A Global Discussion about Protecting the Vulnerable with Dr. Greg Burch

Oh, yeah. Welcome back. Mu Talks.

That's right. Welcome back to Mu Talks. We are back again with a different assortment in the studio Again this week.

We're missing our boss.

I'm sorry, Aline. He's. He's here on the phone, but not here in studio with us.

Hi, everyone.

Hi, everyone.

Hello. This time you're in the undisclosed location.

Yes, undisclosed.

Yeah.

We take turns. We take turns in the same location of undisclosed.

It's Mu Talks here with Rob Hildebrand, Aline Vransila, and me, Renee Duffy. We are excited because today we have another guest. We love welcoming these guests from Multnomah University. Today we're going to be talking with Dr. Greg Burch. He is a professor in the global studies programs here at multnomah. And. And Dr. Birch spent over a decade of his career working in Latin America. Now he uses his passion for global studies and social justice, mentoring and preparing students to work in the mission field for these same purposes. Dr. Birch, thank you for being here.

Hey, it's great to be here. Thanks for that intro. That was great. I don't know who came up with that. I love it.

Well, maybe would you just start for us by telling us a bit more specifically about your focus in the fields of global studies and social justice?

Yeah. So I've been here, I think, nine years now at Multnomah, and prior to being here at Multnomah, I was working, as you've already mentioned, in Latin America, Venezuela in particular, spent seven years there working with homeless youth primarily, and then after that, spent five years working in Costa Rica, primarily in a university setting. And you can't help but spend, after spending seven years working with kids on the street, not be deeply impacted by that. Right. And so my life will never be the same because of that in many beautiful ways and some challenging ways as well. And as I had the opportunity to come back here to Multnomah, I say come back here because I was a student here once. Come back here to Multnomah and was invited by our former boss, Dr. Wayne Strickland, to consider starting a master's program that was in the field of humanitarian studies, development, compassion, social responsibility, something along those lines. I went to work and deeply impacted because of the work that I had previously done, decided, hey, you know what? If we're going to start a new master's program here, it has to combine certainly our faith as followers of Jesus Christ, but with Christ's heart for those that are in the margins of our world, on the periphery of our Society. And so that's a little bit about our work in the development and justice. Global development and justice. Master's degree. Also teach in the global studies department here. Global studies undergrad degree. Love it. Love the opportunity to work with those undergrad students that were, that are in the same seats that I was in back in the early 90s and see their, their passion for serving people and for getting involved in long term ministry and, and community, community development work. Yeah, that's a little bit, that's the brief response.

Yeah. I mean, so you kind of started, I mean, you mentioned that you were an undergrad here and then we're in Venezuela. So how did, what's, what's that, what's that leap like, how did you get started with, with a passion for youth and for youth globally?

Yeah, you know, I came to Multnomah because I had a youth pastor and some youth leaders that were, encouraged me, encouraging me to come to Multnomah to study Bible theology and also look at the possibility of doing youth ministry. I'm here with Mr. Youth Ministry himself. Right.

Aline too.

And Aline. Okay, maybe we'll have to hear more about that. Aline. And so that was my initial interest in coming to Multnomah was to look at administrative and Bible and theology. And you know, during those years while I was a student here at Multnomah, I had the opportunity to go to Colombia, Bogota, Colombia, the capital of Colombia. Also had the opportunity to go to Caracas, Venezuela. This was all part of, kind of part of my studies, internships and other opportunities that came my way through the Global Ministries conference here at Multnomah and other opportunities. And as I was thinking and preparing to do youth ministry, I went and began to engage with kids living on the streets in different countries. Had also spent some time here as well in Portland doing that. And one is, one is deeply impacted by those types of experiences, especially as a college student. And so I came back to Multnomah after several of those opportunities thinking, you know, I really want to continue in my youth ministry focus. But it's got to be with these kids that don't have any place to call home. It's got to be with these kids that, that are living on the street. And so youth ministry for me might have looked a little bit different, Rob, than your experience, but it's still youth ministry. And that, that just deeply impacted me. And am I even getting close to the question you, you began to ask me? Renee?

Yeah, no, I think that that's great. Just trying to probe a little deeper into, you know, what, what's, where did it start? And then we're eager to see how, where it's going.

