Nina Boe
Nominee for: Mission Council, Lay Person
Please describe your current involvement in the Episcopal Church in Connecticut using first person, narrative language.
I am newer to the Connecticut and eager to bring my experiences and passions to my new community. I’m currently building my church home in the Fairfield County area, and am excited to engage with multiple ECCT Ministry Networks.
I’d like to share a bit about my most relevant experiences in the Episcopal Diocese of New York and what I intend to bring forward in engaging with ECCT. I was a member of the Global Mission Commission, inspired in no small part due to my experience as missionary in the Young Adult Service Corps (Brazil, 2013-2015). While my global interests have led me from southeastern Europe to central Africa over the years, I am privileged to continue supporting partnership efforts between The Episcopal Church and the Episcopal Anglican Church of Brazil by serving on the Brazil Bilateral Committee. Additional engagement from my previous church home (Heavenly Rest, NYC) included participating in Sacred Ground and sharing my photography via parish art shows.
In terms of where and how I intend to engage further in ECCT, my passions draw me to a few areas, including racial healing, justice & reconciliation, companions in mission, and creation care.
Between growing up in Seattle and living/working in New York City, I have years of personal and professional experience in interfaith community building and advocacy. The focus areas for this ministry network align with my professional experience in training and facilitation, event coordination, and resource organization/data management. I am eager to explore and grow new and existing models of reconciliation for our times and realities, recognizing that realities we face across the same diocese may differ greatly from community to community.
My global mission experiences make me excited to learn more about and support the efforts of parishes engaging and interested in mission efforts. I’m particularly interested in ways to share the impactful stories of companionship and lessons for ECCT and The Episcopal Church as a whole. I am eager to discuss ways how the mission network and engaged parish members can engage in sharing skills within their communities and across partnerships to support relevant skill development (such as grant writing, needs analyses, and more). My backgrounds in various nonprofit settings, mission work, and the Peace Corps have left me with many ideas!
Lastly, my interests in creation care have roots (pardon the pun) in my experiences in the Pacific Northwest/Diocese of Olympia. I am mindful of the rapidly changing needs around us in our own communities, whether navigating topics like climate change to the environmental impacts of AI. Additionally, I am passionate about exploring the diverse perspectives within and beyond our communities to explore what creation care can truly mean for us in being faithful stewards of our earth.
I fully recognize that being newer to the diocese means I may not have a lengthy resume of engagement here, but I am utterly hopeful – and excited! – to explore these opportunities and much more.
While in some ways I feel newer to topics like creation care, this has been perhaps the biggest avenue in which I have had the privilege to engage in my local community. I’ve been actively involved with a neighborhood urban farm, regularly donating financially and in-kind to their efforts of combating food insecurity and providing affordable, sliding fee fresh produce at their weekly farmstands. I’ve also had the privilege and opportunity to donate my time and learning via my own journey into herbalism and creating herbal skincare items for home use, teaching a class as well as showing up in support for local small business featured events. I am excited to continue supporting opportunities for learners and leaders alike to teach and share their skills in order to further build up the knowledge and experiences of others.
I’ve long been passionate about civic engagement, including frequently contacting my federal and local elected officials to advocate for topics of importance – to me and to my community. When there were documented ICE sightings in my neighborhood and city, I called and wrote to all of my officials on a regular basis and ensured that my neighbors knew what was happening and where to go for more information if needed. I’ve availed myself of the opportunity to engage directly with my elected officials, attending local town hall events and elevating questions to engage in meaningful dialogue – both with my officials and with fellow constituents. Across my previous faith and volunteer roles, I have had multiple opportunities to engage on state and federal levels with advocacy and also led workshops providing learners with the opportunity to practice conversations or write letters/postcards to share their concerns.
I am also engaged in multiple creative pursuits, joining fellow creative writers in the Stamford area as I work on my first novel. I am passionate about photography, and am networking with local contacts to collaborate with fellow artists. I also support local filmmakers, and am breaking into new experience as a producer. I’m eager to support and elevate storytellers and those who wish to share their voices and experiences!
I feel that I’m suited to this position for a variety of reasons. First and foremost: I’m incredibly excited to get more involved in ECCT! My extroverted, networking, storytelling brain is eager to explore this state and diocese even further, to meet people, listen, and learn – and support the fabulous work people or doing or aspire to do. The lessons I’ve learned time and again, whether in my backyard or halfway around the world, boil down to community and connection.
I won’t preach to the choir about the challenges of doing church in today’s world – anyone reading this no doubt knows that from experience. I can acknowledge how easy it is for us to silo our spaces on Sundays, or start preparing for the next diocesan convention as soon as the next one’s over. To me, the big challenge – and exciting opportunity – is bringing church and community together, every day of the week. To find Christ in our communities, not just on Sundays within the walls of our congregations, but beyond them. To explore loving our neighbors and communities – even if we disagree with each other.
I truly feel that my experiences and interests – whether global, local, and everything in between – have brought me to the right place and time. In prayerful reflection and discussion with people as I considered putting my application forward, what came back to me time and again is the reminder that community – that Christ and mission – is right here, right now. The question ahead of us is: how do we do this together?
I’m reminded of one of my favorite quotes by Rainier Maria Rilke: “Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”
No doubt you, like me, have been navigating a lot of questions over the years. I am excited to be here with you now and explore together just how we might be living into those answers.