The Green Team
Mark Hare and Jenny Bent
Dear friend,
If you haven’t learned it through some other source, this letter will let you know that the ministry area of World Mission will conclude in March. All mission co-worker positions have been concluded. Jenny and I will be taking advantage of provisions provided as part of our severance to continue our work at least through June of this year. Our goal is to bring Keila and Annika through at least the first half of the February—November school year. We are looking at other options to allow them time to finish the school year and to provide the Green UBL team with support as it transitions.
At the same time, the Green Initiative of the Latin American Biblical University (UBL) continues to develop and expand. In January, the Green UBL team and community members helped receive a mission group from Covenant Presbyterian Church, near Columbus, Ohio. Community walks, coffee at Guiselle’s house, bible study and other reflections made for a moving time for the six-member team.
Jenny has also been working with a small team to establish clearly marked points for recycling in several spaces throughout the campus. An exciting moment happened the week before last when Jenny found the optimal bins for the front of the building, replacing make-do bits of plastic barrels that have been the “recycling center” for more than five years. The next step for the recycling program will be mini workshops to focus on how to recycle better and, beyond that, how the team can advocate for reducing the use of plastics and other materials.
The women who keep the garden moving along are also into exciting things. On Saturday, February 22, they met with a team from the local municipality to move forward in terms of gaining official recognition by the city (“the muni”). This would mean the group can participate in craft fairs sponsored by the city. Based on a number of workshops held last year, the garden group is now able to make their own soap, sourdough bread, herb-infused oils, and kombucha, all products they could sell at a municipal craft fair. The relationship with the muni might also give the group access to funds to make certain improvements in the garden and to fund the purchase of organic supplements.
The women also have set up the workshops and activities they hold on the last Saturday of each month. Already this year, they held a workday with the Green UBL team to help finish building a “prayer walk” through the campus. Participants macheted the paths, straightened up the beds, pulled out old bamboo in the bamboo chapel, filled the paths with mulch and helped build a labyrinth. Each of the seven sites has an associated meditation and a call to action. At the end of the workday, we followed the path together for our first trial run, and the group gave excellent feedback. The work was done just in time to receive participants in an international eco-theology seminar. Coming from 10 or 12 countries in Latin America, the Green UBL team led the 20 participants on the walk. Some of the participants in the seminar came back the next day to receive a mini workshop on ecological gardening from the gardening team.
Also on Saturday, February 22, the women organized a bat ecology workshop focused on children. The leaders of the workshop were from our team of Costa Rica University students doing their social service with us. Kenlly, José Gabriel, David and Richard put together all the materials for the kids and their adults to draw images of the good that bats do, and to create bat masks. The students also split the group and took each group on a walk, showing photos up on a clothesline of different species and their young, and into the garden to talk about the plants bats use for food and how they use banana leaves to create their homes. I could tell it had been a success when I saw four or five of the kids sticking around to ask more questions and to keep working on their masks.
In April of this year our third international agricultural student will be coming from HAFL university in Bern, Switzerland. In addition to providing support for the garden, Janina Zbaeren will be working with garden members to identify strategies for attracting greater participation and more long-term commitment to the day-to-day garden work. Last year Noemi Hauser studied the effects of organic supplements and in 2023, Vera Imhof looked at agroecological practices in home gardens. These internships are supported by an ecumenical partnership with Mission 21, based in Switzerland.
The main garden beds of the Sunflowers Garden are in the form of a mandala, circles in circles. It feels more and more like the work of the Green UBL is becoming circles within circles of interconnections, stretching from the theological education of the university through the garden and out into the community, the region and the world.
There is no way that Jenny and I could express sufficiently our gratitude for your support over many years that has allowed us the privilege to be part of such wonderful work in Nicaragua, Haiti, the Dominican Republic and, for this final period, in Costa Rica. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
God’s grace be with you.
Mark, Jenny, Keila & Annika