Presbyterian
Global Eco-Justice 2007 E-Newsletters

Step It Up-Feb | Lent | Land-March | Biofuels-April/May | Food Aid-Aug/Sept

2006 E-Newsletters

FOCUS on U.S. FOOD AID

"And a poor man named Lazarus was laid at his gate, covered with sores, and longing to be fed with the crumbs which were falling from the rich man's table; besides, even the dogs were coming and licking his sores." (Luke 16:20-21)

* What about Food Aid?
* Feeding a Hungry World
* Women and Food Crises
* A Surer Way to Feed the Hungry
* Food Aid & Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs)
* Food Aid or Band-aid?
* Environmental/Moral Context for Food Aid - Op-Ed by new PRC Editor
* ACT NOW to Improve Food Aid



WHAT ABOUT FOOD AID?

Each year millions of tons of food are shipped from the United States as food aid to respond to crises resulting from droughts, conflicts and severe poverty. While there is little doubt that this aid has saved countless lives, it is also clear that the US program - where most food aid is purchased and bagged by US agribusinesses and shipped by US shipping firms - designed over 50 years ago when the US had abundant food surpluses to dispose of, is enormously inefficient.

A study by the US Government Accountability Office found that rising business and shipping costs have meant that the volume of food aid delivered over the last five years has fallen by more than 50 percent. CARE, one of the world's biggest charities, has just announced that it is turning down some $45 million a year in federal financing, saying American food aid is not only plagued with inefficiencies, but also may hurt some of the very poor people it aims to help. Deliveries of in-kind food aid can undercut local farmers' crop sales, especially when they arrive late, after a new harvest. Changing the way at least a portion of US food aid is purchased could make a huge difference for food aid recipients in countries and regions around the world.

National governments have the primary duty to ensure that their citizens have access to food. But when those governments fail--due to a lack of resources or a lack of political will--Christians and others have a responsibility to act.

FEEDING A HUNGRY WORLD: A Vision for Food Aid in the 21st Century

Bread for the World has produced this great resource on food aid to give you everything you ever wanted to know about food aid. The definitions and descriptions beginning on page 3 may be particularly helpful.
http://www.bread.org/learn/global-hunger-issues/Food-Aid.pdf

WOMEN AND FOOD CRISES: How US Food Aid Policies Can Better Support their Struggles

"Running out of food is not new to us. Even our fathers, who could produce, eat and sell millet to buy animals, used to run out of food in some years...[But] today we run out of food too early in the season - sometimes just after Christmas. We suffer the food shortage for a longer period and more severely than our fathers, and year after year it gets worse for us."

Read this excellent discussion paper from Action Aid, which highlights key issues in modern food crises and explores some opportunities for engaging women more actively in their resolution.
http://www.actionaidusa.org/pdf/
Report-Women_and_Food_Crisis_Paper300.pdf




A SURER WAY TO FEED THE HUNGRY: A New York Times editorial

The Bush administration is pushing what should be an obvious policy change to help those most acutely in need -- victims of catastrophe or some other emergency. Proposed changes in the 2007 Farm Bill would allow for 25% of emergency food aid purchases under Title II to be provided in cash for local and regional purchase rather than as commodities purchased in the United States and shipped to developing countries.

Read the editorial by pasting the full address into your web browser.
http://www.oaklandinstitute.org/mediaPDFs/NYT_editorial_8-4-07.pdf



FOOD AID & GENETICALLY MODIFIED ORGANISMS: GMOs in Emergency and Development Operations; (A Position Paper from Lutheran World Federation (LWF)- Department for World Service)

LWF has developed a prudent plan for ways to deal with emergency food aid that may include genetically engineered food. Download the paper by pasting the following into your web browser:
http://www.lutheranworld.org/What_We_Do/DWS/Focus_Areas/
DWS-Position-Paper-GMOs-2005.pdf

FOOD AID OR BAND-AID?

