The natural world is crying out for our loving attention.
Does your church or community group want to get involved but don’t know where to start?
The contributors to this book explore the issues, share their personal visions, and offer practical ideas that your church or group can act on today.
Awhi Mai Awhi Atu tells the stories of 30 women, living in Aotearoa New Zealand from many cultures, who are leading in environmental action. Through their experience a powerful story emerges of God at work in a rich diversity of ways.
Awhi Mai Awhi Atu documents the emergence of a dynamic mission movement, and builds that movement with practical, creative ideas and resources. It includes:
* Vibrant stories of hope and creativity in the face of local and global problems
* 81 action points which provide practical tools for churches
* A wealth of prayer and poetry that connects heart and soul
*Discussion of theology in ecological mission.
Now, more than ever before, God is calling the church to care for God’s creation.
This book encourages Christians to receive God’s love – awhi mai – and to share God’s love – awhi atu – in human community and with the natural environment.
Praise for Awhi Mai Awhi Atu
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“Awhi Mai Awhi Atu is a precious gift to our church and our world. Filled with honesty and vitality, this collection honours and creates holy ground for women, men and children to stand in humble and hopeful relationship with each other and God’s earth. As a geographer, my life has been shaped by ‘earth-writing.’ This collection of women’s writing is the best type of ‘earth-writing’; written from, and written for, incarnational embodiment. Here women reflect deeply and powerfully on their own embodied relationship with the earth and with the Creator and Redeemer of all. Each reflection ends by grounding this wisdom in a gift of incarnational invitation for the reader – practical steps we can all take to live more humbly and hopefully in loving relationship with God’s earth. This collection is a beautiful celebration of the loving compassion perceived and expressed by the women of these islands as well as a clear call to join with the work of God’s Spirit in safeguarding the integrity of God’s creation and to sustain and renew the life of the earth.” Bishop Eleanor Sanderson, (Pihopa Awhina, Diocese of Wellington)
"…We can make a difference. We can reach out and use our blessings to help others. We can learn from each other and benefit from the wisdom of the generations in cultures very different to our own. I have experienced those connections in reading Awhi Mai Awhi Atu. What a humbling privilege for me, living on the other side of the world, to be asked to write the Foreword to this book! It is full of so many inspiring and wonderful women, all drawing on their life experiences to be people who care for the land and the seas and all the creatures – human and wider – that share those spaces.…" Dr Ruth Valerio, Global Advocacy and Influencing Director,
Advocacy and Influencing Group, Tearfund
Contributors
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Silvia Purdie – editor
Ruth Valerio – Foreword
Amy Ross
Ana Lisa de Jong
Angela Pennington
Ani Kartikasari
Anna Baird
Ava Carter
Liz Horn
Mandy Cleave
Cathy Bi-Riley
Courtnay Wilson
Diana Johnston
Eliala Fihaki
Elise Ranck
Faaolataga Misikopa-Leasi
Honey Thrupp
Ira Schelp
Iris Lee Fountain
Jacynthia Murphy
Jenny Campbell
Jill McDonald
Kristel van Houte
Lala Simpson
Marg Fern
Marie Preston
Mina Pomare-Peita
Nicola Hoggard Creegan
Olivia Yates
O’Love Uluave
Robyn McPhail
Rosemary Biss
Skye Finlay.
