Does it Make a Difference?

 Our youngest son was being asked to organize an activity to help the environment. He had already identified some of the major threats and problems in our local environment, but he was quickly overwhelmed by the size of the problems versus what we could accomplish— how could we do anything that would really make any difference? 

Reef trash collection

We encouraged our son that he didn’t have to solve an entire problem in a single activity, but we could do something. We brainstormed some ideas together and he thought about it. Ultimately we decided to do something about trash in the ocean.

We’ve talked about it many times— trash is a big problem on Clove Island. The worst part is that islanders don’t seem to care very much. They don’t seem to understand the beauty of the island that they call home, and then they don’t seem to see the damage that trash does. 

Ultimately, our son’s activity was two-fold. For the first part, we picked up trash around the coral reef off the beach not far from our house. This was trash that had already found its way among the coral reef and was endangering the coral life. We had our snorkels, tongs, and a mesh bag attached to a floating kickboard. We collected a big bag of trash. 

Then for the second part…on the next day (which happened to be Earth Day), we shared at our English Club about what we had done. None of the islanders at our club had ever swum among the coral reefs off their island home. They didn’t know about all the types of fish and life that can be found there. We talked about all the trash that we saw underwater in the ocean and its impact. 

Other environmental problems came up as we discussed, but we also heard the real challenge—how can you force poor people to care about the environment when they are just struggling to get food for that day.  Taking care of trash the ‘right way’ costs money and takes more time. We talked about the fact that an entire mentality has to shift. 
 We shared how in the States there were/are places that struggle with trash, but there are campaigns against polluting (‘Give a hoot. Don’t pollute.’) and anti-littering laws put in place, so that at least for us, we grew up seeing littering as a bad thing to be avoided and punished. 

Some club members suggested that they needed to start in the schools and educating the island kids in the hopes of changing the mentality in the country. Others thought the government needed to make laws and provide the funding to make proper trash disposal possible for everyone. 

It wasn’t a lot of trash that we pulled out of the ocean. But other times we’ve snorkeled, seen the trash and just swum by.  It felt good to actually do something about it this time. It wasn’t a lot of islanders that we talked with, but it was a few more that have more awareness of the problems and the idea that we should do something about it. 

PRAYERS ANSWERED
The visiting group of Africans had an excellent trip, despite the many travel woes—they got a full islands experience!  The weather was good and flights and boats left in good time last week meaning everyone arrived safely to the annual gathering and we had an excellent weekend together.  We were at a new venue which is always a bit trepidatious, but in general it went very well, the staff was responsive and quick to address our concerns.  The food was good and the encouragement and fellowship even better.  We are so thankful to get to work with such wonderful people.  Our two older kids got safely back to school. We also got to celebrate our daughter’s birthday early (while we were still together) — we are so thankful for her!

PRAYERS REQUESTED
Pray for much good to come from our time together as island workers—that as we scatter to our different locations that we would be refreshed, impassioned, revived, united, and equipped.  Many are taking a few days of vacation after the gathering, pray that this would be refreshing as well.  We will not be taking vacation, but head off to the French island for our annual visit there.  Pray for our travels and our French (which is usually mixed with the local language but we’ll need to speak more pure French there), and all the people we will be interacting with.  Pray for the African visitors who returned to their country today, with a greater understanding and vision.  May they go back and fan the flames of this work in the hearts of many in their country.  Pray for our colleagues who were dealing with so much illness.  They are feeling better, but weren’t able to be at the gathering.  Pray that they would recover from a hard number of weeks.