Willard Metzger is the General Secretary of Mennonite Church Canada.  He currently writes a blog in which he shares experiences and reflections focused about his time of leadership, and has an inspiring message about creation care.

Recently, Metzger was in Durban, South Africa, where approximately 20,000 people gathered from around the world for the UN Forum on Climate Change 2011.  Said Metzger in his Nov. 28 blog, “I came in response to a request to strengthen the presence of the Canadian Church leaders.

During his presence at the 10 day climate change forum, Metzger kept a daily blog of his observations.  “If the earth cannot sustain my neighbour consuming what I consume—then obedience to Christ must compel me to strive for a consumption practice that can also be shared with my neighbour,” wrote Metzger in his first blog entry from Durban.

On day four at the UNCCF, Metzger wrote of the frustrations and fragility of the conference.  With the larger economies hesitating and the smaller economies growing impatient, as Metzger wrote, he was feeling disheartened—until he attended a global youth forum.

A teenage South African girl spoke, encouraging the leaders present to focus on the future.  After first acknowledging the economic dynamics and financial costs involved in climate change she said with emphatic stance, “We need you to make the biggest decision of our lives.  Forget about the money you have to save, you are in a big debt already…You owe this to us!!”

The 10 day blog is a wonderful resource for us involved with MCCN.  As Metzger wrote on Day 9, “Creation care requires all the gifts and strategies we possess as a global family. We need new technologies. We need gifted entrepreneurs. We need committed governments. We need active sacrifice. With this portfolio of gifts, we have all we need to maintain a healthy global community.”

See the entirety of Metzger’s blog here.

reported in Mennonite Weekly Review:

Earth Care-People Care was the theme at a children’s peace camp, co-sponsored by Eastern Mennonite University, Harrisonburg, Va., and local faith communities. Campers learned about sustainable living on visits to Jewish, Christian and Muslim places of worship. They also made ice cream using bicycle power.  Read more here.

Reprinted from EMU’s Crossroad magazine with permission

by Andrew Jenner, June 9, 2011

Hugh Stoll ’89 bought this 1920s-era hydroelectric dam on the Rocky River near Pittsboro, North Carolina, in 2005 and has been restoring it ever since. Stoll is also one of the partners in the company that owns and manages the solar installation at EMU.

AFTER CLAMBERING DOWN a rickety iron ladder and inching across a slippery concrete ledge, Hugh Stoll ’89 arrives at the business end of his latest brainchild: a new hydroelectric turbine for his dam on the Rocky River in Pittsboro, North Carolina.

Unscrewing a metal cover to show off the guts of his new contraption – conceived and built entirely from scratch, save for a blade design borrowed from the University of Idaho – Hugh talks hydropower at a mile a minute: “thrust bearings” and “butterfly valves” and “friction loss” and other terms and concepts sailing over the layman’s head.

Hugh goes back up the ladder into the powerhouse, still holding forth rapid-fire on the intricacies of his operation, as he opens up the new turbine control panel. He jumps from “synchronous generation” to “positive load,” then describes the use of a “dynamometer” to create a “torque curve” that has some relation to the coiled thicket of black, yellow, red and blue wires snaking this way and that inside the control panel he engineered.

In the background, his trusty old 1909 GE generator – the dam’s real workhorse, to be supplemented by the new turbine – hums along gently. When the Rocky River’s up and running fast, Hugh’s dam sends enough electricity into the grid to power 90 to 100 homes.

Hugh, who lives in Harrisonburg, Virginia, takes periodic work trips to the dam, a few days here, a few days there, fixing this, replacing that, tinkering with more ambitious projects like the new turbines. There’s no shortage of things to do.
The dam, built in 1922, was “highly neglected” when he and his brother, Craig, bought it in 2005. Ever since, he’s been trying to get things back to shipshape. He claims he’s not an expert; he’s learned as he’s gone along, seeking out mentors, figuring out who can help him when he’s stumped.

“You piddle around with stuff and find out what works,” says Hugh. “It’s just really simple. There’s not a whole lot to it.”
And Hugh loves simplicity. He relates a parable from personal experience:

Some years ago, he chaperoned a group of students from Eastern Mennonite High School visiting the “solar decathlon” on the National Mall in Washington DC, a showcase of the most advanced and innovative solar-powered houses in the world. Impressive, yes, but the approach felt wrong. The houses’ complicated electrical systems would cost tens of thousands of dollars to build and require an engineering degree to really understand – far, far too complicated an arrangement for Hugh’s liking. While the houses at the decathlon were perhaps sustainable in some narrow sense, they were kind of missing the broader point.
“[We] should talk about wisdom, not sustainability,” he declares, tugging at his long beard, cut in a style evocative of the Amish men in his ancestry.

