Brazilian student, Jesse Dias, reflects on his involvement with A Rocha: When I started my academic career as a Biology student, my sole motivation was curiosity:  how did biological systems work and interact with each other, and how did that reflect God in nature? While that is still a part of me today as an Environmental Studies student, I’m now more concerned with how people’s livelihood, cultural traditions, and well being are affected by the way they interact with their environment.  I believe this to be a key when it comes to understanding what it means to be human and to finding happiness. I also believe it’s paramount to understand what it means to be non-human in God’s Creation. The challenge as a Christian is to work toward change that will bring health and happiness for all of creation, both human and non-human. I found in A Rocha an opportunity to be that change in the TWU community; also to be the means for change in Christian youth; to show that there is a better, and Christian, alternative to consumerism and irresponsible, unsustainable economic growth, and that we must live that out.

Our monthly dinners, Earth Week programs, and participating in volunteer days at the A Rocha Field Study Centre in Surrey have been some of the ways we have sought to live out that mission. I cannot emphasize enough how important it has been to sit around a table and challenge, encourage and commune with each other.  And of course that table has been laden with locally and sustainably grown food – a testimony to what we are all about.

For more information on A Rocha’s activities at Trinity Western University please contact Leianne Gunter at arochatwu@hotmail.com