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Environmental Missions Prayer Digest
January 2011 |
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Greetings!
Our family drove home to Kansas on New Year's day from Ontario on clear roads with blue skies overhead. However we drove between blizzards and deep freeze temperatures in the Northern states and unseasonal tornadoes just South of us. It felt we were given a parting of the red sea type of grace to get us safely home. Ten days into this new year we've already felt the unusual weather patterns and catastrophes start up. Australia is experiencing unprecedented flooding. Nepal's rivers are struggling to produce the volume needed to power the country. Climate Weirding (an expression Thomas Friedman so aptly coined) is certainly upon us in full force.
My prayer for this year is that it will be a year of deepening hope and sustained joy. It's January: time to think through garden plans, time to order seed. The hope of growth and dirt and the mystery of Life and fruit help brighten the dark, cynical days of winter.
Happy New Year!
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Nepal's Rivers Dry Out
Rivers in Nepal have greatly diminished over the last several years. As a result the government has had to enforce an 11 hour power blackout beginning this year to accommodate the depletion of electric power produced. In actuality, Nepal has the world's greatest power producing capacity with it's steep terrain and it's abundance of glaciers. This capacity remains largely undeveloped. And as the globe warms, the glaciers are retreating. They are melting too quickly. Healthy rivers and power supply are dependent on a slow steady melt. The quicker melt results in sporadic river flow, new lakes developing and overflowing, all of which stresses both agriculture and hydro power stations. In 2010 during the dry season, power was shut off for 18 hours a day. It's further estimated that by 2013 power supply will be limited to 4 hours a day during the dry season.
Minister for Environment, Science and Technology, Formullah Mansoor reported in 2008, "Despite our negligible emission, Nepal is suffering from rapid snow-melting, expansion of glacial lake, formation of new glacial lakes, receding snow line, haphazard weather pattern resulting in flash floods and droughts."
Please join us in praying: - For alternative sources of power for the people of Nepal.
- For creative solutions at the government, community and business levels.
- For believers who's businesses will undoubtedly suffer from these severe power outages--- pray for their morale, for their faith, for their joy, for their sustenance and survival.
- For NGOs to develop that embrace the issue at both a physical and a spiritual level. These things affect the nation of Nepal in significant ways. We need the gospel of Christ, the mind of Christ to bring hope and true light to the Nepalese.
Link: Nepal faces 11 Hour Blackouts
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Australia's Rivers Flood
 | Rockhampton, Queensland
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Twenty-three Communities in Northeastern Australia have experienced unusually heavy rains resulting in an area the size of France and Germany being submerged in water. The rains began just before Christmas and continued into the New Year. Queensland Premier, Anne Bligh, reported on January 5th that 11,900 homes had been affected and 400 residents evacuated."The deluge has ruined crops, and caused "catastrophic" damage to Queensland's transport systems. This is a disaster of an unprecedented scale and it will require an unparalleled rebuilding effort," Bligh told reporters.
The most recent development in the flooding has been the emergence of flash floods, some tsunami-like in nature. The flood rushed into the town of Toowoomba in waves six to ten feet high. Ten people are reported dead in Toowoomba and 78 missing as of January 11.
Forty of the state's coal mines have also been closed. "It's going to take some months for some mines to be back to full operation," Resources Minister Stephen Robertson said. "We earn 'round about AU$100 million (US$100 million) a day exporting coal to the rest of the world and exports have been significantly restricted by the impact on infrastructure."
Venomous snakes and saltwater crocodiles by the hundreds have been flushed from their natural habitats. Until the waters recede sufficiently for these reptiles to reclaim their own homes it remains unsafe for people to leave their own homes.
Please join Eden Vigil in praying:
- for the waters to recede quickly and safely.
- for the souls of the displaced. Pray for resilience in the midst of their struggles.
- Pray for protection against snake bite.
- Pray for our Christian brothers and sisters to boldly live out their convictions of love and service.
- for government officials to have wisdom and resources to adequately serve their constituents.
- for the elderly and the very young--to experience a stability that is rooted in Christ.
 | | Ferrying kangeroos to dry land. |
See the News in Photographs: Australian Floods in Pictures
Photo Credits: The Boston Globe: MECHIELSEN LYNDON/AFP/Getty Images; AP Photo/Lake Burrendong Sport and Recreation Centre, Tracy Woods |
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Lowell and I had a conversation toward the end of December. I had just finished watching the heart wrenching documentary, Life and Debt, outlining Jamaica's thwarted efforts in maintaining their own indigenous economy. With tears in my eyes and a vacuum cleaner in my hand I lashed out at Lowell, "We are 'activists' who don't do anything! We have all these passions and burdens and convictions --but we never do anything about any of it." Lowell pushed his chair back from his desk and sympathized, "I understand those sentiments. I do," he continued, "and I think about that every day when I go to pray." It strikes Lowell that prayer is perhaps the most important activism he can do! He firmly believes that in prayer (to the Almighty God, the Creator and Sustainer of us all) he unloads his burdens and convictions, his opinions and cynicisms --and he turns to faith and trust. Lowell holds up the placard of prayer in the unseen world and he protests on behalf of the poorest nations of the world, the oppressed, the weak. Prayer is Active Activism! Lowell prays for the Jamaicans, for the Nepalis, for those in Australia affected by flood.
Join us. Be an activist! I know I want to. With those same types of tears on my face and that same vacuum in my hand, my heart now leans upward in protest, in pleading, in prayer.
What should we pray in 2011?
We are always asking that question of God, not only because we need to publish a new prayer digest next month, but because we want to be praying for that ministry, people group, or issue where God Himself is ready to act. If you would like to suggest a prayer focus, please contact us.
Activist in training,
Robynn Bliss
Eden Vigil
Links: Contact the editors, Eden Vigil website, Donations to Eden Vigil
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