This past weekend was our Interfaith Green Team retreat, and it was a fantastic success! We had a total of seventeen participants. all of whom are committed to volunteer on Green Teams for the two semesters. The retreat was a wonderful opportunity for everyone to get to know each other and eat, learn, and shape the Interfaith Sustainability Project together.
The retreat started for the steering committee Friday afternoon when we cooked chili for Friday dinner and macaroni and cheese and apple crisp for Saturday lunch. All vegetarian, with vegan options! We saw sharing good food together as a vital part of the upcoming retreat, so worked hard to make everything extra delicious. 
Everyone arrived at 6:30 PM for dinner, and as soon as they tasted the chili exclaimed with sounds of satisfaction. Jacob shared with us that the chili was made from a recipe passed down orally through at least three generations of his family. We shared the delicious meal, then moved onto some silly icebreakers. It was a great opportunity to loosen up and get comfortable with one another. Everyone was willing to be outgoing and energetic. It was so refreshing to be in a room filled with such friendly and spirited people! 
Next on the agenda was a campfire, which we were lucky enough to share with Stephanie and Wyatt, two representatives from Hoosier Interfaith Power and Light, an organization with the mission to "call together Hoosiers of faith as stewards of creation in order to promote energy conservation, energy efficiency, renewable energy and related sustainable practices." Stephanie and Wyatt have had a lot of experience working with faith communities in Indianapolis and Bloomington, and we hope to learn from each other and help them establish a permanent presence in Richmond. They had many wise words to share with us with regard to forming mutually respectful relationships with the faith communities we'll be working with. It was a great honor to host them, and we on the steering committee will be communicating with them a lot in the coming weeks to get advice and work with them more closely. 
With bellies filled with delicious s'mores and hearts and bodies filled with warmth and happiness from an around-the-fire folk song session, we returned to Interfaith House for sleep.
In the morning we had a quick breakfast of bagels, then got right back into programming. We started out with a quiz to test our environmental- and faith-literacy. The quiz was just for fun, but it was helpful because it emphasized a lot of the similarities between Judaism, Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, and Hinduism, while revealing to us a lot of things that we did not know.
We then reached the peak of the retreat: consensus about Green Teams and the direction of the project. We decided to have a consensus process because we knew that new and exciting ideas would emerge, and having consensus would give all Green Team members a sense of ownership on the project. One of the most exciting ideas that came up was to have one Green Team specifically devoted to reaching out to the Latino faith communities in Richmond. All members of that Green Team have a base level of Spanish fluency, and they are excited about working with that demographic. The general consensus which we came to as a group was that we will have four Green Teams, each one coordinated by a steering committee member. Each team will have one to three churches with whom they will work, depending on the amount of demand we get from Richmond churches. The teams will be fairly autonomous, but we will have monthly potlucks where we can update each other on the progress that we are making.
Once the Green Teams were formed, we split into two groups for some interfaith dialogue. Everyone participated, and we had fruitful discussions on some of the following questions:
- What types of positive and negative things do you associate with organized religion?
- Is it possible to believe in and follow your religion but not believe in God? Is it possible to believe in God but not be religious?
- What place to religion and spirituality have in Earlham's culture and community?
We closed the retreat by giving everyone an opportunity to tell the group their "story of self," or what they see as the story that led them to taking part in the Interfaith Sustainability Project. Knowing and being able to tell our personal stories will be important in the coming weeks and months, because we need to be able to explain to others what makes interfaith environmental action our passions. The Interfaith Sustainability Project is gaining momentum all the time, and we are extremely excited! This coming weekend, we will be receiving training in how to use the technology that enables us to identify heat leaks in windows and doors.
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