A monthly reflection by Christie Goode (VP – Advancement)

In his book about the early years of A Rocha in the Alvor estuary in southern Portugal, Peter Harris tells a story about one of their staff named Mark, who was out alone on a birding session, and who got stuck in quicksand.

Providentially for Mark, only a few weeks before he had received a Christmas gift from his aunt: a book called A Thousand and One Useful Things to Know. Also providentially, over the New Year he had agreed to accompany a youth group on a bus trip to the Netherlands, and so he had long hours to read the book, which included a page on How to Get Out of Quicksand.

So as he scrambled in the quicksand for the first few seconds, with his legs sinking fast, he remembered what he had read. He acted on faith, suppressed his fear, and laid back into the river, stretched out and took a breath. His legs slowly surfaced and after a few more nerve-racking moments he was able to crawl away to safety.

The image came to mind recently as I reflected on what is happening at A Rocha across Canada. God is doing great things in our midst even while many of my colleagues are in the midst of transitions that can feel like shifting sand.

Add to the sense of personal shifting sand, the weight of working to stem the tide of global environmental degradation, and it’s easy to see how we A Rocha types might feel like we’ve wandered into quick sand from time to time.

Therefore, If you’re the praying sort, we ask you to remember us as we enter the busy summer season – a season that includes numerous day camps, conservation field work, burgeoning gardens, and the hosting of visitors from around the world.

As a Christian organization, we want to enter this work with the assurance of God’s care for us as we cooperate with God in the restoration of all things.

And even in midst of this cooperation and all the good work, we ask that you remember us so that we might be able to lie back, spread out, and entrust ourselves to faith.