Conn Hallinan and John Rivera to debate the issue of food aid. Hallinan, the author of the FPIF piece "The Devil's Brew of Poverty Relief," has been critical of the relationship between the food aid community and commercial interests. Rivera, a former reporter and editor at the Baltimore Sun, is a senior writer at Catholic Relief Services, where he works closely with his food aid colleagues.
This dialogue also explores food aid in the context of development aid and poverty reduction. Download at http://www.fpif.org/pdf/dialogue/0608bandaid.pdf

OP-ED: The Environmental/Moral Context for Food Aid

This issue of The Presbyterian Global Eco-Justice E-Newsletter focuses on Food Aid. Food aid for the poorest people on our globe is influenced by a mix of multinational corporations, United Nations Millennium Development Goals, U.S. Farm Bill policy, free trade policies, governments, and non-governmental aid organizations. The fate of hundreds of millions of people is at stake in the outcome. Despite the complexity of these "principalities and powers," holding on to a single faithful question may help determine any course of action, in this case, how to provide aid to starving peoples: How can we raise the poorest people out of desperate poverty as we reduce the spiritual poverty of those in rich nations so that all earth's creatures, and the earth itself, may prosper?

We can and must be advocates in our political process. Charity and compassion for the "least of these" evoke our using the information in newsletters such as this to find ways of aiding those in great need. The story of Lazarus in Luke is a warning about how our passion for wealth-making distracts us from the Lazarus outside our own gates. And yet, as we read how Food Aid is delivered, we learn that the "crumbs" that filter down to the hungry are second to the profit of Agribusiness and the transport, storage, and distribution through shipping corporations (60 cents out of every aid dollar goes to middlemen for transport, storage, and distribution).

Our moral action in advocacy is not sufficiently effective because we are fighting within a story of endless growth and economic prosperity that is unsustainable at its core, rather than telling and creating a story of the Beloved Community. As David Korten says in his article in YES magazine (See "Living Wealthy: Better than Money" Fall 2007 http://www.yesmagazine.org/article.asp?ID=1834) we must turn from an "Empire Prosperity Story" to what he calls an "Earth Community Prosperity Story." The Gospel tells this same story!

Is our story being told in a way which displaces the normative story that insists economic growth is the way out of poverty? We have an opportunity every week to lift up a new narrative of prosperity that is at once earth-honoring, provides for the material poverty of the poor, and challenges the spiritual poverty of the rich. Good stewardship includes life style changes and advocacy for just policy. Yet our greatest challenge is in being good stewards of the historic spiritual traditions that can change the story. The story of the Beloved Community is there in scripture. It needs to break beyond a gospel bereft of the earthy infrastructure of life that speaks only to the psychological interior of the individual. It needs to address our poverty and that of the "least of these." Let's preach it!

John Preston
Steering Committee member of Presbyterians for Restoring Creation

FOOD AID ACTION:
Urge Your Senators to Support Food Aid Reform in the 2007 Farm Bill!

The virtues of purchasing food in recipient countries are self-evident and need full Congressional support. Call your Senator today and let them know that you want them to support the proposed change in the 2007 Farm Bill which would allow for 25% of emergency food aid purchases under Title II to be provided in cash for local and regional purchase rather than as commodities purchased in the United States and shipped to developing countries.

Help save lives by calling on your Senators to reform the Farm Bill.
1) Dial the Capitol switchboard at (202) 224-3121.
2) Ask to speak to your US Senators, and give your state.
3) When an office staff person picks up, say, "My name is [your name], and I'm a constituent from [town/city name].
I'm calling to ask the Senator to please help alleviate chronic hunger by supporting at least a partial shift from commodities to cash in our food aid programs."
4) Ask for a written response, and provide your mailing address.

God's justice is rooted in our stewardship of the earth. The earth is God's gift to all, and from the bounty of the earth God expects that all will be fed.

APRIL - MAY FOCUS : BIOFUELS
from the Presbyterian Hunger Program and Presbyterians for Restoring Creation

There is a hot debate taking place in the U.S. and Mexico about biofuels in relation to food security and fair trade issues. Given the unknowns and inevitable changes coming, we now have an historic opportunity to reconfigure agriculture policies in support of sustainable development goals based on renewable energy, local ownership and food security - if done right. On the other hand, there is potential to do real damage if we do not take the time to get our policies right. That is the challenge we face.