So just a youth, kind of a youth ministry, global ministry, like your, your impression, working with kids around the world. And I've done a little bit like with some kids in different countries, mostly Canada, U.S. little bit of Mexico, a little bit of Europe. You know, would you say kids are more dissimilar or, or similar. Like, are there, are there universal kind of issues and problems and traits or, or do you see quite a bit of difference?

That's a great question. I mean, obviously there are some similarities with kids everywhere that they are dependent on, on guardians and that they are in need of care. Right? So those are, those are universals. Play is a universal. They might not have all the toys and the gadgets, right, but they're playing. And so we see that as an inherent part of what it means to be a young person. But where we see a divergence is when it comes to issues like work. So for example, it's common in some places around the world and culturally appropriate for young people, even at very young ages to work, know, spend significant time working to try to bring in income for their families. I worked a little bit as a 12 year old, you know, I delivered newspapers. I rode around on my BMX bike in my neighborhood, just throwing out newspapers, you know, to the neighbors and, but, you know, that only took up an hour or two on a Saturday morning versus some of the kids that I've gotten to know in places like Cochabamba, Bolivia, Bogota, Colombia, Caracas, Venezuela, San Jose, Costa Rica, spend significant time contributing to their family and to their family's income because they, they need to be. So, so in that sense there are some similarities and dissimilarities, I guess, divergences in those childhood experiences. And I could go on and on about that, but that's interesting to me. Interesting stuff. Yeah.

Can I ask a little bit too about working with the kids that were on the street? What, what was the, what was the dominant reason? Was there consistent reasons why the kids were there? Were they abandoned? Was it substance issues? Was it poverty? What was going on most?

So I'm, I'm getting into my PhD dissertation now, Rob. So, you know, all kids living on the street have similar contributing factors for why they're on the street, right? So what would they have in common? Poverty. But there's also, I want to kill this statistic, 550 million children that are living in absolute poverty today, right? And not all of them are on the street. So you have these contributing factors that all young people in poverty face. But there's multiple contributing factors, one on top of another, that really lead these young people into street lifestyles. Um, it's material poverty, but it's brokenness in the, in the family. Every, every single young person I've ever worked with has had brokenness, dysfunction in their, in their family, substance abuse, either, you know, on behalf of their parents or are, you know, addicted to something, or they themselves are mental health issues. I mean, you could go on and on. So, so there are some similarities found globally around kids that live on the street. We know that there are millions. You know, I've read all kinds of statistics on kids living on the street. There could be upwards of 100 million kids that either live or work, you know, on the streets, spend the majority of their time on the streets around the world. And of the thousands, probably that I have met personally and have worked with through different organizations, there's dysfunction in the family, brokenness. There's certainly material poverty, there's substance abuse at some, you know, in some form in their lives, whether that be guardians or they themselves. Mental health issues are a huge contributor. There's probably a bunch of other things that I'm just forgetting because I did write my PhD dissertation over 10 years ago now. So it goes away.

Can't quote it. You can't.

So in your programs here then, both in the undergrad and the graduate, do you find that students need help to be able to see the things that you see that you're used to looking out and seeing and recognizing? Is that something that you have to talk about in your programs?

We talk about it. But you know what? Honestly, the best classroom is experiencing it, not so much. I don't bring a group of students from Multnomah onto the streets of Caracas with me, for example, and hand out food? That's not typically something we do, but we do engage in these conversations in global contexts. This pandemic that we're, you know, have been in has kind of limited the opportunities for that. Although we're getting ready to re. Engage globally. But getting into the field, meeting with organizations, hearing firsthand testimony, stories about their work around the world, whether it be with homeless kids or whether it be with, you know, genocide or violence or, you know, something along those lines, our students are engaging with these people around the world, hearing their stories, seeing what works, hearing the stories of what doesn't work. The failures that we oftentimes see in any community Development work. So getting students involved, hearing stories from those of us on faculty is really, really important. All of us that teach in global studies are active scholars, so we're continuing to be involved in our field, but also thinking about this stuff. And, and we're all practitioners at heart. You know, I think. And I think many of us here at Multnomah are practitioners at heart. I'm for sure. I'm looking at Rob Hildebrand right now.

You know, I'm the same.

Does the theory work? Is the question that I'm oftentimes asking, like, how does this. What does this look practically? How does this affect this young person or this person that's caught up in this web of, of poverty? So if it doesn't work, forget it, man. I don't, I don't want anything to do with it, but I want to see theory actually, and good theory leads to good models and good practice. So we know that. So I want to see how. How does theory work practically in the lives of, of. Of good practices when it comes to development work and justice?

