The Maya-Mennonite Solidarity Working Group is pictured above holding seeds and sharing what seeds mean to them.
Thank you to all those who have hosted Seed Fundraising Parties or donated individually to support the Maya-Mennonite Solidarity Working Group’s visit to a Maya Seed Festival!
It is only with your support that this visit is possible and the Coalition can continue to grow in relationship with our partners!
Learn why we are going:
Katerina Gea (top row, center): I am excited to visit Maya ancestral territories for the first time after several invitations to our Coalition from Maya partners in Campeche. As a gardener deeply concerned about the ecological crisis, I’m looking forward to learning more about how they are protecting biodiversity in the face of pollution of seeds, Land and Water by industrial agricultural practices. As a Mennonite settler and a Christian pastor, I welcome the chance to learn more about their Mennonite settler neighbors in the region and how Maya peoples envision relationships that lead to abundant life.
Celeste Sharp (top row, right): I am coming into this delegation as a student and as a learner. I want to know more about the traditional practices of both groups, and learn more about how those practices inform their ways of life. As an agroecology student, I am interested in how food influences culture and how different farming practices have shaped the ways that people interact. Food means so much more than just sustenance, it is an expression of culture and values. I want to support my indigenous siblings and learn what it means to be a steward of the land.
Anika Reynar (middle row, left): In May, I am excited to return to Maya ancestral territory. Our Maya friends remind us that we are all part of the same web of life. When one community is impacted by oppressive systems, we are all impacted. I am grateful for the invitation to both recognize systems of oppression, and to participate together in joyful resistance through the sharing of seeds and stories.
Stephen Pavey (middle row, center): I’m filled with gratitude for this very special invitation of solidarity from our Maya partners to come to their home community as they gather in this sacred festival space to remember, honor and protect their sibling, the corn. I know I will grow in love as a human as I learn from them more of my own relationship to seeds and with that my growing responsibility to protect the wellbeing of what our Maya friends call Yook’ol Kab (the land-water interrelationship that sustains our world).
Hallie Liu Rogers (middle row, right): I am excited to participate in this delegation because we get to meet the homelands and waters of our Maya friends and partners, and share time and space with them in person after so many meetings mediated by screens. I hope our time together will further weave the tapestry of our shared future.
Lars Åkerson (lower row, center): I am participating in this delegation to cross-pollinate communities. I’ve been invited to our Maya partners’ annual seed festival three times, but this will be the first time I’ve been able to attend. I’m grateful for the opportunity to continue our years of learning and our shared work to cultivate food sovereignty, collective self-determination, and ecological belonging in what the Maya know as Yook’ol Kab, the sacred Land-Water that is our common home. As a Mennonite, these relationships and multifaith organizing efforts help me clarify and grow my commitments to communal discernment and antiviolence, which are both fundamental to my faith and relationship with God.
Tina Kehler is also pictured in the image, but is not able to go.
