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Seeds of Hope.  These 40 Lenten devotions in honour of Bishop Ellinah are seeds of hope, a tribute to her life. Reflections on 40 different scriptures come from a wide variety of people from Archbishops to lay ministers, from different parts of the world. May these seeds sown in love grow to bear fruit! https://www.greenanglicans.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/lenten-devotionalfinal.pdf

Ellinah Wamukoya “For such a time as this” A great tree has fallen. Our hearts are broken at the loss of our beloved Bishop Ellinah  Wamukoya She was truly great in the kingdom of God. The first woman Bishop in Africa, she was a true pioneer.. She  modelled a new way of leadership, a leadership of  heart and hands that inspired and motivated those around her. She did not tell people what to do, she showed us the way. With her high levels of competency and spirituality she opened the doors for acceptance of women bishops in other countries across Africa.  Named as one of the BBCs 100 women of the year in 2016, she said of her ministry “I am going to try to represent the mother attribute of God” The last whatsapp she sent me from hospital was after  I told her that they had appointed a women assistant bishop in Kenya and she wrote “Amen dear sister, that is good news. A legacy indeed. I shall come out to celebrate. Praise God”. Sadly she did not. She inspired us to love God and love Mother Earth. She was one of the pioneer Eco Bishops of the Anglican Communion and her Diocese became a leader in environmental sustainability . Always hands on, she  planted trees, collecting litter and promoting reforestation, and biodiversity conservation. The Diocese won an award for two years as Environmental champion, from the Minister of the Environment. In her Masters Thesis she connected the Eucharist with Creation and shared this insight at Anglicans Ablaze: “Eating and drinking the bread and wine  enables us to touch the clouds, the sun the earth , everything in the cosmos. Christ is food – not bread alone – being food  he is life. Hungry people are all over the world – they do not have life in abundance because they do not have food” She shared memories  of carrying water long distances as a young girl and told me once that she felt that is why she became a bishop at this time, to be able to share the reality of the impact of climate change with her own stories. Like Esther , she came into her position ‘for such a time as this’. When she was already in hospital a prayer that she wrote was sent out by the Lambeth Conference, she wrote: “Creator God, we thank and praise you for giving us the opportunity to be co-creators with you and to ensure the sustainability of “Mother Earth” our meeting place with God.  God as a community of Father, son and holy spirit teach us as the anglican Community to work together for mutual respect with one another and your creation.  We repent for our negligence leading the earth to be in peril from loss of habitats and species. Help us to be caretakers of your gifts., protecting the land from abuse, and ready to share with all in need. Amen The Archbishop of Canterbury tweeted back – Thankyou Bishop Ellinah. Thankyou indeed dear Bishop. The great tree has fallen, but the seeds you have sown across the Green Anglicans movement of Southern Africa, Central Africa  and Kenya, and  the Anglican Communion  across the whole world have been planted. You have taught us, you have inspired us, you have shown us the way.  Now it is our task to let those seeds  grow – so that  your memory may  be blessed. “To be of the Earth is to know the restlessness of being a seed, the darkness of being planted, the struggle towards the light, the pain of growing into the light, the joy of bursting and bearing fruit, the love of being food for others, the scattering of your seeds, the decay of the seasons, the mystery of death and the miracle of birth (John Soos)   Hamba Kahle Bishop Ellinah. Canon Rachel Mash,Environmental Coordinator Anglican Church of Southern Africa.

USING SPORT TO HELP THE ENVIRONMENT   Rev Aurelio Uqueio, Environmental Coordinator of the Diocese of Lebombos in Mozambique has come up with a brilliant idea!. He organises tournaments of volleyball and the entrance fee is to bring bags of litter from the beach. On the 9th of January, the beach of Tofo-Inhambane was the destination for the Green Anglicans clean up and volley ball day.   Looks like lots of fun was had!!    

Green Anglicans at SAFCEI FLEAT The Green Anglicans movement attended a three day Faith Leaders Environmental Advocacy Training at Monkey Valley Noordhoek from 02-04 December 2020, hosted by SAFCEI. This was the first FLEAT programme run in Cape Town. The programme was attended by multiple faith leaders from very various faiths. The training was highly informative. The weekend started with an Interfaith dialogue around what our various faiths says about Land and Water Justice. After which we then  had a session on what is  Dialogue which most Faith leaders are encouraged to have, but at times we fail our communities as we go into conversations already having decided how it should go. This was a good exercise which also allowed us to reflect on what we have done in the past as leaders, and how we could rectify those mistakes and avoid them.  We took some time and did an Eco-audit led by Kim Kruyshaar as looked at ourselves and found that we were all at different levels and can do better to save our planet. One of the attendees did say: “Sometime we score low not because we are good stewards, but rather our socioeconomics force us into situations where we find ourselves being good Eco stewards but not doing it out of love”.  One key element of environment stewardship is having to do things out of love, during this session we were also shown different methods and/or items which we could use at our homes or places of worship to reduce our carbon footprint while saving some money. As faith leaders we need to encourage our members to practice energy and water saving methods, but always insist on doing an audit and looking at what best suits organizations in their context.  The second day of the programme also opened up conversations around the Nuclear power deal facing our country and the negative impacts of nuclear power stations on our environment and its impact on climate change. We also had a session led by Stephen Jacobs from SAFCEI who taught us around the world’s natural cycle and how we humans have made it unnatural by our exploitation of the environment’s resources. This sparked the conversation about how we could reduce human impact on the natural cycle.    The final day we took time to look at issues affecting Cape Town and how best together as Faith leader we can address environmental issues in our communities.  Even though we are members of different faith groups, we live and stay in the same communities where the people we lead are facing environmental issues and we need to join hands in making our communities better Eco-friendly communities which the next generation can enjoy.  Another highlight from the programme was the visit to the Oceanview Organic Food Garden as a success story of 5 women who banded together to start a vegetable garden to sell to local markets at reasonable and affordable prices for the local community. This was something that all participants were eager to get started, and also look at how they could implement in their own communities. The highlight from the programme was the networking that took place as well as the understanding that we all have a role to play in caring for creation, and as faith leaders we are called to reach out to our people and get them to join the cause.    Bino and John-Paul

  Green Anglicans of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa held a Green Entrepreneurial Competition to stimulate ideas that young people could implement around the green economy Mpho Nkonkoane , from Church of the Resurrection in Moshoeshoe, Maseru  Lesotho is the winner. She is going to be establishing a seedling nursery She has identified the gap in the market as people often want to have a home garden and purchase seedlings but there are very few places to buy them and they are often expensive. She has already started a vegetable patch with other young people at the church and this will enable them to grow more vegetables and also be involved in income generation. They plan to train young people and also to support the church with a portion of the profits as the nursery grows   Congratulation Mpho and may you and your team go from strength to strength.