Founding BPFNA board member, Olive Tiller, will celebrate her 100th birthday on December 13, 2020! A life-long peace activist, she has supported BPFNA since its inception, and even before as she was active in the Baptist Pacifist Fellowship, which later transformed into the Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America. Olive and her late husband Carl Tiller were also the co-recipients of ABCUSA’s Dahlberg Peace Award in 1991, which recognizes those for their significant efforts in working for peace and justice over a period of time. As we celebrate this significant milestone in the life of Olive Tiller, we also remember how she helped BPFNA celebrate a historic birthday of our own almost 27 years ago. On July 5, 1994, when BPFNA celebrated 10 years as an organization, Olive gave a recorded speech to those present in Granville, OH at that year's Summer Conference. In it, Olive shares some history of BPFNA as well as her future vision for what she hopes the organization will become.
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As you know, we began preparing for this year’s Summer Conference a few months ago, very eagerly because we know it symbolizes the core of our organization. It’s a space where we share, connect and reconnect, plan, learn, embrace, renew and bless each other. This year, however, in light of the spread of the pandemic we face, we will not meet in San Diego as planned.
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The board of BPFNA-Bautistas por la Paz recently completed its meeting in Puerto Rico, which was held from March 12-14. An important part of our meeting was the discussion of our transition plan to guide us through today's challenges. We share these updates so you will be informed when we invite you to provide your thoughts and participate in this process. We remain optimistic about the path ahead of us and the possibilities we see to respond to our call! We are peacemakers! Today more than ever!
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Join us in welcoming Rubén David Bonilla Ramos as our Spanish Editor for Baptist Peacemaker and Ximena Ulloa Montemayor as our 2020 Summer Conference Coordinator!
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For future church, to me it is not necessarily changing how we think about what we do or changing traditions, but how we take our Christianity and ourselves into the world. How we pass on what we know to the next generation. Like in the scripture that has the rock as the foundation, because without a strong foundation we can’t build.
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Your “Wall” brought us together, 200 of us, Baptist Christians of all ages, Mexicans and Americans, but also Canadians and Cubans, Caribbeans, South and Central Americans. Your having proclaimed this despicable “Wall,” we had to cross it.
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The following report is from Asaf Vera Baltodano, member of Shalom Baptist Church, student at the Baptist Seminary in Mexico City, and the most recent Youth and Young Adult (TYAYA) representative on the BPFNA-Bautistas por la Paz board of directors.
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Originally from South Dakota, Jodi Spargur lives in Vancouver, BC (a city on the unceded territory of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Nations). Jodi has an MDiv degree from Regent College in Vancouver and currently runs Healing at the Wounding Place, a movement seeking to catalyze justice and healing between church and Indigenous peoples.
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Deb Norton and Jonathan Sledge are longtime members of BPFNA-Bautistas por la Paz who live in Raleigh, NC. They are members of Pullen Baptist Church, a BPFNA-Bautistas por la Paz Partner Congregation. Deb works as a medical doctor in Raleigh and is on the board of directors of AMOS Health & Hope, an organization ran by missionaries Drs. David & Laura Parajón, that "exists to improve the health of impoverished communities in Nicaragua by working alongside them in health, education and development." As both were children of missionaries, Deb and Jonathan have traveled for much of their lives. Deb grew up in Kenya and the midwest United States while Jonathan spent his childhood in Peru and Louisiana. Both have lived in Raleigh for about 30 years.
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We are pleased to welcome Asaf Vera Baltodano as the newest Youth and Young Adult Representative to the Board of Directors. Youth and Young Adult representatives are selected by and voted on by the youth and young adults each year at Summer Conference.
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Born in Puerto Rico, Ricardo Mayol has been a missionary with American Baptist Churches for more than 20 years. He is currently serving as a regional consultant encouraging the development and consolidation of the Red Continental Cristiana por la Paz (Continental Christian Network for Peace, or CCNP). Based in Guatemala, Ricardo travels to coach CCNP members and future members in theological and pastoral training for peace, as well as on the basic goals of CCNP.
