Hope and Crisis: Climate Losses & Perseverance in Kenya

When we witness the relentless onslaught of extreme weather in Kenya, we’re tempted to wonder about how to hang on to hope. The deck looks impossibly stacked against Kenyans for whom drought, flooding and changing disease and pest vectors are spreading hunger and poverty.

But in the last few days, we’ve seen some examples of amazing resiliency and initiative. Community self-help organizations are terracing hillside fields to conserve water and prevent erosion. They are adopting Farming God’s Way, a gospel-based form of conservation agriculture that enhances soil health and conserves moisture. They are planting indigenous trees in many places to restore ecosystems and resist desertification. They are building remarkable sand dams, which turn seasonally-dry rivers into year-round water sources, and raise the water table.

Where these initiatives are being implemented, parched communities are showing marked improvement. Women walk fewer kilometers to carry water home for their families. Children’s clothes are washed more frequently.  Crops flourish in the shade of the replanted tree canopy. Biodiversity is returning, with a wonderful assortment of birds, lizards and others of God’s creatures. And all this, despite indisputable evidence that the climate is becoming harsher, hotter, and more extreme.

We read Psalm 104 in our morning devotions together, and we think of these Kenyan communities – “You make springs gush forth in the valleys; they flow between the hills; they give drink to every beast of the field; the wild donkeys quench their thirst.” For the moment, our hearts sing.

But then, in a cruel reminder of this harsh new world, we hear the news from our friends – Scott and Jennifer Myhre – in nearby Kijabe. More than five inches of rain the night before last pummeled the surrounding area in only two hours. The road into Kijabe was rendered impassible. The mission hospital and the Rift Valley Academy were cut off. Water supplies were threatened.

Record rains sweep away Kenyan hillsides

And then last night, another 1.5 inches fell. Mudslides again closed the roads. Water supply pipes to the Kijabe Hospital have been destroyed, rendering this vital community lifeline almost useless. Many homes, businesses and schools have been seriously damaged.

And worst of all, three little girls have been killed in the mudslides.

Already this month, Kijabe has had more rain than normally falls in an average year, according to local ecologists who monitor these patterns. The community has planted many trees, but those trees can only do so much to hold the soil in place, in the face of such a torrent. And with the mudslides go valuable topsoil, young trees, this year’s crops, access to the hospital, and yes – three precious little girls.

Let me acknowledge the Christian Reformed Church (CRCNA) in all this. Last year, the Synod adopted the Creation Stewardship Task Force Report. The key findings of your church were these:

• Climate change is occurring and is very likely due to human activity
• Human-induced climate change is a moral, ethical, and religious issue
• Human-induced climate change poses a significant threat to future generations, the poor, and the vulnerable
• Human-induced climate change, as a global phenomenon, poses a significant challenge to us all
• Urgent action at the personal, communal, and political levels is required to address climate change.

But you didn’t stop with the science, or with broad ethical statements. You sent your own people to vulnerable communities to see for themselves, and to report back to you. That’s a major reason why we’re here in Kenya, and that’s why we’re sending these messages back to you.

We all hope you’re getting an up-close sense of the harm that our treatment of the earth and its atmosphere are doing to our brothers and sisters in these distant lands – and to God’s countless other beautiful creatures. We hope that it gives rise to a gospel-infused, grace-filled discussion within our North American family. And we pray that many of you will hear the cry that we’re hearing from God’s injured creation – and his precious little Kenyan girls.

Thanks for reading, and may God bless you.

J. Elwood

Follow @John_Elwood

We’re Disrupting Creation? How Do You Know?

We creation care advocates, we’re pretty sure of ourselves, aren’t we? Let’s face it. We’ve listened to the National Academy of Sciences. We’ve read the research on global changes. We know all the “parts-per-million” data. We’ve seen the melting glaciers, and the shrinking ice cover. We know about sea levels, ocean acidification, and runaway species extinctions.

But let’s face it: most people out there aren’t nearly as alarmed as we’re pretty sure they ought to be. After all, some say, scientists have been wrong before, no?

Then we talk to field workers on the ground, as we did yesterday in Nairobi. World Renew leaders in Kenya told us story after story of escalating climate shocks and related human suffering. It’s pretty credible stuff, and deeply alarming. But still, NGOs are in the crisis business, aren’t they? Maybe they’re dressing things up a bit for the visitors from North America?

So today, we got a totally different perspective, and I hope you’ll stick around to hear it. We took a long, muddy bus ride to one of the 300 churches in the Mount Kenya South Diocese of the Anglican Church here. Where I come from, Anglican churches are all granite and stained glass. This one, home to a rural Kikuyu congregation, let the daylight shine in through plastic panels in a rusted tin roof. It was pretty humble, to my Western eyes. But I thought it was a perfectly lovely place.

More lovely still, however, were the 17 Kikuyu women who run farms in the Diocese, and who had put their busy farm lives on hold to teach a few North Americans about the new challenges they face – trying to raise food in a broken climate system.  Adorned in brilliant dresses and head scarves of every color, they told us their stories.  We promised them we’d tell them again back home. Here are a few, based on my scribbled notes:

• Isabelle: There used to be two planting seasons in the year. One was longer, and we called it the “lablab bean season.” The other was shorter, and it was  called the “millet season.” But now, we don’t have any planting seasons. We only plant when we see the rain. We used to be sure of the harvest, but not anymore. You plant, but you don’t have a harvest.
• Sarah: Last year, we planted, but we never harvested – except for a few beans and potatoes. We are confused. Water is a problem for us.
• Grace Dodo: We used to fill a granary plus more stored outside. Now, we can’t even fill the granary. The rains have changed, and the soil has been depleted.
• Eleanor: Pests and diseases have increased. I’m not very old, but spider mites were never here before. When the spider mites come, we don’t get a crop. The pests force us to sell crops earlier than before.
• Another woman: We always talk to each other about the rain. You can’t depend on the short rain anymore. Thank God for the technology.

The technology? That’s right. These women aren’t just taking what this harsh new world is dishing out. Others will tell this story better than I – but with the help of World Renew, Care of Creation, and others, the farmers are adopting “Farming God’s Way” – what we’d call conservation agriculture. They mix crops together in the same plot, heavily mulch their fields with leaves and branches to conserve moisture and suppress weeds, plant with minimal disturbance to the soil, add manure and wood ash to enrich the soil, plant under-crops to enhance fertility, and maintain trees to shade crops from excess heat. Some have bought into Farming God’s Way entirely, and others are testing plots side-by-side to see for themselves.

They’re remarkably resourceful people, and they’re doing everything possible to feed their families. But the changing climate is making it awfully hard.

And there’s another irony: Here in this tin-roofed country church, the topic of climate change isn’t even slightly controversial. It’s not a debate. It’s staring them in the face everywhere. It’s a fact. But almost every one among our company of Westerners knows that in our churches back home, you talk this way at your own risk.

But now, we’re talking. We promised these Kenyan women that we would. And maybe you’ll find a way to join the conversation? Maybe an African family farmer is what Jesus would call “my neighbor?” Things are changing, and to us, it’s clear that we’re deeply involved.

Thanks for reading, and may God bless you.

J. Elwood

Follow @John_Elwood