I love travelling so I was really quite excited to represent our church on a visit to the Indonesian Island of Sumba earlier this year. It was several flights away – Belfast to London, London to Singapore, Singapore to Bali and Bali to Sumba. As my experienced travel companion commented – with each journey after Heathrow the plane gets smaller.
Sumba has a population of about 650,000. It’s an island of fabulous beaches and typically tropical scenery - not yet discovered by tourists so any beaches we saw were almost completely empty apart from the odd fisherman. Sumba is breathtakingly beautiful but it is also a part of the world, which is being seriously threatened by climate change.
Sumba has two seasons, a rainy season and a dry season. Previously both seasons would last for around 6 months each, but since the climate began to change, Sumba has become drier and the rainy season has become shorter.
We visited one village where nothing they have planted this year has been able to grow. They have survived by foraging for forest cassawa a plant which can be poisonous if not properly prepared. The fear of losing the young people from these villages to the constant danger of human trafficking has become a major concern for the local church. We were told that there were over a 100 villages on this relatively small island which were unable to grow enough to feed their people.
The Christian Church in Sumba believes in faith and action – a gospel which impacts the whole of life. They took us to an agricultural centre where they train pastors not only in worship and evangelism but also in agricultural methods – when we arrived they were just finishing a training in the production of organic compost.
Each pastor and evangelist went home from this conference with a sack of compost to begin the good work of not only sharing the Good news of God’s love but also sharing how better organic methods could help grow more foodstuffs as well as more healthy communities.
Many of the less developed areas of the world can see so clearly the connection between faith and practical action – caring for God’s creation in terms of people but also caring for the environment as well. As one of the Psalms in the Bible puts it: "The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it. The world and all its people belong to Him."
Whatever our faith background we have a responsibility to actively care for the world that God has entrusted to us.
Rev. Dr. Liz Hughes is Convener of the Council for Global Mission. This Thought on Thursday was broadcast as a 'Thought for the Day' on BBC Radio Ulster’s Good Morning Ulster programme earlier this week. You can read about her visit to Sumba here.