Applications Available for Creation Care Tour
A group visits a farm field during a previous creation care trip to Kenya.
The Office of Social Justice, Christian Reformed World Missions, and World Renew are partnering to organize a creation care learning tour to Bangladesh, Nov. 1-15, 2014.
The tour will focus on the impacts being felt in Bangladesh from increasing weather variability.The tour will also seek to learn from local residents how they are are adapting to the changing weather conditions.
"We want to hear stories," says Kyle Meyaard-Schaap, an organizer of the trip and a staff member at the Office of Social Justice. "It is predicted that the effects of climate disruption will be felt by the poor first and hardest.
“Bangladesh is perhaps the most environmentally vulnerable region of the world. We want to hear if people there are being affected in ways that are being predicted, and if so, how they are adapting."
The group plans to meet with local farmers, relief and development agencies, and church leaders to hear several different perspectives on how the Bangladesh church and civil society is responding to increasing weather variability.
Meyaard-Schaap says he hopes that participants will come home changed and will be able to share their experiences with their churches.
"The issue of climate change is so politicized and fraught that most people in the church would rather just not talk about it and save themselves a lot of grief. We've found that firsthand stories often have the power to break through politics and help people see this issue from a different perspective."
The Bangladesh tour comes on the heels of a similar tour organized by the Office of Social Justice and World Renew that took participants to Kenya to see how drought and decreased rainfall is affecting farmers and their communities.
Tour organizers hope that the group's time in Bangladesh can build off of the success of the Kenya tour and equip still more CRC members to come home and share the stories they hear. "I think most of us tend to walk on eggshells when it comes to discussing climate change here at home," says Meyaard-Schaap.
"The trouble is that silence is not neutral; silence speaks too. Once you have looked a struggling farmer in the eye, shared a meal with him, and heard his story of another year of lost crops, it becomes harder to stay silent."
Tour applications will be accepted until August 15. For more information about the tour and how to apply to be a participant, visit World Renew's Global Volunteer page.
