A Creation Care seminar

"If we teach our students the importance of creation care, they can pass that on to their future students and also to other people in the villages where they will be teaching. That's how we can have a positive impact in Papua." Says one of the teachers during the meeting.

We are at the STKIP school discussing the Creation Care seminar I gave the previous day. Together with all the teachers we are looking at the next steps the school could take in that context. STKIP is a Christian teacher training college set up with support from the Netherlands. During the meeting, I become more and more impressed by the positive energy and motivation of the teachers to actually put Creation Care into practice.

The day of the seminar is the first day after summer vacation and the whole room is packed with teachers and students. After a reflection on creation care from a biblical perspective, they form break out groups and discuss the environmental challenges they face in Papua in daily life. During their respective presentation they also propose some potential solutions that they have identified.

We continue the seminar by reflecting on the Faith and Farming modules (see below), that have been developed in Nigeria. In some ways the context of Papua is quite different from the situation in Nigeria, so I ask the participants to indicate which modules do and do not fit the Papuan situation. During the discussion they also suggest some topics that are not yet covered in the current modules. Very useful for me to continue working with.

At the end of the seminar, I give an introduction on Vetiver grass and all its wonderful properties. I brought a few bags of Vetiver shoots with me and that same afternoon we plant them together in STKIP's garden. They would like to use the Vetiver for cleaning their wastewater and for keeping the water in their fish ponds clean.

Since the seminar I've had regular contact with STKIP to support them where I can.