Building Community

Creating community during meal times

Technology ensures prolific and instant communication with almost any part of the globe, but one of A Rocha's priorities is to develop and maintain relationships of quality and depth that reflect God's relationship with his creation.

The first A Rocha centre in Portugal became an extended family, including team members, people living locally, and visitors, which continues to grow and flourish twenty years later. As other projects become established elsewhere new models of community are emerging, not necessarily involving shared living quarters, but always expressing a deep level of personal commitment between their members.

One might even suggest that the growing network of people around the world interested in A Rocha forms a kind of virtual community as people connect by e-mail and relationships begin to form.

- Miranda Harris