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Couple ready to walk 200 km prayer route through Nelson Mandela Bay On the 4th of November Bishop Eric Pike and his wife Joyce, started a 2ookm Prayer Pilgrimage through Nelson Mandela Bay(NMB) to launch the city’s unique Nehemiah Prayer route. The couple in their 80s have plenty of walking cred, they have both completed 780 km Camino pilgrimage through France to Spain twice. Bishop Eric  also undertook a prayer walk around the periphery of the city In the past, which touches every ward of Nelson Mandela Bay  and tells the story of the past and present role of the church in the city. The Pikes together with Pastor Mark Upman set out from St Margaret’s Anglican church in Summerstrand on their first 10km leg. They will walk approximately 10km a day from Monday to Thursday for most of the route which they will finish back at St Margaret’s on Saturday November 30. Each leg of the walk will be anchored by a venue, usually a church where parking and ablutions are available. Bishop  Pike says that he is walking because he cares for the city and wants unity in the city, and he wants to see all the circumstances in the wards. Whilst  there are riches in P.E, there is extreme poverty, Bishop Pike wants to bring hope and love. Walking together will show that we can rebuild the city together NMB metro authorities have caught the vision. A police vehicle will drive ahead and behind the walkers, a metro emergency medical service will also be provided on a daily basis. Volunteer marshals will act as guides and logistics overseers each day, they will be well equipped to point out landmarks and tell stories that have shaped the area. This walk could contribute immensely to tourism as the church had an important role in this city’s history. Trevor Jennings emphasised that the 10km launch walks are not for exercise but for prayer. The objectives of the walk is to: 1- for healing and reconciliation of our people.  2- connecting everyone in all 60 wards, walking around to see the state of our city, finding a way forward and fixing it. At the start of each day’s walk, pilgrims will be given a list of five prayer points focusing on taking down key strongholds applicable to the day’s route, such as drugs, prostitution and gang violence in certain areas. As they walk they will also be encouraged to pray into “whatever their eyes are telling them”. The walkers will also be challenged to bring the hope of the Gospel into neighbourhoods where poverty and unemployment have left many feeling hopeless. On the 5th of November, the walkers went to St Stevens and Langa where people had been  shot. The Nehemiah Prayer route, which has been mapped out with GPS coordinates will be open for walkers, runners, cyclists, motorcyclists and motorists. School groups, fellowship groups, other groups and individuals were welcome to experience the prayer route and get first hand insight into the challenges faced by the city. the church plays a vital role in the community, every route has spiritual significance. Photo Credit Anglican Diocese of Port Elizabeth

