Baptist Party at the Refugee Highway Partnership Roundtable in Naples

Last week various members of our churches who are involved in refugee ministry gathered in Naples, Italy for the Refugee Highway Partnership Roundtable. 25 Baptists from across the EBF region along with 400 others from across the world gathered for a week of reflection, learning, and connecting around common work of welcoming refugees. Austrian, Swedish, Italian, British, German, and International Baptist Convention Baptists as well as numerous Afghans from Austria and Germany working across 11 countries all joined to make Baptists the most represented group at the conference. Continue to pray for this movement and for the continued work among refugees and displaced peoples.

It was amazing to see the fruits of work in Austria at play at the conference. Javad Bakhtiari (and his wife Karla) from the Salzburg church and Ali Haynes Ansari (and his wife Olivia), formerly of projekt:gemeinde, both are now working with a new initiative called Quest Academy, aimed at training up refugee faith leaders. Cesar Sotomayor and Martin Wendland attended from Graz International Baptist church, along with Russ Clowdus from the Mollardgasse, and Will Cumbia from projekt:gemeinde. Austrian Baptists were therefore the largest Baptist group at the conference.