Aline, did you have anything you wanted to ask before we move forward?

Yes. I don't know if this is moving us forward. I very much appreciate, Greg, you being with us today, and also your course on Multoma plus, what a, what a timely. I mean, I think family course to launch. I think we did that through the pandemic, if I, if I'm not mistaken. Right.

Yeah.

And. And I think it was important because we saw just a massive, massive uptick in, in children being abused in many ways through the pandemic. And so my question. I don't know if this is moving us out of that subject that we've just discussed internationally, but I'm. My question to you is how, how would we tell. What. What are we. What are we. Some things that we need to do if, if we see or if we want to find out if children are safe around us, in our neighborhoods, in the places where we live. Just some, some of the best practices that you've done that you've seen that work really well, because I do believe everybody has to do their part. Your thoughts on this?

Yeah, great question, Aline. You know, one of the first things that, that we teach about when it comes to child protection policies, like, that's a, That's a really important topic, and that's really the course in and of itself is looking at how do we keep kids safe globally. Right. And so one of the first principles when it comes to protecting kids is creating an Aware culture, like within our organizations, within our churches. And I would say, Eileen, we could take that to the neighborhood, too. We can take that to our relationships and family and in community. Is that. Are we creating an aware culture? Are we just staying aware personally as to what's going on in our communities? Wow, I haven't seen that kid in eight days next door. What's going on? And so just being concerned citizens about people around us doesn't mean we have to go in peering in the windows, looking for the young person. That's probably a bad idea. But just being aware of what's going on in our families, what's going on in our community, I think that's a central core kind of way to engage in the lives of people around us. There's a lot of other things we can do as well. The pandemic, as you've already talked about, has definitely increased vulnerabilities around the world. I mean, talk about child marriage, for example. I mean, there's young people around the world that are being forced into marriages because economies around the world have taken a step backwards. You know, they taken a step backwards 20 years in some cases, you know, And, I mean, you have both contributing factors when it comes to some of the mitigation that we've done to offset this pandemic. But you also have a fact, you know, the fact that there are 1.45 million kids that have lost a parent to this pandemic, too. So on both sides, both the mitigation side, as well as the results of a terrible disease that is taking it, you know, killing parents, that's also. Wow, I'm going way off on your question. So. Sorry, man, this is good.

No, this is really good. No, that's exactly what I wanted. I wanted you to go off on that and just go with it. Run with it.

So protecting kids is really the emphasis of that Multnomah plus course. And it's. It's useful now in the midst of a pandemic, but it's also useful at any point. You know, child protection is certainly an issue that we all need to be concerned about whether we have children or not. And. And youth ministers know this very well.

Yeah, boy, that's powerful stuff. You know, a lot of us, some of us, if you've had, like, if you had a good upbringing or fairly strong, you know, you don't understand world of other kids, and then you watch a movie or a television show and you see a child who's been vulnerable and who's been mistreated, and you're just, your heart breaks and, and I think it's important for some of us, you know, to remember that. And so that's powerful stuff you guys are doing. Powerful stuff.

Yeah, Greg, so the work that you do, you, you speak globally a lot. And I think that that's, I mean, that's kind of a new lens for me in a lot of ways. But I also wonder how what you work on, what you study in those theories, how those also apply to smaller communities, say our local church or. It's kind of getting to what Ali was talking. But like, how can we be more vigilant, more caring, just as, as maybe a local church over the families and the kids that are in our sphere?

Yeah, great question. I think a lot of the practice is universal. I mean, we certainly need to take into consideration culture. Culture is a big, big thing. But so for this course in particular, you know, protecting children, the whole idea of having a child protection policy in a church, for example, first of all, we create awareness. We create a culture of awareness to make sure that there's no abuse taking place, make sure children are thriving. Right. Young people are thriving. But we also want to ensure that there are very practical, intentional ways of keeping kids safe in our communities, whether that be here at Multnomah University or in a, in a church. Right. So there's some good practices around developing child protection policies, or you call it youth protection, protective policies, whatever you, whatever you want to call it, but ensuring that there's good protocols in place. So creating a culture of awareness is important too. But also creating open door policies, back universal background checks. I mean, there's so much we can do as, as a church. And unfortunately we've seen this in churches, certain denominations where abuse is taking place of children, where coercion, all kinds of issues have affected young people. And so it's not only is it just a global issue of ensuring that children who are living on the street are actually placed into a safe place. We can talk more about that if you'd like. But also ensuring that children that are in our Sunday school programs, even in the churches that we're involved with, are being cared for appropriately. And if there's not a child protection policy in our churches, for example, man, maybe we should be asking whoever's in charge about putting one into place.

