Monday, May 18, 2015

Creation care at Kyneton - a Friends of A Rocha Australia trip

The author in a dry creek bed.
On May 16, a small groups of people set off from Melbourne to join some Kyneton locals to look at some 11,000 hectares of a mixture of degraded grazing land and remnant trees and native grasses. This was part of Friends of A Rocha Australia, a volunteer group of Christians trying to establish A Rocha in Australia.

Gorse bush. As prickly as it looks
I've been involved in getting this happening for the better part of a decade, so it was a relief, very exciting and very surreal to finally go out and do some work. For the ten or so of us, there wasn't as much work as we had originally though. One group stretched out some fencing, while some of us got to walk along the gorge and cut down and paint with herbicide some gorse bush. Very prickly, very sharp and a bit of an effort.
 






In the end, we spent a couple of hours surveying the property, and then sat down for lunch. Tick three of the A Rocha Cs - Christianty, Conservation and Community (which often happens over Cuisine!)

The afternoon consisted of a reflection on Psalm 104, with a local version of verses 5-25 (separate post to follow). Much discussion ensued about theology: orthodoxy (right theology), orthopraxis (right doing), community, traditional versus worship outside, and future developments onsite. Plans are to return October 31 for more work, reflection, etc. If interested, contact me via Friends of A Rocha Australia.


Remnants from Black Saturday bushfire




 


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