June 10^th was A Rocha’s 10-year anniversary celebration. I had been desperately preparing the new website, signage and other marketing material for our big event.  Maybe you can even imagine my last minute print jobs, website tweaks and stress. Lindsey could share the story well from the perspective of an outsider.  Anyway, the day was beautiful and 400 people showed up at A Rocha to celebrate 10 years , to hear our founders speak, to eat great food and to watch salmon being released into the Little Campbell River (on the Brooksdale property).

One fellow in that crowd of 400 was Travis.  His sister-in-law was a friend of Lindsey’s and it was their first time to A Rocha.  Before I even knew who he was, he came over to our new website booth and was genuinely eager to take a look and encourage my work (and the marketing agency of course). We connected a few more times that day because he had helped install some of the signage that was designed by our marketing team.

It is now the fall of 2011 and Travis is on staff with A Rocha using his handy-man skills! He has made numerous renovations to our heritage buildings and was eager to participate in the call to care for creation.

This story is significant because Travis and I have become good friends.  What is more significant is that I did not realize how much I needed a friend like Travis at A Rocha.  I now know what it means to carry each other’s burdens because of the way I interact with Travis.  Travis shares a desire to communicate the oh-so-difficult essence of A Rocha to more Christians.