Yeah, my impression is the church has made quite a bit of progress on those policies. I'll go to a camp or something. And a lot of camps will not ever let one adult be with one kid. It's Always two. Even to the point where let's say you're at a camp or something and let's say you have 10, 10 guys in a cabin and two leaders and it's between events and there's one leader just sitting there and a kid comes in, they're kind of like get out. You can't be in the room. Like you have to. So there. But what I think the church has not maybe done better. Like we're interested in covering our butts and not getting sued and making sure there's nothing bad happening. But there's still a tremendous amount of abuse and mistreatment of kids in the society. And so your encouragement for us to get out and be thinking about those kids, that's the work of the Kingdom.

Yeah, yeah, it's, it's needed, unfortunately. Yeah.

Can I ask another question for your program? Is it, is it, you know, are there, is it more towards like the individual who's going to help kids or is it more like people that are working with NGOs, non government organizations and, and advocacy, like that kind of thing? I'm a bit of a novice to this. Is it, is it both? What, what do you focus on?

Yeah.

Okay. Yeah.

Yes.

Yeah, I kind of wondered. Yeah, maybe.

So, you know, we, we've had at this point in, you know, I, I wear the hat of both the undergrad and the grad. So let me talk about the grad program real fast. The Global Development and Justice program. So we've had, you know, since when was it we launched in 2013, I believe it was. We have over 100 students that are, that have graduated from the program and they're doing all kinds of stuff. Really. I mean we have some of our students and by the way, it's the students that inspire me to keep going in this field. Honestly, it's, they're phenomenal. So we have students working for social services, working for local government organizations in the area of child protective services. Those are individuals working for non faith based organizations. We have others that are working for Christian organizations in relief and development that are on the front lines of global crises, whether those be man made or human made or not human man and human made disasters, natural disasters, they're responding to those needs around the world and they're working with a Christian organization and they're going out meeting the needs of folks in the name of Christ. There's other students that are doing, you know, working for humanitarian organizations that are not, have no faith affiliation at all. And out of who they are, I think they're witnessing to Christ, but obviously need to be mindful of how they do that within a humanitarian organization. So we see students coming to the program with all kinds of interests. Some are just not really sure what they're going to be doing. And hopefully by the end, they have a good feel for that as they go through the program and then have opportunities to do internships with organizations. We have formal. We have five formal partnerships with organizations, a lot of informal partnerships with organizations. And so students will go out and work with those organizations globally or here in the U.S.

Yeah. So, Greg, you've developed an undergrad program. You've developed a grad program here at Multnomah training students. You've got a Multnomah plus course that anyone can go onto, MU plus and take that course and learn for themselves and get a taste of what you're teaching students here. And you have a podcast.

Hey.

And I'd love to give you a chance to. To share with us what the focus of your podcast is, how that intersects with what you're doing. Who are you excited to have on your podcast? Just kind of give you a place to talk about that.

Sure. And by the way, I've worked with a wonderful team of faculty members and others in pulling together all these degree programs and so forth. So the podcast is actually a podcast focused on international development, work and justice. Dr. Karen Fancher is a co host of that podcast. And really, that podcast, the idea came from, I think MU talks. You guys heard of that before, you know, talking to my jefe, Aline Brunzilla, and, you know, he kind of gave me access to this beautiful studio that we're in. And so it's been a lot of fun, though, to. To. We're going on our second season starting in March. So it's been a lot of fun to go through. What is that, 12. 12 episodes of the podcast at this. Actually, we're 11 episodes going on our 12th episode next month. It's been a lot of fun, really. The focus, the impetus behind it is to really kind of pull together our. What we call our MAG DJ Community. I know that's a strange acronym, right? MAGD J Masters of Arts, Global Development and Justice. There you get MagDj. We all walk around campus talking about MagDj, and I think folks sometimes look at us like, what are they doing?

Who's that? Dj dj.

