Peter and Miranda moved to Portugal in 1983 to establish and run A Rocha’s first field study centre. Together with their four children they lived at the centre for twelve years until 1995 when the work was given over to national leadership. They then moved to establish A Rocha France’s first centre near Arles, and lived there until 2010, providing coordination and giving leadership to the rapidly growing global movement. They are now back in the UK from where they work to support the A Rocha family around the world while being closer to their own, and not least their grandchildren. Their story is told in Under the Bright Wings (1993) and Kingfisher’s Fire (2008).
I have just returned from Provence and four days of meetings with the A Rocha International Team. So good to be face to face again – or should I say screen to screen?
When I Google ‘Do material things matter to God?’ I find over 20,000,000 results. Some sites warn of the dangers material things pose to our relationship with God; others claim to give the secret of material prosperity. It seems Christians are mightily confused about whether the stuff we think we own, the world of nature, even our own bodies, are deep-down good or not.
I’m just back from Hong Kong. It was an encouraging trip for all our small team from the region, but I was also able to fulfil a long-held dream when I finally got to visit Mai Po. This important wetland is one of the very few remaining on the south China coast, and the numbers of shorebirds are increasing because other places where birds can feed and roost undisturbed are disappearing so fast.
When I was a child growing up in India, there was a song we often sang at school: “This land is your land, this land is my land, / From the Himalayas down to Cape Comorin, / From Bombay city to old Calcutta, / This land was made for you and me.” Connection to place is important and good. Yet there’s a big difference between belonging to a place, and the place belonging to us.
