Re-Rooting

After enjoying a bit of a slow-down at the end of Home Assignment in July, I officially started the UK-based role at the start of August. There were still several tasks running over from the Peruvian side of things, including tidying up the eco stove first-round of monitoring data to be sent over to Climate Stewards and writing an article on 'my time as a mission worker in Peru' for the Peruvian Baptist women's magazine - in Spanish, of course. It has felt good to return to these familiar tasks after the whirlwind of church visits and the growing reality of my relocation to the UK!

Then my attention was reoriented to the future, especially as September was due to be a busy month. At the start of September I was honoured to be able to attend the Senana Conference, a Welsh Baptist women's bilingual gathering held at Coleg Trefeca, near Brecon, as a BMS speaker. It was strongly reminiscent of the women's conferences I attended in Peru, where I didn't always understand what was being said either(!) but everyone was always welcoming and I would gradually become more and more aware of the incredible wealth of embodied knowledge and experience in the room through humble little conversations over tea and at mealtimes (photo below).

After this brief sojourn in mid Wales, I flew to Sofia, Bulgaria for a 'Learning-Centred Teaching' training course, hosted by BMS partner, the International Baptist Theological Study Centre (IBTS), for whom I lead the Eco-crisis and the Gospel programme. There, with IBTS's administrative team, the other programme leads and project team members and two of my own colleagues from BMS (including Levino Liegise, all the way from India), we enjoyed what these days seems like the luxury of being in the same rooms together for learning, collaborating and meals for the best part of four days. For me, this was the first time of physically meeting the IBTS team or any of the other programme leads in three years of working 'together'. The value of talking, even seriously talking...together, over a meal, shouldn't be understated for diffusing frustrations, fostering solidarity and putting the humanity back into the otherwise electronic back-and-forth of our normal communications.

Even more value was added to the time in Sofia as we had to complete small group projects and do a learning-centred teaching demo. For this I was grouped with Levino and Roger (my Capacity and Cross-Cutting team leader) which also proved to be an invaluable opportunity to work together and get to know one another better as BMS co-workers (next photo).

If you're wondering what 'learning-centred teaching' refers to, it's essentially about designing adult educational activities in such a way to maximise and diversify the participation of the learner with the subject matter, whilst the teacher takes a more facilitatory rather than directly didactic role in the classroom. Although the Eco-crisis online course was designed along these lines, I came to realise that most of the other IBTS programmes were not. Thankfully there was a lot of goodwill amongst us and we also had an enjoyable time of (participatory) learning together.

Some very good news about the Eco-crisis programme is that I have been joined on the project team by Aline Nussbaumer, doubling the project team size to two! Aside from being married to one of my regular co-tutors for the online course, Aline is based in France, she volunteers with A Rocha France, studies theology and is on the A Rocha International Theology and Churches working group. She facilitated the Eco-crisis webinar, 'Woven in Green' earlier this year and although we have not yet met in the flesh, I'm very excited to be working with her.

Other recent highlights have been: the Baptist Perspectives on Science and Religion, at Regent's Park College, Oxford, a timely moment to reflect on the role of science and the scientific worldview on the practice of missions and intercultural learning. It was a valuable opportunity to reconnect with Baptist Union Environment Network (BUEN) convenors, Hannah Gray and David Gregory, who were both presenting papers on the subject of church engagement with environmental issues.

Back in the 'home office' I've been working with my colleagues from Church Engagement and Communications, as well as our partners from Nepal and Bangladesh, on BMS's annual Climate COP30 campaign (November 10-21). Amongst other things, we're currently planning a Listening Webinar as we try to engage honestly and hopefully with the impacts of poor creation stewardship, including climate change, on the lives and families of our brothers and sisters around the world. If this sounds interesting to you, watch this space! Otherwise, what will you be doing at your church as the rest of the world focusses on this issue next month? You can check out the Creation Stewardship 'bundle' on the BMS website for our 'Hope for Creation' resources.

Please pray for Aline and I as we work to get to know one another via Zoom and email over the coming months and to be able to build on our shared passion and vision for both sound creation stewardship theology and meaningful practical. We are hoping to run some webinars early next year and possibly re-write the online course which has been the staple of the Eco-crisis programme for the last three years.

I would also appreciate your prayer for me as I continue to re-root myself here in the UK and specifically here in Porthcawl, South Wales for the first time. I'm pleased to be getting involved with my local Baptist church and delighted to have joined a local church choir. I'm confident that the Lord has directed me to this particular church and I continue to ask for his discernment to know where best to apply my energies - there is always plenty to do!

Many thanks to all of you who expressed a desire to keep hearing from me and praying for me and the work of BMS. Your prayer are highly valued and greatly needed!

Love Laura x