News

  The Diocese of Free State celebrated their annual family weekend from the 26th to 28th of August 2016. With various environmental challenges facing province, including water shortages, the weekend was themed to raise awareness across the diocese about care for creation.  As a most attended event in the diocese, the family weekend was a perfect space for the Bishop to share with his diocese about earth keeping. The Green Environmental Weekend was organised by a diocesan task team, one of them being Thapelo Mabule, who saw  the success of the event throughout the weekend, working tirelessly to achieve the goal of earth keeping. And this is his reflection: We were at the priory from Friday till Sunday with a passion and well organised environmental program for the weekend. We planted 153 trees around the farm commemorating the 153 years of the existence of our Diocese. Provincial Green Anglicans  and its ambassadors in Diocese of Pretoria graced the event to motivate help and congratulate the diocese of Free State for making the environmental issues their issues as well. Among others we had a river clean up session as well as the heritage walk around the farm reflecting on our history Saturday commenced with a clean-up in area and clearing of the river which homes Mantsopa well, finishing the day with a very big tree planting ceremony, where different parishes and guilds planted trees and vowed to look after them.   The Sunday service took place outside, next to the well-known Mantsopa Cave, Bishop Steve Dintoe preached about our role in taking care of God’s earth, dismissed the congregation on top of the cave and closed the ceremony by planting and blessing a tree.

The worlds largest antelope have been gone for two centuries but they are back in Cape Town at Rondevlei Nature Reserve. Five young Eland have been reintroduced to the Cape Flats, all in a bid to manage vegetation in local nature reserves. It’s an area they roamed 200 years ago, and can now make the scenic Rondevlei Nature Reserve their new home. The initiative  rests with the Cape Town Environmental Education Trust and the City of Cape Town. Dalton Gibbs a member at Christ Church Kenilworth had a dream to reintroduce the Eland and has worked tirelessly to make this dream a reality. They are being reintroduced to combat the bush encroachment that happens when there are no large herbivores. What a beautiful church in creation we experienced at Rondevlei, as the rainbow came forth in between the rain showers. In this wetland, life flourishes in the heart of the city, from fish to birds to hippos. And now the mighty Eland are making this wetland their home. The wetland is truly a source of life. God said, “Let there be a huge space between the waters. Let it separate water from water.”  And that’s exactly what happened. God made the huge space between the waters. He separated the water that was under the space from the water that was above it.  God called the huge space “sky.” There was evening, and there was morning. It was day two.” Gen 1:6-8 Water is like the womb of life. The waters of Gen 1 are interpreted as the dark mystery of God that enfolds all things. Just as in human birth the waters break so that life can come forth, in God’s water all that is to be created will appear. St Paul speaks of the one “in whom, we live and move and have our being.” Creation is planted in the waters of God’s life.  The wetland cleanses water and provides a home for new life. What a beautiful symbol of Gods creative water. “May the  water of the wetland remind us of the vitality and vibrancy of the Divine Presence in us – in whom we live and move and have our being”

As a young person of faith , what does nuclear energy mean to me? Understanding Nuclear is not only about understanding these big scientific terms, but it needs to be understood in terms of its effects on communities. The countries has turned a blind eye to the fact that Nuclear energy is not “clean  energy” due to its hazardous form. Once fuel has been used-it cannot just be disposed of since it is radioactive and dangerous. All the focus is based on profits; governments paint this most beautiful picture of profits that will be gained, and yet if things go wrong either financially or environmentally, then  it becomes the public’s loss. Think about this: for this country to build nuclear plants it is estimated that it will cost  one trillion rand, this equates to 4 000 times the costs to upgrade President Jacob Zuma’s Nkandla residence or  400 times the shortfall the tertiary education sector will experience in 2016 because of the freeze in university fee increases. Wouldn’t it be great if more focus could be placed on sustainable methods of energy? To date 72 renewable energy programmes have been started, they have been built on time, within budget and with no backhanded “brown envelopes” being handed over. They also create many more jobs than nuclear power stations. Let us also think of  health risks and contamination  that are as a result of nuclear, the habitants and inhabitants that are lost in the process. As a young person of faith  I care for the future of God’s Earth  and the future of my children and I say #Nuclear must fall, #renewables must rise. Mollie Jankie  

