Stanley Baya is the Community Conservation Manager with A Rocha Kenya, having worked for the organization since 2001, initially as Environmental Education Officer. He is married to Carol, who also works at Mwamba, as National Administrator. They have a son, Jordan, and another child will be born any day soon. They live nearby in Gede, where Stanley grew up, with Giriama as his mother tongue. Stanley loves to see people happy, and is very good at making them laugh!
Kenya has been in the news this month because of the massacre at Garissa University. Supporters have been asking about any impact here on the coast, where A Rocha has its field study centre, Mwamba. We feel perfectly safe here and are keen to welcome visitors.
The tent was dark but warm inside, a simple wood stove providing a flickering light. The bitter, piping-hot coffee was in an elaborate brass pot. Most of the year they lived in Homs in Syria but each spring, and sometimes in the autumn, they would get the tent out of storage and make the trek to the Bekaa for extra work.
St Helena is a sobering place to ecological eyes. In the early 17th century the Portuguese landed goats and in a hundred years they had reduced huge areas of lush landscape to bare rock. In the centuries that followed, we have made the world itself an island where the goats of hyper-individualism, corporate greed and short-term political ambition are roaming more or less unchecked.
After explaining that I was going to be the new science teacher at the large secondary school in the valley (which seemed to explain my weird views on animal life), I was escorted by a gaggle of boys and young men into the wetland proper, on the trail of Yusef.
Taking care of creation is sometimes more than mere words and issues. For some, it is a matter of life and death. Such was the case for Honduran preacher and community leader José Matilde Bonilla.
After three years and 36 blogs, I’m taking a short break from writing for Planetwise, so it seems appropriate to conclude this series with Jesus. So let’s turn for a moment and ask who Jesus was and is in relation to the whole created order.
The “reality” of the situation is grim. But, like a figure-ground image, what we first see isn’t all there is. Viewed with human eyes, the challenges facing the planet look insurmountable. The eyes of faith, however, see a different picture; they see more.
The Magnificat is often associated with beautiful, traditional music, but this can conceal the passionate words of a young teenager who is full of radical hopes for a new world order (…) In his mercy, God will overthrow proud rulers, reject the wealthy and complacent and raise up the poor, rejected and marginalized.
Those familiar with A Rocha know that Peter, Pavel and Dave—with their better halves Miranda, Radka and Anne; countless volunteers; and a handful of dedicated staff—also built A Rocha International, Czech and UK, respectively. What struck me that day in the blind was how they did it.
The book of Jonah is short and contains just one story. It’s usually interpreted as reminding us we can’t run away from God, and as showing the Gospel as good news of God’s desire to forgive the sin of people who genuinely turn to him. All this is clearly there, but there’s more to Jonah and to the Gospel than this suggests.
