I woke up halfway and turned over in my bed. Glancing at the clock I read, “2:30 AM”. Wow! Ken sure was getting to bed late. But if you live in India, it was midday and time to be working!
Ken had just finished connecting with some of our co-workers who live halfway around the world. They were interested in learning more about the help desk program called “Spiceworks” that Ken and Wycliffe Associates have been using. It’s free and an effective tool for managing technical support needs, increasingly more important as we, and our national colleagues, rely on computers and computers systems for our daily lives. Could this program be a good fit for them?
Ken’s boss asked him if he’d be willing to do a training session for some of the staff in India and a time was set – 9:30 AM India time. Since the East Coast of the US is 9.5 hours behind India, Ken stayed up late the night before so he could remotely connect with our Indian colleagues.
Sometimes we need to connect with people from home.
At 12:15 AM he made a connection with them. Using Skype for audio and Bomgar remote control for video, he configured the program for presentation mode enabling the staff in India to view his laptop. He demonstrated how Spiceworks works and answered their many questions. Skype dropped the audio connection at 1:45 AM and rather than our Indian colleagues attempting to reconnect, they sent Ken the following chat text –
“Go to bed, Ken. It’s 2:30 AM there and we have a good idea where we’re headed with this program. Thanks for your help.” Ken crawled into bed tired but satisfied knowing that he helped a partner Bible translation organization with their tech needs while helping them become one step to sustainability.
With Ken’s education background, teaching comes naturally. In fact, it’s fun! When you use the gifts that come naturally for you, it doesn’t even feel like work.
And so a connection was made…literally and figuratively, with a new group of people that we may have a long-term relationship with. Thank you for enabling us to connect with others each day as we serve with Wycliffe!
The Haugh Herald 