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Lázaro González, Suriana (Sury) González & Noé Trujillo are employed with the Baptist Seminary of Mexico in Mexico City. Lázaro is a retired professor who still works part time. Sury is in charge of the administration for the seminary and also runs the Open Education program that supports adults needing to finish their secondary education. Noé is a current professor with the Seminary, and he is also in charge of its academic programs.
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The Mayan Intercultural Seminary (SIM) is a non-denominational theological school located in San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico. The Seminary contributes to the construction of peace from an intercultural perspective and promotes the values of equity, justice, inclusiveness, dialogue, human integrity, reciprocity, and a sense of vocation. SIM focuses on creating solidarity networks through initiatives in particular for women and youth, to build a more inclusive world.
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Anna Burkett is from Granville, Ohio and recently moved to Maryland to teach Spanish to middle schoolers. Anna grew up coming to Peace Camp.
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This was my second time attending the Summer Conference of BPFNA ~ Bautista por la Paz, which was held in Misión Mazahua, San Felipe del Progreso, México from July 17-22, 2017. There were many international entities represented in the conference program, but the three that challenged me the most were the seminaries. The moment that impacted me most was when the Seminario Bautista de México showed a YouTube video of La Patronas, a group of Mexican women who make food out of their own resources to help feed those immigrants that ride the cargo train called “The Beast.”
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Lem Arnold grew up in Houston and Port Arthur, TX. He went to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) for undergraduate school and returned to Houston to attend medical school at the University of Texas at Houston. Lem worked as a pediatrician for about 30 years before retiring in 2016. He and his partner Pat live in Lafayette, GA.
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From July 17-22, BPFNA ~ Bautistas por la Paz held its first Summer Conference in Mexico. The theme for the week was “¿Cuando te Vimos Desnudo?: Arropándonos con Esperanza” or “When Did We See You Naked?: Clothing Each Other with Hope.” Over the week, 217 people representing 12 countries gathered to explore community through the lens of vulnerability; how do we become unafraid to share our vulnerabilities with one another and what does it look like to stand with and offer protection to the most vulnerable in our communities, countries, the world?
Del 17 al 22 de julio, BPFNA ~ Bautistas por la Paz celebró su primera Conferencia de Verano en México. El tema de la semana fue "¿Cuándo te vimos desnudo?: Arropándonos con Esperanza" o "¿Cuándo te vimos desnudo?: Vistiéndonos unos a otros con esperanza". Durante la semana, 217 personas de 12 países se reunieron para explorar la comunidad a través de la lente de la vulnerabilidad; cómo nos sentimos temerosos de compartir nuestras vulnerabilidades entre nosotros y ¿qué tal se ve apoyar y ofrecer protección a los más vulnerables de nuestras comunidades, países, del mundo?
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This was a historic gathering of Baptists from North, Central and South America and the Caribbean all committed to the work of peace and justice in our various contexts as people of faith. It was transformative week of living, learning and worshiping together despite differences of language and culture. The planning and leadership was provided by a talented group of Baptist leaders from across Mexico, Central, and South America. All services and workshops were conducted in Spanish with interpreters provided for the non-Spanish speaking attendees. It was an immersion experience for many participants coming from the North. We were immersed into the language, food, community and spirituality of Latin culture. We were invited to consider faith through the lens of a culture that values ‘we’ over ‘I’.
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Gandhi read the Sermon on the Mount when he was young, and I think it influenced his development of the strategy of nonviolent direct action. It was a basis for his whole life. He said, "The Sermon on the Mount went straight to my heart," and was especially delighted in the section which begins: "But I say unto you, that you resist not evil; but whosoever smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also." He wrote, "A life based on Christian truth was precious and indispensable to me, [but] the Church offered me rules completely at variance with the truth I loved."
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Eh Nay Thaw, familiar to many of us as a Peace Camp attendee, was recently invited to speak at Centre College in Danville, KY. His speech is inspiring and moving, and we are grateful to be able to share it. (Eh Nay hopes to attend Centre as a student and is currently working to find the funds to make that possible.)
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