors we find ourselves overwhelmed by the availability of so much digital content, some of which the UBL itself is producing.

Our efforts to connect online continue to be plagued by weak and vulnerable infrastructure. One night before a Zoom session, I received a note via Whatsapp from a student in Honduras. A truck had struck a light post and taken out the flow of electricity to the entire barrio. Power outrages routinely interfere with our work online even here in Costa Rica. In Peru, where public and private schools were holding classes remotely during the pandemic, the limited capacity of the internet connections left several of our students with insufficient bandwidth to connect via Zoom. A student in Ahuas on the Caribbean coast of Honduras was left without a computer when the flood waters of Hurricane Iota damaged his laptop in November of 2020. All aspects of life, not only theological education, will become more difficult as the effects of climate change are more widely felt and some communities are displaced. The digital gap remains a reality. Despite so much online activity during the pandemic, digital inclusion has not advanced very far. Though our platform is accessible on a variety of devices, it is very difficult to do university-level academic work on a smartphone, though some of our students try.

Along with the digital gap, we are concerned about a growing gender gap that is affecting other institutions of higher learning and not just the UBL. In recent decades, the number of women studying at the UBL has been on par with the number of men. We ended 2019 with 83 students, 41 of whom were women. By the second term of 2020 (May to August), the student body grew to 132, with 58 women and 74 men. In 2021, we had 149 students; only 54 or 36% were women. This trend continued into 2022. Finally, in 2023, it appears the percentage of women relative men in the student body is growing. We know that the pandemic pushed many women out of the labor market. However, we know very little about how the pandemic and its aftermath have affected women's participation in faith communities. Much of the burden of care for those who became ill fell to women, who also had to assume overseeing the education of children who were not able to go to school.

Government regulation and oversight of online education remains a challenge. The National Council for Private Higher Education (CONESUP), the regulatory body that oversees private universities in Costa Rica, has been inconsistent in the criteria it uses to evaluate online programs. After 2 years of the pandemic, CONESUP has been showing some flexibility toward the use of digital bibliography in online courses, as well as openness to a diversity of online and hybrid modalities. Still, the slow bureaucratic processes have not kept up with the technological changes and pedagogical advances in online education.

As the stress caused by the pandemic has eased, the demand for online support groups has ebbed. As a faculty, we remain concerned about the accumulated grief and other losses people experienced and which they have not had an opportunity to process. Our pastoral care office continues to provide accompaniment to individual students at levels higher than before the pandemic. Elected student representatives are also tasked with keeping in contact with students. They refer students who need or request support to the pastoral care office or the appropriate faculty member. The challenge of encouraging persons engaged in pastoral leadership to build support networks for themselves remains. Women pastors, in particular, often feel isolated from one another. Our centenary celebrations allowed us to connect with many women graduates. We are looking for ways to foster networking among women graduates and current students.

We are also offering new opportunities for students to connect online outside of courses. In 2022, we began offering workshops on social action and theology. Students are able to discuss challenges faced by their faith communities and themselves across their diverse contexts on issues such as gender-based violence and environmental justice.

Concluding Thoughts

For the UBL, the future of theological education lies online. Students will still come to Costa Rica from other countries to meet graduation requirements such as the 150 h of volunteer service in-country that the government requires of all persons receiving bachelor's or licentiate degrees. However, students will probably spend less time in residence and the groups will be smaller. Though they will still be welcome to come to Costa Rica to take classes or do research for their theses, it is not required.

Undoubtedly, there is much that is lost by having a less culturally diverse presence on our campus. Wonderful interactions happen, for example, when a Pentecostal pastor and a Roman Catholic nun find themselves sitting next to each other in class. The initial distrust is overcome when they reflect together on what it means to follow Jesus Christ in Latin America today. Online, people can maintain more distance from each other if they choose to do so. It is impossible to replicate online the depth of intercultural learning that takes place by living in the same residential space, smelling the smells of each other's cooking, and discussing theology around the dining room table late into the night. Life in the residence hall was also a space for challenging gender roles, as many of our male students had to cook for themselves for the first time in their lives when they came to study at the UBL.

The UBL will continue to build community as our online offerings expand. Christ has promised to be present wherever two or three are gathered. We believe this applies to our virtual gatherings as well. The Creator God who wove a web of life around this planet continues to weave life. The Triune One, who exists in relationship and as relationship, moves among us, even through the ether of cyberspace, to weave us into relationships with one another.

Author biography

Karla Ann Koll is the director of the School of Theological Sciences of the Latin American Biblical University. Her teaching focuses on the history of Christianity, mission, and eschatology in times of climate change. She holds a PhD from Princeton Theological Seminary in Mission, Ecumenics and the History of Religions, in addition to two master's degrees from Union Theological Seminary in New York City. A mission co-worker of the Presbyterian Church (USA), Dr Koll has served in theological education in Nicaragua, Guatemala and Costa Rica.