Filled

Two months in as executive director, I feel rather filled.

As I watch the leaves lightly blow past the window, there’s a heaviness I feel weighing down my mind. And I feel “filled.” The days are filled with tasks and “to do-lists.” My mind is filled with ideas and dreams about the future of BPFNA. 

I am also “filled” by the stories of peacemakers I’ve been blessed to hear. 

Many of us heard Henna Baclagon at the 2022 Peace Camp this past August, and how she was “red-tagged” after decades of peace advocacy in the Philippines with the Convention of Philippine Baptist Churches. “Red-tagging is like reading your obituary,” she said, “because it is a prelude to your becoming a victim of extra-judicial killing.” In the face of such threats, she has filled her life generously with peacemaking, with service, with solidarity with the people of the Philippines. Watch her presentation at summer conference here.

A volunteer builds a well at the LGBTQ+ Crisis Transit Center in Uganda.

I was filled with anxiety when I learned of Philip Kakungulu’s motorcycle accident in Namibia a few weeks ago. Philip is a BPFNA peace activist in Uganda and was completing an ambitious twelve-country tour through southern Africa on motorbike. He stopped at church partners to lead seminars on peacemaking and conflict resolution along the way, but the trip was cut short when he was thrown off the bike and suffered two broken fingers, a broken ankle, and a back injury. He has since undergone a successful spinal surgery but in a recent exchange, I could feel the pride fill his heart as he shared the latest photos of a new water well at the LGBTQ+ Crisis Transit Center he helped to found which BPFNA has supported. “In a time of so much pain,” he writes, “tears of joy.”

Phil Pennington

Sometimes the tears that fill our eyes are ones flowing out of grief and gratitude. In June, BPFNA member Phil Pennington passed away. You can read about his life here. I met Phil at peace camps in Mexico and Colombia and have been inspired to learn about his connection with BPFNA. Phil was in the room when our movement was formed in 1984. He attended every single peace camp and helped his wife Elaine lead children and youth with gentleness and patience, offering his energy, resources, and presence to the youngest peacemakers among us. For Phil, BPFNA Peace Camp was equal parts “coming home” and “revival” every year. Reflecting on Phil’s life and service should fill us all with gratitude.

As I begin this journey, filled with hope, I want to thank all of the peacemakers who brought us to this place, who have protested, labored, prayed, and preached to make peace possible in the world and brought BPFNA~Bautistas por la Paz to this moment. I pray that our future is one filled with the possibilities of peace in our local contexts, in partner congregations, at an individual level, and globally to live out our mission “to witness to God’s peace rooted in justice and work together until it comes.”

Sometimes when we’re feeling a bit too “filled,” we must make space for rest and renewal. Space to breathe, space for silence. And sometimes, if we make enough space, we might feel the Spirit filling in the gaps, and sometimes, She fills the spaces with hope. 

It’s a generous hope, bridging the gap between what has been and what could be. 

It’s a luminous hope which glows brightly in a world where violence and abuse are used to co-opt and control. 

It’s a breathtaking hope with a force flowing with the wind of the Spirit, a force blowing the leaves past the window as I look outside and feel filled. 

I feel filled. And thanks be to God. Amen.