A letter from David Walter
June 4, 2009
Foreigners forever
In the movie “E.T.” the line that all of us most remember is, “E.T., call home!” Everyone rooted for that call to go through. What if that call had not gotten through? How could that movie have come to a satisfactory conclusion had there been no home to call? Wouldn’t whatever ending there might have been been clearly unacceptable? Movie goers would have revolted. Ticket sales would have plummeted. “I'm sorry. The number you have called has been disconnected” would have resulted in an outrage heard across the globe.
Pelee Beach in Vanuatu.
Yet, today there are tens of thousands of people who shortly will have no place to call home, let alone call. No, the lines are not just down nor the satellite out of orbit. If there are any phones left there will be no one there to answer. No one, it seems is crying out. Those that do are branded “tree huggers.” Many of our politicians tell us that global warming is a conspiracy by the left.
I am writing, of course, about our brothers and sisters in many parts of the Pacific where global climate change is devastating their island countries. While this is never far from my mind, it was brought into clearer focus recently when I read an article in the first email edition of the newsletter of the Pacific Conference of Churches, Talanoa Pasifika. In that article, Pastor Tafue Lusama of the Tuvalu Christian Church said, “We will be foreigners forever.” I can’t seem to get those words out of my brain. I simply cannot imagine a time or a people that have no home and will never ever again have one.
Part of the appeal of “E.T.” was the kind and gentle manner of the alien. So too, the Pacific islanders are kind and gentle. Already they have had to alter their lifestyles, changing from a way of life based on fishing and agriculture to being dependent on market forces for their food.
The island people were some of the greatest explorers that we have ever known, greater even than Columbus or Magellan. They ventured out in only outrigger canoes into the unknown to settle islands all over the vast Pacific. They were not forced to go by enemies nor was it an economic necessity. They apparently were simply compelled to reach out and find new lands in which to live their gentle lives. They have been living thus for thousands of years, have endured colonization and the diseases brought by their colonizers, blackbirding (slavery), exploitation of their natural resources and last but not least nuclear testing. Now they face the most insidious attack of all — the complete loss of their lands due to global climate change. And the most amazing and frustrating part of all of this is that there is absolutely nothing they have done to cause this, nor is there anything they can do about it. A couple of years ago Vanuatu was found to be “the happiest country on earth” based primarily on the fact that they live in almost complete harmony with the land, taking nothing more from it than they return.
Yet these gentle island people do not whine, nor do they demand or violently protest as they see their homelands silently and irretrievably disappear. To again quote Pastor Lusama, “We ask the international community to reduce emissions. The world has to feel responsible and meet the financial needs. If we can stop the problem before it comes to Tuvalu, we save the world.”
Certainly there are other countries that are and will be devastated by global climate change. Bangladesh will have 17 million people displaced. Manhattan may shrink. Maybe if Wall Street has water lapping at its doors something will be done. Onesua Presbyterian College, the school where I taught and have come to love will, after 56 years of important service to church and country, be forced to move to higher ground — but where? These are small countries with limited inhabitable land. There may be no place for it to move.
God gave us the rainbow as a sign of a covenant that He would no longer flood the earth. But what about our side of that bargain? Did we not promise to be stewards of the earth and all that is in it? Are we holding up our end of the bargain? I wish I could say that I am doing all that I can, but despite driving a hybrid car, recycling and composting, there is still much that I can and must do. I need to use fewer ecologically damaging chemicals, be more aware of buying food grown close to home, turn down the thermostat another degree. The list goes on. I believe that small incremental changes will ultimately make the difference. Waiting for our government or any government to act will be too late.
Psalm 24 tells us, “The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it, the world and those who live in it; for he has founded it upon the seas and established it on the rivers.” That says it better than anything I could (or have) written.
David
The 2009 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 98
