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Roundtable – Exchanging ideas, growing and changing together

Roundtable – Exchanging ideas, growing and changing together

by | Sep 18, 2025 | info, mail

Even though we usually sit at a square table, it helps us as a team to make our everyday work a little more ‘rounded’ and reduce rough edges.

We meet approximately every two months. Just finding a date that suits everyone is not always easy, with so many part-time positions, students, parents of young children and employees with multiple jobs. Beforehand, everyone prepares a report on their area or project. The aim here is to give the others a brief written overview of what you are currently working on, to pass on important information or to ask questions to the ‘group’. When compiling the report, you also note down the points you would like to discuss with the team. These are reviewed by the management and thus provide important topics for discussion.

Reporting gives everyone an overview of the projects and work of the employees and helps to promote the perspective and thinking of the entire mission organisation. The opportunity to share and discuss questions and concerns with everyone

Something I really appreciate is that, as a team, we also have the opportunity to listen to God's voice together and thus make and support decisions together. This sometimes gives us confirmation when we all receive the same answer in different ways, or at least when the signposts point in the same direction.

Now let me take you along to our last round table in June.

One week before the meeting, our managers ask us to prepare our reports. Everyone provides a brief summary of their work or project. The management of the mission organisation then draws up the agenda and the meeting schedule.

These reports enable me to provide a brief overview of whether our expenditure is within budget, for example, or how we are organising our administrative processes. I can familiarise myself with the ongoing projects and thus contribute much more effectively to the discussion. And when I later receive the relevant receipts and invoices, I already have the corresponding story in my head.

After reading the reports, Silvo Z. begins with an input on John 15: ‘Love one another as I have loved you.’ What a challenge in a team full of different personalities and opinions. Nevertheless, this is exactly what we need time and again and what we need to be aware of, because our goal is not for everyone to do their job as well as possible or to promote their project as much as possible, but for us all to build God's kingdom together.

Next up are discussion points. These naturally vary depending on the day's work. For example, we hear from Bernard about the development of plentiful.garden. This allows us to support his project and also tell our friends and family about it. Difficulties and hurdles can be shared, and ideas and solutions can be put forward. Bettina shows us the newly developed logo and explains it.

At the end of June, we held our summer party with a duck race, where we were able to discuss any final organisational matters and questions and assign any remaining tasks.

Or after a camp, which only some of us were able to help organise, we get a brief insight and can thus share in the great work and the stories that were experienced.

Everyday tasks, network enquiries, figures, ideas, holiday replacements, things that hinder cooperation and much more end up on our ‘round table’. In addition, we can benefit from the fact that our personalities can be refined, changed and developed. Because we want to be a team that can live and pass on the love of Jesus. Even if we sometimes fail, we want to grow and change for the better. The best thing about it is that we are all on this journey and can always treat each other with love, respect and honesty.

This gives each of us who is responsible for an area or a project the opportunity to share our concerns and thoughts – and, of course, our joy and gratitude – with others. In this way, we can live out our vision and integrate it into our everyday lives: CONNECTED WITH GOD AND PEOPLE – FILLED WITH JESUS – SENT TO PEOPLE. Together, we can work to realise this vision.

More than food – How discipleship changes hearts and fields

More than food – How discipleship changes hearts and fields

by | Sep 1, 2025 | info, Plentiful Garden

With our projects from plentiful.garden in Africa as mission work msd, we want to contribute to addressing needs and promoting inner change.

In many parts of Africa, food insecurity and a general lack of well-being characterise everyday life. Future prospects and a lack of resources are the main reasons why many young people migrate to already overcrowded and miserable cities in search of a livelihood. Added to this is a deep-rooted mentality of dependency, a feeling of helplessness and abandonment. For many, unfortunately including Christians, this means that they have to fend for themselves through deception and dishonesty. Does our Christian faith have answers to these challenges?

Since agriculture remains the least developed sector of the economy and is deeply connected to the gospel, our approach of “holistic discipleship” is very promising. That is why I undertook a long journey to Rwanda and Tanzania in March and April of this year.

Six weeks on the road is a long time. Including travel time, I spent five weeks in Rwanda and one week in Tanzania. The main tasks were to strengthen agricultural activities and start discipleship training for the permanent employees of our family farm in north-eastern Rwanda.

It was understandably somewhat strenuous but fulfilling work. In terms of practical tasks on the farm, I introduced the use of cover crops to restore the minerals needed in the soil and keep it cool during the scorching hot summer months. We planted around 300 multi-purpose trees around the farm. We looked after a quarter of a hectare of tomato plants. Vegetables such as tomatoes attract many beneficial and harmful insects as well as diseases. Caring for them using organic methods is not easy, but it is part of the plan. We planted almost 500 passion fruit seedlings. The hardest work involved digging the holes for the plants and the stakes on which the passion fruit vines will climb and hang.

Then came the most exciting part of the work: the start of the discipleship course for 10 permanent farm workers. The course is called ‘ Growing in Grace ’ or ‘ Gukurira mu buntu ’ in Kinyarwanda (Rwandan). The concept that we must grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ comes from 2 Peter 3:18. " But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be glory now and forever. Amen. ”

The core of the course is to understand what it means to be a child of God. This contrasts with thinking, feeling and acting like an ‘orphan’ or, more precisely, like a ‘spiritual street child’. Typical problems such as ‘defending oneself’, ‘grabbing things’ and other forms of unfaithfulness come from the fact that many Christians do not really believe that our heavenly Father will provide for them. They believe that it is up to them to provide for themselves by honest or dishonest means. And that is where our vision and the content of the course come in. With God, different principles apply and we are allowed to be genuine, adopted children.

The last leg of the trip was a week in Tanzania, where my brother and I visited ECHO's East African branch. This is a Christian organisation that has been working for over two decades to promote healthy and responsible agriculture in rural areas in order to combat hunger. It was really inspiring to see how many creative ideas they have developed or adapted. For example, in seed production, food preservation and converting agricultural waste into useful energy for households.

We are grateful to everyone who has supported us financially and with prayers, and who has expressed interest in funding micro-farm projects. The launch of plentiful.garden is already an encouraging step. Now it is a matter of continuing courageously and holding fast to the vision.

Bernard Bucyana