Fast for the Earth 2024

The voice of one crying in the wilderness: “Prepare the way of the LORD; Make straight in the desert A highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted And every mountain and hill brought low; The crooked places shall be made straight And the rough places smooth; The glory of the LORD shall be revealed, And all flesh shall see it together; For the mouth of the LORD has spoken.” Isaiah 40:3-5 Today’s challenge is to have a clean up along the streets where you will walk for the Palm Sunday procession. What a powerful witness if the community can see the church out in numbers, cleaning up and when asked what are you doing we can say “we are preparing the streets for the Messiah”! Last Palm Sunday Bishop Steve Moreo of Johannesburg led a Palm Sunday Procession – but on going outside the Cathedral there was such a huge pile of rubbish, that he led a protest about poor waste management  -watch him here;https://x.com/RediTlhabi/status/1642809552004341760?s=20 If we really believe that cleanliness is next to godliness, then it should break our hearts to walk through the streets of our community and see such dirt.  Let us take this opportunity to gather together the day before Palm Sunday and to prepare the streets for the Messiah!

Here is the ocean, vast and wide, teeming with life of every kind, both large and small Psalms 104:25-27 Today’s challenge is to watch a movie about the impact of plastic with your youth group at church or your family – and have a discussion about how it makes them feel and what we can do about it Troubled waters: the impact of plastic on turtles Troubled waters Sea Turtles Albatross -this will break your heart! Albatross the movie Blue Planet 2 Episode 7 (on Amazon Prime) Broken On Netflix, the episode called “recycling Scam” it’s a documentary series Plastic Oceans have a range of films to watch What have you seen that has been impactful – either a movie or a short video clip – share with the group!

Blessed are those who act justly, who always do what is right. Psalm 106:3 Today’s challenge it to sign a petition to add your voice and make a difference! Here is a petition from Tearfund a Christian Charity https://www.tearfund.org/forms/rubbish-campaign-petition The world demands an ambitious plastic treaty Here are a lot of petitions which are targeting businesses or stores look for one relevant to you https://www.change.org/t/plastic-pollution-en-us As we mentioned yesterday a very important thing  you can do is to write to your national negotiator on the Plastic Treaty https://www.unep.org/inc-plastic-pollution/national-focal-points

Speak up for those who have no voice, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy. Proverbs 31:8-9 NIV Two years ago, in March 2022  the gavel came down on a historic resolution at the  fifth session of the United Nations Environment Assembly in Nairobi to end plastic pollution and forge an international legally binding agreement by 2024. Heads of State , ministers of Environment and other representatives from 193 member states agreed on this landmark agreement.  Plastic production has risen exponentially in the last decades and now amounts to some 400 million tons per year– a figure set to double by 2040. This landmark agreement agreed to address the full lifecycle of plastic from source to sea. A cap would be placed on new plastic production, certain toxic and hard to recycle items would be banned,  single use plastics drastically reduced and waste management and recycling improved considerably . Inger Andersen, Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), said the agreement is the most important international multilateral environmental deal since the Paris climate accord. Since that event, a process was set up called the INC (Intergovernmental  Negotiating Committee)  to work out the details of that treaty . On the  23-29 of April 2024, governments will come together in Ottowa in Canada for the fourth round of negotiations for a global treaty to end plastic pollution. This treaty is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to create a global solution to this worsening global crisis. Unless governments agree on an ambitious and fair treaty with legally binding global rules, plastic pollution is likely to triple by 2040, accumulating in our food and water and exacerbating the risk of flooding. To solve this crisis, all countries must adopt a treaty that will ban avoidable high risk plastic items – those that cause the most harm or are most prone to leaking into the environment. The problem is – the fossil fuel companies are panicking. Projected sales of oil are dropping as the world transitions to electric vehicles and they see plastic as a life line. They are in fact projecting an increase in sales of oil to manufacture plastic – and are building new petrochemical plants especially in the USA We all need to do what we can to influence our countries negotiators at the INC . The role of faith communities is key here as the plastic polluters are saying things like “vulnerable communities need plastic products because the eco-friendly ones are too expensive”  “the problem is waste management not plastic production” We need to bring stories of the impact of plastic on our most vulnerable communities – health impacts of dumping, flooding from the drains being blocked, air pollution from burning of plastics – and let our negotiators know. Here is the list of your national negotiators – write to them!! Before it is too late https://www.unep.org/inc-plastic-pollution/national-focal-points

Train up a child in the way they should go: And when they are  old, they will not depart from it. Proverbs 22:6 It is important to teach our children about the importance of sharing, and not hoarding of their toys and items. These are important principles that they will grow up with. They quickly grow out of certain toys and games, and another child’s toys are exciting! So how can you organise a toy swop? This could be for your Sunday School or between a group of parent friends. How to organise a toy swop A toy swap can be a small informal gathering, a huge community event, or anywhere in between. Decide what scale you have the time and inclination to organize. Find other swappers Ask other parents with children of similar ages if they’re interested in participating. Decide if you want to keep the swap smaller with just a few friends or want to put on a bigger neighborhood or community-wide swap or church swap. Get kids on board Talk to your child about the swap and have him or her pick out which toys are ready to pass along. Once your child realizes he or she will be receiving a toy in trade, they will be more likely to participate. Set some ground rules Do toys have to have all their working parts, or can they be missing a piece or two? Completeness is more vital for some toys than others, but all toys should be in good enough condition that other kids will actually want them. Every toy should get a good cleaning before coming to the swap. Decide who can come Many parents report having the process work far better if the children do not participate at the actual swap. This saves the inevitable struggles over electronic music-playing gizmos that will quickly drive parents insane or last-minute changes of heart about that doll or block set. You can make it an enjoyable grown-up social event, and celebrate together having holiday shopping done early without any exhausting (and expensive) trips to the mall. Decide how value will be assigned Will each toy be considered of equal value, or will you credits (rand or dollar or just a number? A credit system might be fairer if you want to allow for toys ranging from very small (a simple doll) to very large (a scooter or big building set), but it also adds to the complexity of the process. If your swap is smaller, you could also work out fair trades on the spot, exchanging a collection of smaller items for one larger ones. For big swaps, credits are probably the way to go. Have a couple volunteers distribute tickets representing the amount swappers have to “buy” other toys. Display the gear Set everything out so people can see it easily. You could try grouping similar items together to make the “shopping” process easier Let the trading begin You can draw numbers and take turns, or everyone can look and choose at their leisure.. Each participant should have a bag or box to put their “new” items into. Donate the rest Take  any leftover toys from your toy swap to a thrift shop or charity of your choice. Swaps can work for lots more than toys. Once you’ve got an enthusiastic base of swappers, you could organize swaps for clothing, kitchen gear, or sports equipment. Use your imagination and help trim your family’s ecological footprint for all sorts of items you used to buy new. From https://learn.eartheasy.com/articles/how-to-host-a-toy-swap/