Vaguely resembling a flying saucer, the 1909 General Electric generator behind Hugh Stoll makes much of the dam’s electricity. During periodic work trips from his home in Harrisonburg, Hugh has been building two supplemental turbines from scratch.

Wisdom is an expansive concept, he continues. Simplicity is part of wisdom. Average everyday people should be able to understand wise things. Seeking others’ talents, as he’s tried to do when troubleshooting at the dam, is part of wisdom. And living sustainably is an inevitable side effect of living wisely. Wise people don’t poison their own wells, he says. Wise people take care of what they have.

Pragmatism figures into all of this, too. The ecological effects of damming rivers makes hydropower a controversial source of renewable energy, Hugh acknowledges, but perfect can’t be the enemy of good.

“Our culture has an insatiable appetite for electricity, and you have to get it from somewhere,” he says.

After graduating from EMC with a degree in Biblical studies and theology, Hugh and his wife, Kathy Hilty Stoll ’89, moved to Tacoma, Washington, where Kathy earned a degree in occupational therapy. Hugh worked as an electrician in Tacoma, and then in Arizona, the couple’s next stop after Kathy earned her degree.

In 1996, by then with two children in tow, the Stolls moved to eastern Washington, near the town of Kettle Falls. Hugh became a stay-at-home dad at first, while he built the family a simple, no-frills straw bale house within eyeshot of Canada. Good insulation, careful design and a wood-burning Russian stove were plenty to keep the house comfortable.

In Washington, Hugh’s love of whitewater kayaking first connected him with hydroelectricity. He got to know a man who owned a dam on one of Hugh’s favorite rivers, and before long, he began helping his new friend with electrical projects there.

When Hugh’s father, Dan (electrical service supervisor at EMU for 12 years) died suddenly of a heart attack in 2002, the Stolls – then with four kids – sold the house in Washington and moved back to Harrisonburg. After the move, Hugh kept his eye on hydropower industry journals, saw an ad for the dam in Pittsboro, and soon enough, had bought a hydropower plant of his own.
Hugh’s foray into hydroelectricity has gotten him interested in other forms of renewable energy.

Last year, he built a large solar panel array in the back yard of his family’s home just north of town. He’s now a partner with Secure Futures, the solar energy company that owns and manages EMU’s recent solar installation on the library roof. And lately he’s begun dabbling in wind power. Hugh and Craig are fixing up a 100-year-old wind turbine for fun, and he’s toying with the idea of launching some sort of wind energy development.

And one more thing – Hugh’s been dreaming lately about building another house. He’s been doodling plans, considering sites, thinking about design. Or even better, he’s dreaming about a group of houses, connecting with other like-minded, people interested in building and living together. Living simply. Living sustainably. Living wisely.

Last week we wrote about Harrisonburg Mennonite Church’s community gardening project and the ways they’ve used creation care to build stronger community. Yesterday we had the opportunity to talk to Francisco Machado, a native Honduran who immigrated to the US in 2008, and his experiences with gardening, community-building, and the Church.

Francisco has been a member of the Mennonite Church for years, after being exposed to Mennonitism during his university years in Honduras. He was originally drawn to the denomination, he says, because of its heavy emphasis on peace and justice. The Church’s stance on warfare and nonviolence made it uniquely relevant to the violence and unrest that was so familiar to Central America at the time. After university, he worked for Mennonite Social Action Commission agencies in Honduras for several years, finding a life as a pastor, agricultural engineer, and environmental advocate.

Today, Francisco says that Harrisonburg Mennonite Church’s garden has given him a way of living out his love for both the Church and the earth. He says that the Mennonites he meets in Harrisonburg have continued to stay relevant and practical as they live out their beliefs. Although not a member of HMC, he has found their community garden to be a way to connect with the greater Mennonite community and make new friends in the area. He was originally invited to the garden earlier this year by HMC pastor Mark Keller, and since joining, he’s loved every minute of it. In our talk, he emphasized the relevance and importance of gardening — both as a means to provide fresh food for his family and as a way of reminding our technology-driven culture of where our food actually comes from.

And, lest we forget, gardening benefits more than just our social and intellectual lives. Between tomatoes, onions, broccoli, squash, eggplant, and many other vegetables, Francisco hopes to be able to store away enough food to last his family until next year’s planting season.

Director of Maintenance Craig Sensenig is shown washing a Landis Homes vehicle with the new system.

LITITZ, PA.  Landis Homes Retirement Community recently opened two Rainwater Car Wash stations for use by all residents.  The two stations, located in a parking area, use water collected from the roofs of the two new hybrid homes.

A rainwater eco-friendly car wash is one of the best types of car washes because it contains fewer harmful chemicals or sediments that come from public water sources.

