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On spring day the 1st of September, the Together4Creation team held a youth gathering to kick off the beginning of the Season of Creation. Which was held at St Thomas Church, Rondebosch. About 80 young people from eight congregations from different denominations (Catholic, Anglican, Pentecostal, Lutheran and Dutch Reformed) across Cape Town attended the event. Our evening started off with a welcome from Rev Claire Nye Hunter, Rector of St Thomas & John-Paul Roberts, followed by the opening prayer from Jacques Strydom from the Dutch Reformed Church, before Rev Rachel gave an introduction to the Season of Creation. We ate together and watched the documentary, The Letter: A Message for Our Earth, in which Pope Francis spoke to people who represent the voices of the youth, the poor, animal life and indigenous voices. Afterwards we had smallgroup discussions about what we as youth can do in our own areas and congregations to combat climate injustice. The theme of this year’s Season of Creation is “Let Justice and Peace Flow” and comes from Amos 5:24. We are invited to join the river of justice and peace and take up ecological justice and be a voice for those affected by climate injustice (You can visit https://seasonofcreation.org for more information). Our evening ended off with a final blessing and closing by Fr Emmanuel the Vicar for Youth in the Archdiocese of Cape Town.

Thirteen members of the Climate Yes! (Youth Ecumenical Summit) are attending the African Climate Week in Nairobi. Four of our Regional leaders in Africa are already in Nairobi for the #AfricaClimateSummit23. Today, they represented us in the Pre Summit Faith Leaders Consultation meeting They attended the Pre – Summit Faith Leaders Consultation meeting convened by All Africa Conference of Churches in partnership with the Lutheran World Federation. They had a chance to present the Climate YES statement to 40 different stakeholders present – here is the statement https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cJmvdtujg5R4BpQKlNLKKAA8UDUxSG5z/viewthe meeting. Find out more about Climate Yes! here  – the Climate Youth Ecumenical Summit https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/161W2z_LfBdgMYwqq5eY_rlr5dwCq2gQX/edit#slide=id.p1 Images Climate Yes!

  SNIPPETS FROM THE SOUTH As we mark the start of the Season of Creation, here are a few activities that took place across the Anglican Church of Southern Africa! Please do share some pictures of how you are celebrating! The Ecumenical youth of Cape Town got together on Friday the  1st of Sep and stared with  food and fellowship. They then watched the Pope’s video – “The Letter” and broke into discussion groups for serious discussions On Sunday churches celebrated in many different ways – here are a few – St Stephens Church in New Brighton – Bishop Edie Daniels planted a tree to mark the start of Season of Creation and Arbor month. The tree will form part of the Anglican Communion forest St Andrews Alabama starting their season of creation with some special activities for the children. St Phillips Grahamstown  planted a palm tree today to earmark the opening of season of creation St Thomas Berea, Durban held an outdoor service to celebrate on the theme of  the Church and Creation. The service was held in the tea garden which has now been refreshed. An azalea bush was planted to celebrate the occasion. St Thomas in Rondebosch welcomed Bishop Martin Gainsborough, Bishop of Kingston, as our preacher this morning. (Before becoming Bishop he was the Diocesan Environmental Coordinator for the Diocese of Bristol) Church of the Ascension , Klein Drakenstein had a youth service – Rev Earl Richards challenging the young people to follow God’s call to care for creation    

Anglican Students Federation celebrates 60 years! The Anglican Student Federation of Southern Africa held it’s 60th Provincial conference in Eswatini from the 27 till 30 July 2023 at Mphopho conference centre. The Anglican Environmental Network of Southern Africa ( Green Anglicans ) was invited to be part of this great celebration of students from across the Anglican Church of Southern Africa. On Saturday morning the conference was themed around care for creation, we opened the day with a beautiful morning eco devoation led by Bino Makhalanyane – Green Anglicans youth coordinator, with the students from Lesotho and North West. The message was based on  Ezekiel 47:1-12 , we are all called to be part of the flowing river, formed by unique raindrops representing each of us.  During our time together Mr. Dlamini from Eswatini Ministry of Tourism and Environment ( Climate department ) gave us a great presentation on the impacts of climate change on our livelihoods all over the SADC region. He also took time to  explain what Climate Change was and the role we each need to play when it comes to climate mitigation and adaptation. During the discussion on climate change the students made two important requests – firstly that different methods of fighting climate change should be  taught and publicised. Sometimes we think that the only thing we can do to fight climate change is to plant trees and we need to know about other actions we can take as well.   The second request was that  our governments should always see each church as a stakeholder at all levels of engagement from community to global and not only as a place to mobilise and market programmes. Ms Busiwa Dlamini from the Global Climate YES (Youth Ecumenical Summit)  movement shared with the students the importance of establishing campus eco networks, which allows for young people in that specific campus to have common goals. Issues of the environment affect us all and we can respond in many different ways – for example those in sports can teach children to swim as the floods so they are safe as flooding becomes worse, those in business studies can consider green entrepreneurship, those doing social work can consider the impact of rising food prices due to drought on people’s mental health. Engineering students can consider the adaptation of buildings and infrastructure needed to respond to the changing climate  If different groups focus on these different areas, then you can have a better reach to your peers, and this might also open up opportunities to join networks and Bino Makhalanyane closed the morning theme by unpacking what the Green Anglicans Movement  is all about and how the church in Southern Africa continues respond to the Anglican Communion’s Fifth Mark of  missions by “safeguarding God’s creation”. There  is a need for young people to be at the front of this battle as we are the generation which is being hit hard by climate change. The Green Anglicans would like to take these opportunity to thank Ms Basetsana Makena and her outgoing exco for the hard work they have done over the past four years and  also welcome the newly elected exco led Mr Tsobotsi Koloti.  Bino Makhalanyane  _ Green Anglicans Youth Coordinator We would like to thank the Anglican Overseas Aid for their suppor   t. 

The ACSA Season of Creation Manual is based on the Ecumenical Theme of “Let Rivers of Justice and Peace flow” and the image is of Elizabeth Wathuti, climate activist from Kenya.  She challenged the Bishops at the Lambeth Conference to do more for climate justice      

The Diocese of False Bay responded to the call made at Lambeth to take part in the Anglican Communion Forest by planting trees and restoring eco-systems by weaving this into the spiritual life of the church. The Environmental Coordinator of the Diocese, Rev Deon McDillon sourced trees from the Department of Forestry and Fisheries, so that every parish and chapelry could receive a tree to plant.   The tree can be planted on the church ground or a suitable place that will reflect our commitment to this call. Bishop Margaret blessed the trees before they were handed out to the different parishes. After Bishop Margaret blessed the trees, we discussed how emotional we both became. I thought it was because this was the Bishops last Chrism service before she retires but then we realised it was the Holy Spirit that moved us as we were doing something positive for the environment.   Rev Deon McDillon