Story-telling at the A Rocha Leaders’ Forum - A Rocha InternationalA Rocha International

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Story-telling at the A Rocha Leaders’ Forum

Ruth Padilla DeBorst (Barbara Mearns)

In June, the A Rocha Forum in Portugal brought together team leaders from around the world for an inspiring week. The theme was ‘Sharing our stories’, through workshops, conversations, songs, photos and videos. Each team also displayed a poster describing one of their projects, as diverse as surveying invertebrates in Swiss dry meadows, mitigating human-elephant conflict in South India, assessing degradation trends of urban wetlands in Uganda and initiating community-led predator control to restore seabird populations in New Zealand.

Sandra sang of life, loss and longing from her latest collection, Psalms. (Chris Walley)

Because A Rocha is a distinctively Christian organization, we spent time worshipping God and praying together, considering how our faith and commitments shape A Rocha’s direction and growth. We took encouragement from the profound and deeply relevant teaching of Ruth Padilla DeBorst, who has been involved in leadership development and theological education in Latin America for many years. Ruth covered conservation-related biblical themes such as God’s purposes for creation and the present need for lament. If you would like a little taste of the week, do listen to Ruth: there are several interviews on the internet, including this one. You can also enjoy Sandra McCracken, a singer-songwriter who is part of the Nashville A Rocha group and who led much of our worship.