Yeah, exactly. Mad dj, Right. Shout out to our maid. Shout out to our Mae Johnson out there somewhere in the world. She was a former admissions counselor who came up with that magdj Aline, you're having fun with this, aren't you?

Oh, it's a good one. It's a good one.

So going back to it. So it was created for this community of students, of faculty members, of partner organizations so that we can pull people together and interview and hear what people are up to and what they're doing. And so I think of I had the opportunity to interview in this room BRANDON Stiver of 1 million home. And he works here, he's the executive director or director of community engagement, something like that. Right. Brandon of One Million Home. And they work with bringing kids out of orphanages, encouraging kind of children and organizations to get kids out of orphanages and back in their homes. Right. And so had the opportunity to interview him. He's a mag DJ graduate. And so we highlight these organizations and students and faculty members really to encourage one another, but also to, to kind of begin to help the community development community out there, not affiliated with us, understand what we're doing, understand some best practices. And we're really focused like, like, like the, the emphasis of the podcast is really focused on bringing together the nexus of this is going to be a mouthful of development work, community development work, justice, social justice, biblically informed justice, and peace building work. So really seeing these three as necessary components to truly a holistic mission. And you know, Jesus was, was both proclaimed the good news and demonstrated the good news. And that's what we're trying to do with this podcast is to look for ways to bring those three pieces together, development, peace building and justice, and have conversations around those issues.

You know, it's important that folks, you know, worry about the systems and the organizations and the grants and all of that too. Like, I, I spent most of my life growing up kind of just thinking about like, what am I going to do and what is my friend going to do? And you know, just like on the very micro kind of do good scale. In the last couple years, I started thinking a little bit about the bigger scale and it makes me uncomfortable because there's so much money that gets thrown around and you're just like, I don't, part of me just doesn't like this. But you've got to have good people in those environments. Like otherwise that money gets wasted, you know, and to see that going to good causes. So I'm quite pleased to see you guys have folks going into that world.

Oh yeah, it's so much fun, Rob. I mean, you know, I hear back from the we're going to have a reunion this Coming summer, hopefully we'll get a good portion of our alumni together. But I'm so inspired, encouraged by what they're doing around the world, some working for very large humanitarian organizations. I, I hope one day we see them as, you know, in those presidential positions.

We will.

And deeply impacting through their. Through the integrity that they have as followers of Christ in these communities.

You know, every time I get my hair cut or something like that somewhere, people are like, what do you do? And I'm like, oh, I'm a college professor. And they're like, what do you teach? And I'm like, I don't know if you've heard of youth ministry. And they're like, oh, what's that?

Like, yeah, and a few other things too, right, Rob?

Yeah, yeah. And. And then, and then I'm like, I start talking about. I'm like, man, our students are the best. Like, like, my job is amazing because the students. And this is going to be for you too, because our students come here and they want to make the world a better place. None of them are going to get rich. None of them are going to have an easy, comfortable, lazy life. They're going to work hard. They're going to make the world a better place. And sometimes they'll be mistreated, you know, but they're, they're committed to it. And how can you get better than working with those kids?

Oh, no, I know it's. Well, you know, these are grad students.

Your guys are older, some of them.

Are my age, but we're all kind of kids at. No, I hear you, I hear you. And I haven't even really talked about our undergrad global studies program. You know, we've got students that are going out in a bunch of different areas as well, and some for more traditional global ministry as missionaries, others working in community development, others working in even the area of environmental sustainability, one of our foci in the program. So exciting stuff for us to see these students going out and doing this work.

Yeah, well, this has been fascinating. Thanks so much for coming and sharing all this. And I still have this feeling that we've only like, barely, barely skimmed the surface of all the different opportunities. Like, you're saying that your students come in and then they're equipped to go out and do so. That's really exciting. Are there any last thoughts or questions from anyone from any hosts before we move on to rapid fire?

