“Wangari Maathai–Nobel laureate, founder of the Green Belt Movement, and sister-in-Christ Jesus–passed away on Sunday, Sept. 25, at the age of 71. We at Eden Vigil wish her the joy of her resurrection.”
Ed has asked that I post this latest issue of the Environmental Missions Prayer Digest, something I’m happy to do. But first let me forward a story from Ed himself. On Sept. 28, Ed wrote:
Wangari was a good friend of Care of Creation Kenya. . . . She did attend a 2006 God and Creation conference – funny story there: She had been invited and finally showed up on the last day of the conference. They had to give her platform time which turned out to be right before my presentation, which was to be the closing talk of the conference. Well, she took the entire slot (45 minutes) which meant that by the time I got up to talk, it was already past lunchtime… wouldn’t have worked in the US, but these were Africans – so I just pretended there was no clock in the room and took my entire time as well (and then some, as I recall!). I had the honor of a future-Nobelist telling me after that she ‘enjoyed my talk very much.’ Of course, at that time we had no idea that she would be winning the Nobel.
This summer Brittany Ederer, a student at UW-Madison, served as an intern in the Care of Creation office in Madison. Based on her interest in camping, education nature and environment, we assigned her to start a survey project of Christian camps in Wisconsin, the upper Midwest and then throughout the country. Are there Christian camps who are actively promoting creation care as part of their camp program? Are they using creation care principles in caring for their properties? This blog post is a preliminary report on a visit to one camp not far from Madison. It turns out one of the best examples of creation care at camp is right in our own back yard. We’re looking forward to a complete report from Brittany later on, but in the meantime, enjoy her thoughts on what’s going on at Timber-lee…
Eight or nine months ago I got an email from a guy named Mark Davis. Could I give him a call. I was travelling – out of the country, I think – and the message got buried. He emailed again. Then he called. I thought, Okay, this guy is serious – let’s find out what this is all about.
Mark is a large animal vet in Florida (think James Herriott in the Florida sunshine). He is also, like my colleague Craig Sorley, a missionary kid who grew up in Africa. He has a passion for Africa’s wildlife that matches Craig’s love for Africa’s birds and trees. He is also a phenomenal photographer. Read more »
As part of our summer vacation this year, we found ourselves at Canada’s Wonderland, a colossal amusement park near Toronto. My teenage son has discovered roller coasters as a passion, and so we strapped ourselves into the Behemoth, riding up to a height of 230 feet and then plunging down at 77 mph. The Behemoth cost $26 million to build. But all day it was like that: we were surrounded by acres of ingenious and costly technologies engineered with the sole purpose to amuse and thrill.
As my old body began to wane in the late afternoon, I plopped down on a park bench and waited out my kids who were on another ride. A young teenage girl was standing nearby. Suddenly, I heard her utter a short squeak and I felt something rustling on the ground between my ankles. I looked down. A chubby woodchuck wandered out from under my bench. Behind us was a small wooded lot between paths in the amusement park. A little stream flowed into a pool there and it was hard to tell whether this patch of nature among the tarmac was original or manufactured. Nonetheless, it was apparently where the woodchuck lived. I suspect it was “suppertime,” if that’s what you can call his daily allotment of popcorn and funnel cake. Read more »
I’ve been pushing hard all summer on a major writing project with the goal of finishing the intial writing by the end of September. This is the main reason you’ve seen less posts on Our Father’s World than usual. Sorry about that – but hopefully the end product will be worth the wait.
In the meantime, enjoy this video clip from Chipotle. You may know that I’m not much of a fast-food advocate – but this company does seem different.
