Dear Church Family and Friends,
Recently, along with others from our church, I attended the Earth Care Summit sponsored by Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon and their Interfaith Network for Earth Concerns. The conference room at the Jean Vollum Natural Capital Center in Portland was packed. It was standing-room only. More people than anticipated had come.
In addition to hearing a great keynote speech by Rev. John Pitney from Eugene, Oregon, we were dazzled by reports of what other churches are doing to care for the environment. Saint Andrew Lutheran Church in Beaverton, for example, has a Green Team that has preserved and restored wetlands, increased the recycling and composting of kitchen and yard waste, and started a battery and light bulb recycling program.
In the past couple of months, our own church has also seen the stirrings of excitement and activity. Thanks to a partnership with the Sierra Club, we now host and participate in a local group called Coal Free Washington-Southwest. The goal of the organization is to advocate the closure of Washington’s only coal plant while also promoting renewable alternatives. At our last monthly meeting, we had seventeen people attend, including a Vancouver city council member. On February 27th, we will be joining people from around the state to deliver to the governor in Olympia thousands of postcards calling for a coal free state.
Those of you who followed the coverage of protests at the climate change conference in Copenhagen last December saw how the stirrings of an international movement for environmental justice have begun to enter a new stage. I am not just thinking of the more than 60,000 who marched and demonstrated. I am thinking of the people from the impoverished countries of the global south who are now taking the lead in challenging the policies and practices that drive global warming. One of the leaders from Kenya is Wahu Kaara of the People’s Movement on Climate Change. In an interview, she talked about the melting of the snow on Mount Kilimanjaro and Mount Kenya. She discussed the droughts, the food shortages, and the deaths that have occurred. She noted that the ordinary people in her country “talk of how nature has changed,” even if they do not have a scientific understanding. As one mother said to her, “I think there is something that the North are doing, because the sun no longer behaves the same way.”
Along with the voice of this mother, I also hear the voice of a protestor from the global south who said, “We are suffering the most, but we have not caused the problem in the least.” As a citizen who lives in the northern country that has contributed the most to this suffering, I feel called to act and join the stirrings of not just excitement but what I believe is the work of the Holy Spirit.
Your brother in Christ,
Pastor Brooks
