News

LESOTHO DIOCESAN YOUTH LAYF GOING GREEEEEEN! The Diocesan Youth of Lesotho gathered in Quting for their annual Youth Conference. A large and very vibrant group of  some three hundred young people gathered to pray, worship, build fellowship and learn together. Some of the visitors to the conference included the Provincial Chair Person Bino Makhalanyane and Provincial Environmental Coordinator – Rev Dr Rachel Mash as well as the Youth Worker from the Diocese of Matlosane,Kgowe Moleme.   Bino challenged the young people to become active citizens by taking part in environmental or social justice projects. The winner of this competition will be presented at provincial Synod next year. More information can be found on xxx Rev Rachel challenged them in three areas : to save water, to reduce, reuse recycle and to plant trees. An exciting competition was held on the theme of “reuse” whereby two teams had to dress up their leader in newspaper and plastic bin bags. The winner was chairperson Simelela  , decided by load clapping!! We were reminded that plastic can stay on this earth for hundreds of year and we do not want the next generation to call us the Plastic People. Rev Mash reminded us that the Earth is the Lord’s and just as we would feel bad if someone threw rubbish in the sanctuary, God feels bad when we throw rubbish in God’s sanctuary  the Earth. To save water, people were grouped into small groups and had to come up with a list of creative ideas on how to save water.  Winners were rewarded with a green Anglicans sticker for their prayer book The chair of the ASF of the Free State explained the importance of tree planting in  Lesotho and how important it is to stop environmental degradation and the formation of more dongas.

MOTHERS UNION –  “WHAT KIND OF WORLD DO WE WANT TO LEAVE FOR OUR GRANDCHILDREN?” A vibrant conference was held of the Provincial Mothers Union of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa. Members from each of the six countries represented by  ACSA gathered in Maseru, Lesotho for the 50th Council Meeting. They were blessed to be joined by the World President of the Mothers Union, Lynn Tembey and other representatives from Mary Sumner House (headquarters of MU in London). Rev Dr Rachel Mash brought the environmental challenge to the Mothers Union by explaining the impact of Climate Change on  Southern Africa. The bad news is that Southern Africa is extremely vulnerable to Climate change, and is already experiencing both drought in certain countries and extreme weather events in others. This will only become worse in years to come. The Provincial President Thembsie Mchunu has taken up the challenge by asking all MU members to fast and pray for the drought for a month of Thursdays. The presentation also looked at environmental degradation and how we can leave plastic and pollution for our children and grandchildren through careless catering practices. The challenge for us as Mothers is this “What kind of world do we want to leave for our children”

          The Diocese of Natal’s annual environment workshop which takes place during the first week of November took place on 7 November.  A few bursaries were grantedfor some people travelling from Pietermaritzburg to stay overnight the night before.  This group of seven were accompanied by Sibu and Michelle (environment interns). The workshop officially started on Saturday morning with registration and a short meet and greets session were everyone introduced themselves. The programme got off to a good start with a green Eucharist lead by Bishop Tsietsi Seleoane and assisted by Archdeacon Andrew Manning. Thereafter our 1st guest speaker John Parkin from Durban Solid Waste (DSW) who informed us about landfill gases and how they have managed to successfully turn the Mariannhill landfill site into a conservative area  which generates usable gases from our general waste.  He stressed the need to separate or organic waste from recyclable goods for easy decompositions purposes. He was followed by Brent Coverdale from the KZN Ezemvelo Wildlife who gave us an insight into the importance of bio-diversity with “what’s all the fuss about?” He said that much of our natural heritage is venerable.  He stressed that it is not just the Big 5 is that are importance species in South Africa – we should also be concerned about, for example, our nation bird,  the Blue Crain,  which is found mainly in KZN.  He said that the depletion of our natural resources and wildlands are linked to the “golden arrow”. A short video from the Story of Stuff explained this golden arrow concept, which is essentially the problem of consumerism. Brent ended off with a few words of encouragement on how we as earthkeepers should be taking care of our bio-diversity; we should consider joining community groups or clubs to broaden our understanding of the concept of bio-diversity so as best enabling us to contribute to sustaining our wildlife. The interns took a different approach during their session – they focused on “mobilizing the church”.  The purpose of their presentation was to look at a personal journey of our spiritual connection with nature: looking at what interests us in becoming passionate about the environment.  Some are concerned about water conservation whilst others are interested in energy usage; others on waste management and climate change. With whatever interest you have how are you going to go about doing it for yourself with no expectation of reward at the end of it?  How you going to improve on it; telling your neighbor about it and eventually how can you invite the church in joining you in what you are doing? In the final talk which was led by Revd Andrew Manning on the Golden Calf of Consumerism, he presented to us how we as Christians have become part of turning the consumer world into an ideology and how the world has used our Holy Days for marketing purposes to “buy” as part of celebrating on these festivities. He also reminded us that we are not of this world and therefore we shouldn’t be living according to this world.  His talk encouraged us to change our mind set when it comes to consumerism that we need to think what we actually need rather than what the world wants as to need. Guys Caws equipped us with a book on environmental stories. He read a story from the book and said it could be used with Sunday schools in educating them in a creative way. The copies were made available to the group to take home and use. Information was given on the upcoming Conference of the Parties (COP 21) meeting in Paris (30 November – 11 December).   Details of the Durban Global Climate March were given.  Reports of the recent Midlands anti-fracking actions were also shared.  The recent Papal Encyclical, Laudato Si’, was also mentioned but there was no time to discuss it on any depth. Overall the workshop was once again a success; we would like to thank our guest speakers for availing themselves and being part of the workshop, the information that we have gathered from them was much appreciated and well set. Special thanks to the Vuleka Center at Botha’s Hill for hosting the workshop and the outstanding service they gave us.   Everyone’s input was greatly appreciated. And lastly we would like to thank the team that organized the event, including Andrew Warmback, Guy Caws, Rob Brien and Andrew Manning, for their effort and commitment.

The Anglican Students Federation hosted their annual chaplaincy conference in Benoni, Gauteng. With “Obedience to God commands” as the theme for the conference, it was important to pay attention to all commandments gave to humans. As spiritual leaders the chaplains really had to look at practical ways of getting the message and the commandments across to students. Green Anglicans was therefore present during the conference to assist clarify the very first commandment that was given to people to “The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.” Gen 2:15.  In that spirit we had a long conversation about relationships between God, people and the land and what it means to our spiritual growth. With a number of theologians in the room the conversation grew deeper on how to engage the young people on care for creation as part a daily thing to do. After a very engaging deliberation everyone agreed that there needs to be more exposure to environmental activities and creation services, like having outdoor services every now and then. It was also agreed upon to use resources like the seasons of creation as often as possible so that it be a known resource across all universities.