A filmmaker engaged in conservation work zooms in on the need for creation restoration and encourages all to get involved!
THE ENCOUNTER WITH A ROCHA
A Rocha (Portuguese for "the rock") is an international Christian conservation NGO working to show God's love for all creation. When I first found A Rocha through Google on the Internet, it was like finding my long lost family and I just had to work for them. The other search results were disappointing. Basically, a whole lot of Christians condemned the movement as unbiblical, a form of new age spirituality, and connected to worship of Gaia. A Rocha turned out to be very biblical, totally legit, and they didn't just talk about creation care, but actually did practical conservation work. I was so happy (my husband, Dan, said I was jumping up and down). I didn't feel alone anymore!
That was 2003. I had been in the local television industry for about eight years writing and directing TV programs and documentaries. I loved making shows about Singapore's natural heritage and the environment. A turning point came when I was in Japan for another environmental series for youths. I felt really moved by the Japanese activists who were doing amazing work and I couldn't help but ask myself, "Why aren't Christians doing something about the environment? We are supposed to be stewards, right? What does the Bible really say about the new creation?"
Immediately, A Rocha (AR) got an email from me: "Do you have a media department? I would like to make films for AR." At that time, I had just resigned from my job as an Executive Producer at a production house and I wanted to give more time to missions and conservation. Well, they didn't have a media department, but Peter Harris, the founder of AR wrote to encourage me and also sent his book Under The Bright Wings. It's the story of how AR started in Southern Portugal. This book changed my life because it articulated something I felt for deeply, but didn't have the theology or language to express. A year later, Peter and his wife Miranda invited Dan and I to join the AR International team as volunteer filmmakers for one year. By then, we had met in Singapore, organized a little AR conference at the Singapore Bible College and gone to Bangkok together to run an AR booth at the Third IUCN World Conservation Congress in 2004. We had become dear friends.
So Dan and I raised our financial support through friends, bought camera equipment, and a souped-up laptop for video editing. In March 2005, our church sent us off on an itinerant life which has led us to France, Portugal, UK, Kenya, and Canada to film what God was doing to restore His creation. It's a dream come true to serve God in this way.
CURRENT PROJECTS
We have moved back to Singapore having just completed a two-year term at the AR Canada Field Study Centre in British Columbia where we lived and worked in community. The center welcomes volunteers and Dan's role was taking care of hospitality, groceries, spending time with visitors, and taking photographs. When we were not out on filming assignments, I would be writing and editing videos for AR.
Our latest film for AR, ASSETS: A Story of Hope premiered at the Fourth IUCN World Conservation Congress in Barcelona, 2008. It's about AR's work on the Kenyan coast called ASSETS which stands for the Arabuko-Sokoke Schools and Ecotourism Scheme. It's a holistic approach to poverty alleviation and forest conservation.
Now, we are still part of the International Team and I'm continuing in communications and media. I'll be working to have Chinese subtitles for two A Rocha films we made, Introducing A Rocha, and Why Should Christians Care for Creation?
Dan and I have a role in encouraging contacts and engaging with people in the region. Together with partners from Bible schools in Singapore and Malaysia, we're organizing an A Rocha conference on health and the environment in these two countries in July 2009.
A CHANGED LIFE
When I think about how I have changed as a result of my work with AR, it is like being born again, again! I used to think I was a committed Christian, but I hardly connected my faith and my lifestyle. After being in AR and living communally, I'm learning to live more simply, to celebrate the Sabbath, and aim for a smaller ecological footprint. Such as, little incremental changes like eating less meat and less processed foods (which are more energy intensive to produce and not very good for you anyway) and showering in five minutes.
I'm really ashamed to say this but before AR, I didn't feel I had anything to do with the poor, the oppressed, and the marginalized. I thought that if I served God in my church or through my work and occasional mission trips then that's pretty good. But the AR family has taught me what it means to live justly, to really seek for God's will to "be done on earth as it is in heaven." What I eat, how I shop, how I get around connects me to communities and ecosystems in either a good or bad way.
SAVING A PORTUGESE ESTUARY
One story from AR that has been of particular significance to me is that of the team in Portugal currently involved in a legal battle to save the Alvor Estuary. Designated as a Natura 2000 site, it's one of the most important coastal wetlands in southern Portugal and the last undeveloped area of this coastline, having been home to the AR Bird Observatory and Field Studies Centre since 1985. The wetlands are threatened by a tourist development and have been illegally destroyed by its current owner. The courts have granted an injunction forbidding any further destruction of the protected area, and have also comprehensively rejected the owner's counter-allegations of harassment by an AR staff. However, further legal actions are ongoing to force the owner to mend the harm already done.
Why does the Ria de Alvor matter? Because the earth is the Lord's (Psalm 24:1), it belongs to Him and not to us to do as we please. We appreciate your prayers for the A Rocha Portugal team and our lawyer who are all doing an amazing job. You can read more about this on the A Rocha website at www.arocha.org.
RESTORING HOPE FOR CONSERVATION AND COMMUNITIES
Part of AR's mission is to renew hope in apparently hopeless situations. This hope we have is tied to why we do conservation. Actually, the "why" question is not often talked about in the conservation world. The basis of our hope is Christ who is the Creator, Sustainer and Redeemer of not just humans, but the entire cosmos. Christ came "to reconcile all things to Himself" (Col 1:20, italics mine). Jesus gave us a picture of this hope through His physical, resurrected body; He inaugurated the new creation at Easter. And He is now restoring not only our relationship with God and with others, but our broken relationship with creation as well. N.T. Wright says we're not just beneficiaries of new creation but agents of it.
HOW TO GET INVOLVED
If you'd like to know how you can support or partner with us in our work (communications and creating Chinese resources), we'd love to hear from you. It would be wonderful to see an AR community group start in Singapore.
We need to ask ourselves: How can we be better stewards of God's creation? How can we love our neighbor? Who is our neighbor? In the environmental crisis, the poorest people are most at risk. It can be quite overwhelming. Where do we start? Shopping and eating are a big part of Singaporean culture. I'd like Singaporeans to be more connected to where their food comes from and for Christians to eat responsibly as a spiritual discipline. Can we ask the Holy Spirit to show us how we can shop and eat in ways that honor communities and places? It's important to ask where does this come from? How was it grown, produced or reared? Do I need to buy this new thing or can I borrow it, fix the old item or stick with what I already have?
You don't have to be a field biologist to volunteer in A Rocha although we do need them! When Dan and I were in Canada, there was a colorful mix of volunteers: those who helped in the Community Shared Agriculture (CSA) project and worked in the organic vegetable garden, businessmen who gave good advice, people who fixed the lawn-mower, carpenters, helpers in environmental education with the kids, children who weeded, and environmental studies students doing surveys.
Like all charities, A Rocha also needs people who can give or know of others who can. I would be happy to exchange emails, meet with people, go to home groups, and to show the A Rocha films.
"If God is really at the center of things and God's good future is the most certain reality, then the truly realistic course of action is to buck the dominant consequentialist ethic of our age - which says that one should act only if one's action will mostly likely bring about good consequences - and simply, because we are people who embody the virtue of hope, do the right thing... Our vocation is not contingent on results or the state of the planet. It is simply dependent on our character as God's response-able human image-bearers." - Steven Bouma-Prediger
Melissa Ong and her husband Dan Tay are a filmmaking team based with A Rocha in Singapore. Melissa produces video tools for A Rocha teams (find them on our Creation Care video resources page). They are also making A Rocha's work known amongst Chinese-speaking audiences. You can contact her at melissa.ong@arocha.org.