The Anglican Students of  Namibia Clean up a  Hospital The Anglican Students’ Federation in Namibia (ASFN) hosted their Regional Conference from the 07th-10th July 2016, at Windhoek Multipurpose Youth Center in Katutura Windhoek Namibia. The Conference was under the Theme: Be Strong in Faith, Fight the devil. (1 Peter 5:9). As one of the aims and objectives of the federation, and as per one of its mission statement; which is to serve the needs of students and communities, ASFN visited  Katutura State Hospital to do their outreach activities on the 08th July 2016 during their Regional Conference. Most delegates to the conference took part in this outreach where they went to do Evangelism and Voluntary Cleaning. After some students and the Chaplain ministered to some of the hospital staffs and prayed for all patients and all members of the Hospital, and indeed for good health for our nation at large; students went around the hospital yard singing praise songs and picking up rubbish in the hospital yard, the aim was to keep our environment clean. Glory be to God for all what we have done at this hospital; special thanks to the hospital management for accepting us and for allowing the federation to do their outreach at their premises, and thanks to all ASFers who gave a wonderful picture of the Anglican Students Federation  at this Hospital through their presence, as we look forward to keep our environment clean, building peace and democracy at Southern Africa. Victor H Shikongeni ASFN 4th Chairman

The office of the Green Anglicans facilitated a training for Maitland archdeaconry Sunday school Superintendents on Saturday 30th July 2016 at St Chads, Table View. Children learn better at a very young age, and they do not forget their learnings- so the aim of the workshop was to assist the superintendents on ways to teach the children how to care for creation. 36 participants were present, with representatives from 10 parishes; Good Shepherd(Kensinton), St Oswald(Milnerton), St Anne(Maitland), St Michaels and All Angels(Edgemead), Holy Trinity(Bothasig), St Lawrence(Du Noon), St Stephens(Pinelands), All Saints(Atlantis), St Chad’s(Table View), St Timothy(Facreton). Rev Rachel Mash and Mollie Jankie, the facilitators of the training used Ryan the Rhino as a guideline for the training. This was by far the most interesting group, it was so diverse- from the youngest participant to the oldest and yet their learning was so fun. They made it so easy for the facilitators, their participation and creativity was out of this world. They also got to realize how harmful their daily behaviors can be to the planet At the end of the presentation, participants were given different tasks according to different days of creation; the aim was to test their creativity skills and their level of understanding. Most groups did very well, they owned the activities given to them and it was amazing.  

PRESCHOOLERS GOING WILD FOR CREATION IN SWAZILAND The Diocese of Swaziland partnered with the Swaziland Environmental Authority and Green Anglicans to run a workshop for Pre-school teachers using the manual : Ryan the Rhino- Caring for Creation. The teachers were excited and have implemented lots of the ideas from the manual as well as new ones. Here is some news from Paradise Pre-school: Teacher Bongiwe Dlamini shares “With the help of the book and what was trained in the workshop and our innovations we had taught different environmental topics to our pupils. We had come up with waste management practices where we encourage waste point source separation and re-use of the waste generated. We have made sound letters using card boxes, skipping ropes using plastic, phones from yogurt containers, flowers from sweet papers, Ndebele necklace from toilet rolls, flower pots from yogurt containers. We have involved the pupils in most of the art work, collection of plastics and sweet papers from home and within school. We promote energy conservation, water harvesting and planting of flowers. We have just started and we are going to introduce even more other environmental topics and practical work. Music and plays has been also used to train our people. The book we use is based on the Bibles so we also use verses to teach our pupils which is good for their spirituality.” Ryan the Rhino Manual can be found on this link: https://www.greenanglicans.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/CARING-FOR-CREATION-RYAN-THE-RHINO.pdf