Grassroots

Learn more about today's guests and their work:

Thanks for tuning in to this important discussion about The Ecology of a Pandemic. Here are a few links related to worth checking out from this episode:

- Purchase This Is God's Table: Finding Church Beyond the Walls by Anna Woofenden.

- Here are some more articles by Shannon Osaka. 

- Lastly, Check out Plant With Purpose's COVID-19 Readiness & Resilience Fund!

Keep practicing resurrection, friends! See you next week.

A lot has happened since our last episode of the Grassroots Podcast. A pandemic. A reckoning with racial justice. A tumultuous year overall.

Processing all of this is a lot. While we hunger for hope, it is completely appropriate, and even necessary, to lament. Lament is something the default posture for believers when looking at many matters of justice, in particular environmental justice. Peter Harris, from the international Christian conservation organization, A Rocha, to talk about the role of lament in our faith and environmental restoration, drawing deeply from a tragic personal loss. On this episode we also explore the theme of vulnerability—how the world's vulnerable are impacted by recent events and how connecting to our own vulnerability can help us love others in these positions. Kayla Craig from the Love Anyways Podcast and the Upside Down Podcast joins us as well. Plus: we hear an update from Plant With Purpose's programs around the world, including one member in the Dominican Republic who has seen her plot of land turn into a space of safety from the pandemic.

Grassroots Podcast is a production of Plant With Purpose — an international organization that works with communities to restore their ecosystems through the lens of faith. To learn more about how Plant With Purpose is preparing and responding in the wake of COVID-19, follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Also, sign up for our email newsletter on our website.

Much of what you hear about the environment these days is not encouraging. One million species face possible extinction. We have until 2030 to avoid unprecedented catastrophe. The poorest of the poor are the ones who will suffer the most.

So, is there a case for hope?

It's a question worth asking. Without hope, how can we even move forward?

We explore the case for hope with Plant With Purpose's executive director Scott Sabin. Birori Gaparani, from Plant With Purpose's team in the Democratic Republic of Congo also joins. We learn from Kent Annan, author of the book You Welcomed Me and cofounder of Haiti Partners. And we talk to our previous guests from throughout this season about what gives them hope.

Welcome to the Grassroots Podcast, a Plant With Purpose production. This show features global conversations about the environmental challenges we’re facing and what ordinary people are doing to in response.  We’re going beyond doom-and-gloom. We’re looking at root causes, talking to people on the frontlines, and asking ourselves what we can do. There are reasons to be concerned, but there is also a case for hope.

71% of all carbon emissions are caused by just 100 companies.

In light of statistics like these, do our small actions really matter? Will cutting meat from our diet, biking to work instead of driving, or growing our own food in the backyard actually have much of an impact on the state of the planet? If our actions are quite small in comparison to these much bigger actors, is there any benefit in doing them? Why not just focus on the large systemic changes needed to change our current situation?

To answer these questions, we talk to Christian writer and activist Shane Claiborne. Shane is the founder of The Simple Way and the author of numerous books including The Irresistible Revolution, Follow Me To Freedom, and Beating Guns. We also talk to Nick Laparra, who you may know from the podcast Let's Give A Damn. We talk to Tui, a farmer in Thailand, about what small actions look like for refugee farmers around Chiang Mai, and we hear from Richard Lee at IJM about what day-to-day work with small actions look like.

Welcome to the Grassroots Podcast, a Plant With Purpose production. This show features global conversations about the environmental challenges we’re facing and what ordinary people are doing to in response.  We’re going beyond doom-and-gloom. We’re looking at root causes, talking to people on the frontlines, and asking ourselves what we can do. There are reasons to be concerned, but there is also a case for hope.

Can Christians be environmentalists? Should Christians be environmentalists?

For a long time, a complicated relationship has existed between Christianity and efforts to care for the environment- at least in the Western Church. However, those who have worked at the intersection of faith and sustainability have realized that these two things go hand-in-hand. Caring for creation fulfills a biblical mandate God has given humanity. Taking care of the Earth can also draw us closer to God. So why the tension?

To investigate this, we talk to Tim Buechsel, a pastor in Hong Kong on the verge of preparing for a sermon on God's environmental justice. We hear from Matthew Sleeth, author of the book Reforesting Faith on how trees communicate the story of the Gospel. We also talk to Phileena Heurtz on how contemplative spirituality can help us connect with God amidst challenging environmental crises.

Welcome to the Grassroots Podcast, a Plant With Purpose production. This show features global conversations about the environmental challenges we’re facing and what ordinary people are doing to in response.  We’re going beyond doom-and-gloom. We’re looking at root causes, talking to people on the frontlines, and asking ourselves what we can do. There are reasons to be concerned, but there is also a case for hope.

In some ways Haiti is one of the most challenging places to talk about, and in other ways it is the perfect place to see where the environment and poverty intersect.

It's a challenge, because Haiti has been portrayed in such harmful ways over the years. Haiti is both the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere and the most deforested. These two issues are deeply interlinked. On one end of the spectrum, people have focused so much on its problems that they've ignored its people and their culture. On the other, some have undermined the struggle of poverty by romanticizing it. But, we're taking a closer look at the country, learning directly from Haitians, and exploring how the nation is full of very real problems and very real solutions.

In this episode, we learn from our Haitian partners, including Jean-Marie Desilius, the founder of Plant With Purpose's Haiti program; Jeanetta, an economic specialist; and Gernita, a community member from a local village. We also hear from Brendon Anthony from HarvestCraft, Bob Morikawa from Plant With Purpose, and Margaret DeJong from the Mennonite Central Committee.

Welcome to the Grassroots Podcast, a Plant With Purpose production. This show features global conversations about the environmental challenges we’re facing and what ordinary people are doing to in response.  We’re going beyond doom-and-gloom. We’re looking at root causes, talking to people on the frontlines, and asking ourselves what we can do. There are reasons to be concerned, but there is also a case for hope.

Restoring our environment is an urgent need. Those of us who live in more privileged parts of the world might be tempted to think of climate change as a future threat, but it’s effects are already here and they threaten the world’s most vulnerable communities.

In this episode, we’ll talk to Dr. Paul Robinson from The Congo Initiative. Dr. Robinson spent decades living among and researching the Gabra nomads. An East African pastoral tribe who rely on predicting rain for their survival. We also talk to Veronica Squires and Breanna Lathrop from Good Samaritan Hospital in Atlanta. They are the co-authors of the book How Neighborhoods Make Us Sick, and shed light on how the poor and marginalized suffer from social determinants.

Welcome to the Grassroots Podcast, a Plant With Purpose production. This show features global conversations about the environmental challenges we’re facing, what ordinary people are doing in response, and how this connects to our Christian faith. We’re going beyond doom-and-gloom. We’re looking at root causes, talking to people on the frontlines, and asking ourselves what we can do. There are reasons to be concerned, but there is also a case for hope.

Find out more at Plant With Purpose.

What connects global poverty, human trafficking in Thailand, natural disasters in Mozambique, and economic opportunity in rural appalachia?  We hear from Lucy McCray from The Freedom Story in Thailand, Abdul Ada, an ocean conservationist from Mozambique, and Chelsea Barnes from Appalachian Voices to find out how environmental degradation is the root of so many global challenges.  

Welcome to the Grassroots Podcast, a Plant With Purpose production. This show features global conversations about the environmental challenges we’re facing, what ordinary people are doing in response, and how this connects to our Christian faith. We’re going beyond doom-and-gloom. We’re looking at root causes, talking to people on the frontlines, and asking ourselves what we can do. There are reasons to be concerned, but there is also a case for hope.

Find out more at Plant With Purpose.