The water is stored in underground tanks, then used to wash cars and water plants.  It is good for the earth as it saves drinking water by using non-potable water for washing cars.

The hybrid homes, which are in line to receive a LEED certification for environmentally sustainable design, are just one part of the green program at Landis Homes.

Opened in 1964, Landis Homes has 665 retired persons living in cottages, hybrid homes, apartments, suites, personal care and healthcare.  Another 100 persons are served on a weekly basis in one of the two adult day centers on the 114-acre campus, which is surrounded by Lancaster County farmland.

Hearing about others’ earth-friendly endeavors is always a highlight of Creation Care Council meetings. At its June gathering, the council learned a new strategy for gardening in small spaces from member Greg Bowman.

Greg Bowman presents the "living bucket" at the Creation Care Council meeting.

Bowman works for Goodness Grows in North Lima, Ohio—an organization that makes healthy, local food accessible in its community. Bowman showed the group a “living bucket” containing a patio tomato, basil and lettuce. This is a strategy his organization has adapted from globalbuckets.org in order to help people grow food even if their space, money and expertise is limited.

Two food-grade plastic buckets from restaurants were nested, with the bottom bucket serving as a self-watering reservoir. Disabled people drilled the holes in the buckets, and college students designed a business plan to promote the product. The whole committee got a kick out of the bucket and took lots of pictures.

Joanne Moyer, who had recently returned from dissertation research in Kenya, showed photos of environmentally friendly initiatives she had witnessed there, such as a tree farm and charcoal briquette manufacturing. “In North America, being green is often pitted against the economy,” Joanne said. “In Kenya, over and over, I saw people improving their circumstances through green initiatives. It makes me defiantly hopeful.

GOSHEN, Ind. – As a biology and environmental science professor, Ryan Sensenig knows that his students need to learn more than how to use a microscope or all of the scientific names of the plants they are studying.

Ryan Sensenig

Instead, creating connections – between people, cultures and different academic disciplines – has always been key to the way he has approached his own life and what he strives to teach everyday in the classroom. “There is no dividing line between sociology, biology, ecology and peace and justice issues,” said Sensenig, associate professor of biology at Goshen College. “I love ecology and environmental science because the complexity of connections forever intrigues me, and further binds me to a broader social and biological community.”

read more article by Lydie Assefa posted on Goshen College’s Go Green pages.

Creation care loans are a new feature now available to the 17,600 members of the Waterloo County community that Mennonite Savings and Credit Union (MSCU) serves. Loans with favorable terms are available to members who want to install solar panels, geothermal heating systems or energy efficiency upgrades.  The credit union offers the loans in partnership with Mennonite Central Committee’s Initiative for Solar Energy (MISE).
Meanwhile, Mennonite Savings and Credit Union is also working with Vigor Clean Tech, a Waterloo based company and MSCU member, to install a 7.1 kW (kilowatt) solar rooftop system in their Waterloo branch. The amount of energy being produced will be on display in the branch and online for members and visitors to view. The branch will also start an energy monitoring program to see what consumption reductions are possible. Darren Kropf, Creation Care Coordinator at Mennonite Central Committee Ontario, says, “MSCU’s adoption of solar energy will visually remind its members to make decisions to care for creation everyday. Congratulations for demonstrating strong leadership in environmental stewardship!” (more…)

by Laura Lehman Amstutz

Akerson educated beach clean-up crews about local wildlife, making sure that the oil clean-up did not disturb nesting birds and sea turtles.

HARRISONBURG, Va. – Eastern Mennonite Seminary student James Åkerson found
the two weeks he spent this summer helping with clean up from the oil
spill in the Gulf of Mexico a “natural extension” of his Christian faith.

Åkerson, who is about half way through his program of study at EMS, is a
forest ecologist and program director for the National Park Service.
Normally he works in insect and disease control and invasive plant
management. When he heard about the oil spill and follow-up efforts, he
made sure that his disaster response form was up to date. He was asked to
leave immediately for Pensacola Beach, Fla. (more…)

David Neufeld, Winnipeg, MB, has a long history with both Mennonite and secular efforts to address environmental issues. He has served on the Creation Care Council of the Mennonite Creation Care Network since its inception. He was also part of the Mennonite Church’s Environmental Task Force that existed from1991 through 2001 and assisted with the ad hoc committee that designed MCCN. On the job as a community planner, he champions long-term thinking. Heidi Martin conducted this interview.

Describe your job responsibilities as the Director of Community Planning for the Government of Manitoba.

I have worked for the government in the area of land and water policy for 25 years. At present, I manage regional offices across Manitoba that provide advisory and technical services to cities, towns and rural municipalities. Our job is to help communities put together long range plans for managing growth (housing, industry, commercial, recreational, institutional). (more…)