I don't know. I don't know where we are in time, Renee, I wanted to ask Greg a really. I Think it's a, it's a difficult question and I know it's too complex for us to unpack, but Greg, my understanding is from, from Old Testament all the way to the New Testament, God's thermometer for any society is how they treat children. And he's always intervened in the Old Testament, you know, when, when children were starting being sacrificed, that's where he found the worst decay of a society. And intervene in ways that we don't want God to intervene necessarily. But he always stands. And I kind of find that the thermometer of God is always with how we treat the most vulnerable, the weak, the smallest among us. And he, in the New Testament, he elevated and said, if you want to elevate the value of children, putting them among us, and said, look, this is your example. This is who you need to be in your souls and hearts. And I do think, and without being a fatalist, that we, we are experiencing some really rough days in our society when it comes to children. The over sexualization of children. I mean girls 12 years old read magazines and examples of, and the examples in the articles are all about, you know, how to, how to be safe having sex at 12 or 11 years old. And I'm thinking, what world am I living in? I mean this is. And I am actually thankful. Even though I have three kids of my own and they're younger now, I'm thankful I don't know all the things that are going on and I can't really look in the darkness really. Well, I'm thankful I don't have a flashlight. So these are the things that I see around me in the decay of how we treat our children and what's happening in our society? And my question to you from everything you've seen is what do you think is the role of the church in this time when it comes to whether it's curriculum, whether it's like the schooling, whether it's society, whether it's media, all the things we can be islands. We cannot all be Mennonites, Right? Wait a minute, Wait, wait a minute.

I take umbrage.

We cannot, we cannot be. We cannot have the luxury of having such conservative running away from society. Right. But rather, what do you think is the role of church in this decay that is happening around us when it comes to children?

Wow, man. Yeah, that's a great question. Profound and probably deserves at least another hour. You're right though. I mean, you think of Mark 9, Jesus welcoming the children in his midst. Oftentimes the church is probably better represented by the response of the disciples. And if you remember, as the children were, were being brought to Jesus, the disciples kind of pushed them aside and said, hey, you know, this isn't your place. This is not your place with the powerful. And Jesus lays into his disciples and invites the children in. Right? And certainly helps us to understand that in a sense they're the mascots of the kingdom of God. Right. They're the best example of what it means to be actors in the kingdom of God. And so we have a lot of work to do. You know, Psalm 10 reminds us that God is defending the, the orphan and the fatherless and the widow, those most marginalized in our communities. And so we see throughout scripture, as you've mentioned Aline, from the, from the earliest books in the Pentateuch to, to the last book, book of Revelation, that, that God's heart is, goes out and calls upon the church to act in support of not only protecting but giving voice to children. You think of all the surprising agents of God's kingdom in scripture. Mary, a young mother. You think of, you know, Joseph, the young, the older teenager who was trafficked. I mean just over and over and over again through scripture, God chooses to use young people and to allow their voice to be heard. And so to, to maybe use one word, prophetic voice. I mean talk. You know, you mentioned advocacy, Rob, a little bit ago. To have a prophetic voice is to raise consciousness, to raise awareness about issues in our society and then to do something about it. So we spend a lot of time in our courses talking about advocacy. Sometimes that gets political. Right? How do we, how do we advocate before legislative bodies? That's important too. But also certainly it's both micro and macro. It's not either or, it's both. It's micro. It's loving our kids and our families and protecting them. And if we, you know, if we were raised in a dysfunctional family, let's figure this out. Let's, let's get the training and the schooling that we need to love our children very well. But let's also broaden it out to a macro level. Don't be afraid to engage and, and political advocacy on the behalf of children. You know, I, I, you, you mentioned the over sexualization of, of children in society. Man, I can't help but think of a, of a multi billion dollar company that has just been, you know, brought before Congress in the United States and it was demonstrated through good scientific research that they were harming especially young girls and call them Instagram. You know, so, so let's look for opportunities to advocate wisely, carefully, for the protective protection of children, because they are who Jesus calls the greatest in his kingdom. Wow.

Well, that was. That was great. Thank you. Thank you so much.

Yeah, you bet.

Yeah.

Call out a company. You might want to edit that.

Nope.

Well, on that note, before we let you go, we want to take a minute just to get to know you a little bit better, and we do that with these rapid fire questions.

Oh, I'm getting scared.

I mean, you just answered the hardest question from Aline, so I think you can handle rapid fire.

Oh, yeah. You got it.

Yeah. Rob, you want to get ready?

Okay, here we go. If you could live in one country you've never lived in yet. What country?

Spain.

Oh, there it is, man.

I was just in Spain. Beautiful country. Loved it. I would. I would live. I probably will live in Spain one day. Nice. And we'll be neighbors.

We'll be neighbors.

Come on over.

Jump in the car.

You'll come over to my students. So my trip. I don't know how fast these rapid response questions. 2020. My trip to Spain with my family was canceled because of some stupid thing I heard there's. And so then I was going to try to do it in the summer of 2021, and it got messed up because of something else. And then so we just went. And. But for two years, I was dreaming, thinking, theologizing on paella.