A new Vision for Sacred Life and Living Earth Bishop Ellinah Wamukoya gave a speech at the Policy Conference of SAFCEI (Southern African Faith Community Environmental Institute  “Unless our work is grounded in our places of worship, we could be just any NGO” – many NGOS work on all these issues . How can  Safcei  be different to other NGOS? Nelson Mandela said this “If you speak to a person in a language they understand, you speak to their head. If you speak to them in their own language, you speak to their heart” We need to learn to translate these issues into our own language, our faith language. Let me make a few examples. Water Justice When talking about water justice, our starting point is the sacredness of water. There are 722 verses in the Bible that speak of water. The Bible starts with the picture of the Spirit of God hovering over the waters – and in the last book – Revelation – we read that the water of life flows from the throne of God. As Christians, we become members of the family of God through the sacred waters of baptism. So our work for climate justice must be rooted in the sacredness of water. In most African countries fetching water remain the duty of girls and women. Personally, growing up I have experienced the need to wake up as early as 3am to fetch water from as far away as up to 3km one way and being exposed to all sorts risk. Climate change will increase the incidence of sexual harassment and rape among young women as they have to walk further and get up in the dark to fetch water. The Kingdom of Eswatini in efforts to meet SDG #6 it is working on rural water supply in some communities where the objective is that each family can have clean water access within 200m and meeting minimum of 30L per person per day. The Diocese of Swaziland has embarked rainwater harvesting in Parishes and schools in efforts to ensure water is available to most . The time of drought the schools were threatened with closure because the children could not use the toilets. We have currently distributed 5,000 lts  water tanks to most of the Anglican schools. We all know which river Jesus was baptised in ? Yes the Jordan river. But most of us do not know where the water comes from that we were baptised with – we think “it comes out of a tap”. But water comes from God, it comes from rain and into the rivers. And our rivers are polluted. As a Church, we have over the years embarked on river clean up campaigns and we have proposed that churches should adopt a certain river to clean up any pollutants and remove water thirsty plant species from the river banks within a specified distance. During the Season of Creation we hold outdoor services – for example by the river, followed by a river clean up. We are also duty bound as faith communities to preach about the sacredness of water and also teach water saving techniques to our people.   The Anglican Church is concerned about water justice such that it had conferences on water justice in 2018 in the US and Cape Town. Land justice “I brought you into a fertile land to eat its rich fruit and produce but you came and defiled my land and made my inheritance detestable. Jer 2:7 Land degradation from bad agricultural practices, pollution, bad road constructions, forest fires, deforestation, overgrazing and poorly planned land use practices and settlements among others are also on the rise in most African countries and my Kingdom (Eswatini) is not spared. In Eswatini, the Sugar industry is the major monoculture that uses a lot of chemicals and synthetic fertilizers all which pollute the land and water and also kills useful insects such as bees. Most investments are diverted to big scale agricultural project other than the small scale farmers that feeds the nation. This provide a difficult choice in light of the economic down turn of our societies. We are called to renew the face of the earth, this means healing the soil – and so we teach climate smart agriculture – low tillage, making our own compost, not using artificial fertilizers, lots of mulching. These techniques are called “God’s way of farming” – learning from nature. Energy and Climate As it has been discussed in this conference energy sector is blamed for contributing to environmental challenges such as through emission of carbon dioxide from burning of fossil fuels. In Eswatini we depend on electricity generated in South Africa using coal, South African electricity is the dirtiest in the world.  Eswatini is very much looking forward to mining her large reserves of coal. Coal mining on its own has contributed to a number of challenges in the mining areas such as Mpumalanga in South Africa. As Green Anglicans we promote the use of renewable energy sources such as use of solar geezers, solar lighting, energy saving bulbs etc. Our Mother’s Union make the “wonder bag” which you can cook with using very little fuel, and we also promote rocket stoves. We partnered with the Interfaith Centre for Sustainable Development and were trying to get  a small scale industrial solar farm built. But bureaucracy defeated us. However the Diocese of Niassa in Northern Mozambique recently signed off on a 50 Megawatt  solar field and the Anglican Diocese of Lake Malawi is close behind Biodiversity    The web of life is unravelling.  The theme for this year’s Season of Creation was biodiversity. In 2019 in the month of July, Eswatini experience the worst wild fires ever that blazed through natural and manmade biodiversity. The fire damages accounted a loss of over E/R74million which resulted in the loss of wild animals in Mlilwane Game park, commercial forest, grazing land and cropland and individual properties. Fires have a direct impact on

A DIOCESAN FAMILY DAY WITHOUT WASTE The Diocese of Libombos celebrated their Diocesan Family Day on the 26th to 27th of October at the Cathedral of Saint Augustine of Hippo in Maciene. Various activities of the day took place as well as a clean up campaign Rev Aurelio Uqueio A Diocese dos Libombos celebrou o Dia da Família Diocesana de 26 a 27 de Outubro na Catedral de Santo Agostinho de Hipona em Maciene. Várias actividades de jornada de limpeza foram feitas…

A march was held in Lilongwe, Malawi on the 26th of October with the theme, a plastic free Malawi is possible. The Malawi Creation Care network,, Renew our world and Green Anglicans all took part in this powerful event. African countries are leading the way in banning of single use plastic. Photos – Charles Bakolo

CREATING A MANDELA GARDEN Youth leaders from St Timothy’s Factreton attended a “Care for Creation” workshop. They were inspired to do something practical at their church. Samantha Miles and her team decided to plant a Mandela Garden and the Church agreed to have a Care for our Creation outdoor service. Waterwise indigenous plants were donated by neighbouring parish St Stephens Pinelands, and blessed by Rev Joshua Abrahams at the Care for Creation Service Refreshments followed What a privilege to share our 67min to God’s creation Planting our new plants in our Mandela Garden is shining bright like a diamond! –  Photo credit Samantha Miles

OUR HELP IS IN THE NAME OF THE LORD, MAKER OF HEAVEN AND EARTH – GREEN ANGLICANS HIKE On the 19th of October 2019, Green Anglicans had a hike at the Tygerberg nature reserve. 55 people in total attended the hike. The hike was lead by Neil Adams. The hike was 8kms long. There was a variety of age groups at the hike, from kids to teenagers to adults. During the hike Bino led us on a meditation on Psalm 124 “our help is in the name of the Lord, Maker of heaven and Earth”.   The mediation was mainly for reflecting on the year 2019, goals that we set ,achieved and failed to achieve. Bino highlighted that we should take our “failures” as challenges and not as the end of the road. Then we divided into pairs to pray one for the other. The hiking trail had different features such as a variety of plants and flowers, different types of birds. On the hike people saw egg shells and birds hunting for their prey. It was refreshing to be  at the nature reserve and appreciate Gods creation, the peaceful nature and the greenery at the mountain and surrounding area. Story – Tlou Mpai Photo credits Neil Adams