Peter was a curate at St Marys, and in 1983 he and his wife Miranda and their three, later four children, went to the Algarve in Portugal in a pioneering mission to live and speak out for God’s care for creation in the face of ‘ the present disasters overtaking the world that Christians believed God had made’. A trust was set up under the chairmanship of Bob Pullan, with the name A Rocha meaning The Rock. The trust bought a house called Cruzinha on the Alvor peninsula which became a Christian field studies centre. Peter and Miranda lived in community and welcomed thousands of visitors, with hundreds staying annually, many involved in scientific environmental research. 
After twelve years Peter and Miranda left Portugal and for a few years travelled encouraging new national projects around the world before settling in France in 1997 and supporting a new A Rocha centre there, while they continued to travel.

They left France around ten years ago and settled back in England which they have used as a base while travelling extensively, visiting A Rocha projects, speaking at churches, conferences and theological colleges and doing a great deal of fundraising.

Since 1983 St Mary’s has supported Peter and Miranda financially and in prayer as Mission Links and welcomed them back here every few years. Miranda was killed in the terrible car-accident in South Africa last October and Peter was badly injured and is still recovering.

The setting up of A Rocha projects in other countries led to the start of A Rocha International in 2000. By the eighth leaders’ forum in 2007 17 national organisations were represented. There are now 20 counties with A Rocha projects and other countries which have connections to A Rocha with for example a book called God’s Gardeners having just been produced by the A Rocha friends in Singapore.

In recent years there has been a small group of A Rocha International leaders based in the UK including Peter, Dave Bookless as Theology director, and Chris Naylor as Chief Executive. Chris also died alongside his wife Susannah in the road accident in South Africa.

After Peter and Miranda left Portugal, they were for a few years replaced as wardens of Cruzinha by another British couple, who were then in 2000 succeeded by Marcial and Paula Felgueiras. Marcial and Paula were much influenced by Peter and Miranda in their student days, and they became the first Portuguese leaders of A Rocha Portugal.

They have carried on Peter and Miranda’s work as wardens of Cruzinha, welcoming visitors (including many visitors and volunteers from St. Marys), and school parties for education visits, supervising many volunteers in scientific projects and leading A Rocha Portugal. A new couple, Jasper and Tayler (from Oregon, USA) have recently been appointed as the new centre managers allowing Marcial and Paula free to lead A Rocha Portugal.

A Rocha UK started in in early 2001, as a result of Dave Bookless who was a vicar in Southall being inspired first of all by John Stott, then by visits to Cruzinha and spending time with Peter and Miranda. It started with the restoration of an area of land in Southall which became A Rocha Waterways.

A Rocha UK now has two conservation sites at Wolf Fields in Southall and Foxearth on the Suffolk/Essex border. In recent years it has been growing its Partners in Action scheme which is ‘a collaboration of Christian land managers demonstrating active care for the natural world’. A Rocha UK has twelve staff who among other things are asked to give hundreds of talks a year on creation care and the work of A Rocha and Eco Church at churches and conferences.

Hannah, who lives in Huddersfield, was brought up in St Mary’s, and is the daughter of Mark and Sheila Roberts. She began working part-time for A Rocha UK after she spent a year as a volunteer at Cruzinha.She was originally responsible for the Partners in Action scheme and now she is the mother of two small children and she works one day a week as PA to Andy Lester, the

Conservation director of A Rocha UK.

In 2010 A Rocha UK was asked to take over an existing scheme called Eco Congregation which encouraged churches to put creation care into action in a range of both teaching and practical ways. That led to Graeme Skinner initiating the formation of an Eco congregation group at St Mary’s.

We gained our first Eco congregation award in 2012 and, having been asked to go further, gained a second award in 2015. In January 2016 A Rocha introduced Eco Church which is an on-line questionnaire with points for a wide range of activities under five headings: Worship and Teaching, Buildings, Land, Community and Global and Lifestyle. Using much of the evidence we already had from our Eco-congregation awards we gained an Eco-church silver award to 2018. Eco church has proved very popular, with around 650 churches having gained awards.

Several members of the Eco church group have been attending the Chester diocesan Environmental Forum meetings over the past two years. The forum has recently written an environmental policy for the diocese, which we hope all churches will put into action. A Rocha UK has an Eco diocese award scheme and Chester hopes to be able to apply for that in the future.