How can you not.

It's not a drink. It's food, man. It's food. And it's rice with marisco seafood. Yeah. Just in phenomenal. And Aline. So my friends take me to this all you can eat paella restaurant on the beach. And you should have seen this pot of paella. It was larger than. Than the conference table in this patio.

Studio.

Studio. Whatever you call it. Studio. It was giant. And. And I had multiple plates of paella to the point where I was sick, so it was lovely. It was lovely.

So at one point, the theology kicked in for that one.

Well, you know, I've been thinking a lot about. Yeah. Lately it's been more of an afterthought, like. Like the beauty of these.

Beauty of creation.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Great.

Greg, if you had a boat, what would you name it?

Oh, my God.

That's a good one. I like that one.

Let's go with Christina, my wife. How's that?

Romantic.

And before Valentine, she keeps us afloat. That's right.

They shall call him wise.

Yeah. Aline, your turn.

Yes. My favorite question. If you. If you have. If you would Have a parrot. What would you teach him to say?

Jono? Say, oh.

What does that mean? I don't know what that means.

I don't know.

Oh, there we go.

Is it I'm not Jose or what is it?

I don't know. That's what I would literally teach the parrot to say. Jean. No. Say.

If you could live in one television or movie, television show or movie for the rest of. For one week, which movie or television show would you live in?

I thought you were gonna say for the rest of your time. My answer is quickly changing right now. You know, probably the Bourne Identity.

Ooh, Very energetic.

I could see that.

Yeah. You know, I would channel a little Matt Damon. His character in the Born. I didn't. I don't want to kill people, though.

Let's not do that.

I'm just like. Maybe just like Rob. I'm a bit of an Anabaptist.

There we go.

Pacifist. A little bit reluctantly on some occasions, but I don't want to kill anybody. So this Anabaptist idea of living peacefully with people is a beautiful concept. And so. But everything else, I would. I would go with Jason Bourne, one of those episodes, whatever show.

Do you have a favorite childhood memory?

Oh, my gosh, too many. You know, just. I feel like I've. I've been given so many gifts in life. Riding around town on my BMX bike with all of my buddies, causing just havoc in the community. Really. We caused havoc. Most of it was very. Didn't cause injury to people, so. But we were a bit of a. We called ourselves the Led Zeppelin gang. We were like these little 9, 10, 11 year olds riding around town on our BMX bikes. And we just. No child protection. No, you know, talking about child protection. Back in the 80s, parents just let you kind of go loose. No helmets. We just, you know, we come back with concussions because we were jumping our bikes over stuff we shouldn't have been doing. Just crazy stuff. But those are fun memories. Yeah.

One. One more for me. Favorite sport. And why? Soccer.

Oh, man, I love soccer. I love watching Premier League games. But surfing, it's been a passion of mine since I was 11 years old. Found a surfboard broken to pieces in a trash can, took it home to my dad, said, can we fix this thing? And he helped me put it together, literally the pieces together. And I've been surfing ever since, and I still love it. Try to get out once a month here on the coast, and it keeps me healthy, alive. And all the negative ions out in the water Just refresh your soul.

Amazing. I love it. Well, thank you so much for being here, Greg.

Here's a. Here's a paradox that we've just learned in this episode. Surfing in. In the Pacific Ocean keeps them alive. That is one paradox that I've heard that needs to be pointed out in.

The cold Oregon water. You know, you get into the water here in Oregon and you just. It'll wake you.

Yeah.

Rob knows that.

Absolutely.

Yeah. So, hey, it's been a lot of fun. Thank you so much. Yeah.

This conversation has been insightful and challenging and even hard at moments, despite the cold water and Led Zeppelin gang, not.

To mention the sharks.

If you want to know more about Greg and the work he's doing here with students all over the and all over the world, take a look at his course on multnomahplus.com and his podcast, Development and Justice. We're going to link those in the show notes for you. Please check them out. Thanks for joining us for this discussion. And Rob, are you ready to wrap us up?

Yes. I do this so well, and I'm being sarcastic today. I'm going to be professional. The proceeding. The preceding podcast has been brought to you by mutots, a collaboration of friends here at the school. In no ways does it represent the official views or values of the school. Don't sue us.

That's good.