Season of Thanks

As some of you may already know, BMS had a baseline carbon footprint audit performed in 2019. Since I took on the creation stewardship role in 2021, and being reasonably familiar with spreadsheets and managing data sets, this included updating the audit each year. This allows us to track our footprint year-on-year, and gives us a way of trying to quantify the inevitable environmental impacts of our operations, so that we can work on reducing them and mitigating them through positive actions - like supporting agroforestry in Uganda, eco-stoves in Peru and solar panels in Bangladesh.

The largest single category of our footprint has always been our travel, yes! particularly all our international travel. This is inevitable for the type of work BMS does, yet I'm pleased to report that our travel footprint in 2025 continued on its downward trend since 2022. We also track our electricity and gas use at Baptist House, which is also on a consistent downward trend, thanks to the solar panels on the roof (which are almost 10 years old) and the installation of LED lighting throughout the building and car park.

2025 was also a good year for supporter donations to the Eco Challenge Fund, through which we provide grants for those environmentally positive projects. Thank you! Thank you for being part of this ministry and thank you for considering your own carbon footprint (or that of your church) and how to reduce and mitigate it. If you haven't found the relevant page on the BMS website yet, you can find it here: https://bmsworldmission.org/carbon-calculator or search for 'Carbon Calculator'.

This first quarter of the year has also been busy with church speaking engagements, which I continue to enjoy doing as it's an opportunity to get out into the Baptist community, to share with others about BMS's creation stewardship work but also to receive feedback and hear what others are also doing. So far I have mainly visited churches here in South Wales, with the single exception of the South East and Thames group Good Friday Mission Breakfast, hosted this year by Trinity Baptist Church, Bexleyheath, Kent. To my surprise and relief, the trains ran faultlessly on both legs of the journey across the country and back again. My hosts were also faultlessly hospitable, including the church where they took me for my first ever Maundy Thursday fellowship supper and those who woke up very early on Good Friday to prepare the breakfast we shared at Trinity before I spoke. Thank you to all the preparers and servers of food over Easter!

In my last letter, I also mentioned a programme I now co-lead for the International Baptist Theological Study Centre (IBTS). We have now re-named the programme, 'Creation Care and the Gospel' and re-launched it, effective this week (20th April) with both a webinar and a podcast. For the curious amongst you, the podcast is released as part of IBTS's Theo Talks podcast series and can be found on Spotify. In it, Aline and I are introducing ourselves and the programme and generally speaking on the theology, practice and relevance of creation care for Christians today.

Sadly, you have already missed the webinar which was a smorgasbord of real stories and freely available resources all on the topic of how to engage your church with creation. We had contributors from the UK's Baptist Union Environment Network sharing on their experiences of Forest Church and running a Climate Sunday event - amongst others. As well as the director from A Rocha Netherlands (IBTS's physical base is in Amsterdam) sharing about their resources and activities for church engagement and the various European versions of the eco-church scheme. We had 16 participants, 17 if I'm included, as I would have gone even if I hadn't been the organizer!

This is a really positive start for the programme but we are keenly aware that engagement from mainland Europe is still a significant challenge. We have two more free webinars scheduled for the rest of the year, as well as a 4-week online course in the Autumn.

Watch this space: https://www.ibts.eu/programmes/learning-network/eco-crisis-and-the-gospel

Finally, I fulfilled an aspiration from my personal bucket list during the Easter break when I climbed Pen y Fan, the highest point in South Wales at 886m, with my sister, her dog and a rucksack of snacks. It was a gloriously sunny day and I can't wait to get back out into the Bannau Brycheiniog National Park. It's not quite the Andes, but the footpaths are more clearly marked!

Thank you for your prayers and please do continue to pray for:

- The solar installation at the College of Christian Theology, Bangladesh, which is still being completed after some unforeseen delays.

- On-going discussions about a new eco stove project in Peru after the initial plan to work in an Andean community has now changed to a plan to work in an Amazonian indigenous community.

- The Creation Care and the Gospel programme and making new connections within the diverse Baptist family of mainland Europe.

Thank you!

Love Laura x