The Chester Ronning Center will welcome Rev. Dr. John Chryssavgis on October 30th to reconnect faith and stewardship.
When I returned from the Augustana in Cuba program (some years ago now!), I decided to take a course on Justice Theology with Jack Washenfelder. I wanted to maintain my connection to Latin America and continue to work through the feelings of remorse for the plagues of politics that scarred that social landscape. I was surprised when the bulk of the class was spent on Eco-Theology, but have since come to see it as one of the great crisis of faith in our time. Knowing how many people in the world are deeply moved by faith institutions, I was heartened when I came to understand how deeply ecological concerns are embedded in the Christian texts of my childhood. While I had spent years first dreaming of heaven and then shunning all such thoughts, I finally came to some spaces of reconciliation with the texts I grew up with.
This window into connection with the Earth as a sacred gift has helped me engage with Christian and non-Christian alike on the imperative of ethical treatment of the natural world. I anticipate a lively discussion that will prepare me for the upcoming conference. 
I just returned from Colombia visiting food and nutritional security projects sponsored by a Camrose NGO, Sahakarini and carried out by Diaconia, the social service branch of the Lutheran Church in Colombia. They definitely are taking it seriously that the reign of the God of Life has to be out of and in the soils, waters and slopes of the High Andes, just as the reign is present in the invisible realm.
And Leah Johnson, the coordinator of last year’s Spirit of the Land conference was such a community building and earth-caring presence in the rural neighbourhoods that make up the area called Socotá, that we could see who the work of caring for our spirit and for the land go together. By the way she sends greetings to all who are connected to planning Respecting the Land conference and to the whole large community of “spirit of the land”.
Dittmar