Hey Jude

This past week southern Malawi had an unwelcome visitor – Cyclone Jude. March unfortunately is becoming like Hurricane Season as storms brew in the Indian Ocean, make landfall on the Mozambiquan coast and sweep inland to reach Malawi. Mercifully Jude did not quite have the force of Freddy in 2023 but still enough to damage buildings and bring down trees.

It came up close and personal for me when a big tree next to my house fell on the power lines – sparks everywhere. With my neighbours we were thankful for timely attention from the electricity company to prevent any further harm being done. Such experiences are a wake-up call about climate change. No doubt it is a threat to future generations, but it is also a palpable reality right now in a context like Malawi.

If I can find hope anywhere it is with the environmental awareness and activism of our students. When I was a theological student, I do not remember paying much attention to the sustainability of the natural environment or the threat of climate change. By contrast, our students today at Zomba Theological University not only have awareness of these issues but are determined to engage them both theologically and practically. 

At a meeting of the student body on Friday they decided to adopt “Green Theology” as the slogan for this year. They hope to apply this both to our shared life on the campus and to their outreach into communities where they have opportunities to be involved. We are a small University in an obscure country, but we have a body of students determined to play their part in meeting the great crisis of our time. We can only hope that we are one tiny part of a great international movement.