I once had a Bible study leader explain how going to the bathroom glorified God if you were a Christian. How he arrived at this conclusion was through simply saying that anything a Christian does to advance the Kingdom glorifies God–and removing harmful wastes from your body in order to stay alive did just that.
As we explore some of the issues surrounding RE:FORM, the environment weaves an inextricable web with many other social justice issues. Some of them are complex; some of them are simple. Whether we are dipping our toes into these issues or diving headlong into them, we must realize the vast opportunities to connect the environment with current missional work our churches are doing–such as improving rural sanitation.
A report out of Science Daily suggests that more than a million people each year could be saved with simple upgrades to rural sanitation in developing nations in Africa and Asia. Living in the U.S., it’s really easy for me to take for granted the “technology” we have that keeps our drinking water separate from our sewage. But that’s not the case in every part of the world. And to think that maybe adding the construction and education of a public bathroom in some of the areas our churches do mission work could help assuage this problem seems like a no-brainer.
If you’re constructing bathrooms and providing education in areas where you’re doing missions, we’d love to hear about how you’re doing this and what you’re using to construct these bathrooms.
You turned out ok, kid.
Hoorah for your Sunday School teacher. He knew something that has been part of Talmud wisdom for some time…
There is an ancient Jewish blessing — the asher yatzar benediction –that was supposed to be recited after one relieved oneself.
Excerpted from :
http://www.torah.org/features/firstperson/everythingablessing.html#
For Everything A Blessing
… On page 120 (Brachot 60b) of the ancient text [The Talmud] it is written: “Abayei said, when one comes out of a privy he should say: Blessed is He who has formed man in wisdom and created in him many orifices and many cavities. It is obvious and known before Your throne of glory that if one of them were to be ruptured or one of them blocked, it would be impossible for a man to survive and stand before You. Blessed are You that heals all flesh and does wonders.”
[...] The Anthropologist posted a noteworthy aricle today onHere’s a small snippetI once had a Bible study leader explain how going to the bathroom glorified God if you were a Christian. How he arrived at this conclusion was through simply saying that anything a Christian does to advance the Kingdom glorifies God–and … [...]
http://www.dmttoilet.com/
Great entrepreneur out of Nigera is tackling the sanitation issue. This is one piece of the environmental challenges of stewardship – a critical piece.
Looking forward to more articles and resources related to the water issue.
Reflecting on this article I realised how Heavenly God made a perfect world where everything has a purpose and everything is Holy. He created everything to give unselfishly and to receive. The earth gives us the abundance of her food, be it animal, vegetable or mineral and we, along with all other living things, gain nourishment from it and then return it to the earth.
This is the way that nature works, only humans want to take and take without returning anything (exept toxic waste). Herein lies the cause of many environmental issues.
Fortunately it also gives us the solution. Case by case we have to figure out how to restore this natural balance. The real problem comes in trying to educate the people cuasing the problem why they should change. This goes for both the native burning rain forests to eake our a living selling charcoal and the giant corporations tearing up the ocean floor or blasing the tops off Kentucky mountains to get coal.
Ultimately we have to move to a new culture of living for the sake of others and returning the resources God has given us back to His creation.