* Biofuels Overview
* Hunger and Poverty
* Policy
* Opportunities and Questions on Ethanol
* "The Corn Dilemma: Food Versus Fuel"
* "Food, Biofuels Could Worsen Water Shortages"

BIOFUELS OVERVIEW:
… Grist magazine (a progressive, on-line , environmental news source) recently did a thorough investigation of a wide variety of Biofuels, so this is the place to turn if you're asking "What is ethanol, and how's it different from biodiesel, and where does fry grease come in? Are there cars that can run on this stuff, and who's making them, and where can they fuel up? Who sells it, who makes money off it, and why's it such a political darling? Does "cellulosic" ethanol actually exist in the wild?" This is the best place we've found that can answer many of the numerous questions about biofuels. See their index and pick your topic! http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2006/12/04/biofuels/index.html
… To listen to an interesting discussion about these issues from "Science Friday" in April, link to the MP3: http://cache.libsyn.com/sciencefriday/scifri-2007042011.mp3 or visit their web page for other formats and other topics: http://www.sciencefriday.com/pages/2007/Apr/hour1_042007.html

HUNGER AND POVERTY
… "How Biofuels Could Starve the Poor" by C. Ford Runge and Benjamin Senauer, in Foreign Affairs, May/June 2007. http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20070501faessay86305/c-ford-runge-benjamin-
senauer/how-biofuels-could-starve-the-poor.html
… "Full Tanks at the Cost of Empty Stomachs: The Expansion of the Sugarcane Industry in Latin America" from Brazil's Landless Workers Movement: http://www.mstbrazil.org/
?q=sugarcaneindustrybrazillatinamericamstanalysis2007
… See article pasted below, "The Corn Dilemma: Food Versus Fuel" from Foodlinks America

POLICY
… "Policy Debate on Global Biofuels Development" in Renewable Energy Partnerships for Poverty Eradication and Sustainable Development
http://www.sei.se/red/RED-June-2005.pdf

OPPORTUNITIES AND QUESTIONS ON ETHANOL
… From National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service:
http://www.attra.org/attra-pub/PDF/ethanol.pdf
… "Brazil's Ethanol Slaves" from Common Dreams (Breaking News and Views from the Progressive Community): http://www.commondreams.org/headlines07/0309-08.htm
… Some critics say ethanol's boom could eventually strain the demand on corn and raise food prices - for a fuel that not everyone believes is even a cheaper or better alternative to traditional gasoline. From the Christian Science Monitor: http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0719/p01s02-usec.html

THE CORN DILEMMA: FOOD VS FUEL

As gasoline prices rise, Congress and the Bush Administration are increasingly looking to biofuels - gasoline made from plant products - as a renewable source of power for the automobiles clogging American highways. But the U.S., which has produced a surplus of corn, the primary ingredient in domestically-produced ethanol, may soon be facing a serious energy policy dilemma.

"The food versus fuel debate is definitely on," Don Roose, president of U.S. Commodities in West Des Moines, Iowa, told a meeting at the Chicago Board of Trade on July 12, 2006. Corn supplies are dwindling, he noted, because of strong demand from livestock feeders, the growing ethanol industry, and food producers, who rely on corn syrup and oils in their products. Approximately 18 percent of America's corn is converted to fuel today, up from just eight percent in 2000. That makes ethanol the second leading use of corn, after livestock feed.

But there is considerable debate about whether ethanol, which is currently cheaper and burns cleaner than gasoline derived from petroleum, actually yields an energy savings. When the external costs of industrial corn farming, including petroleum-based fertilizers, diesel fuel consumption to run tractors, and other costs are added up, as well as water and electric power needed to manufacture ethanol from corn, estimates range from a 67 percent net energy gain to a 29 percent net energy loss.

Reduced availability of corn for livestock feed affects meat, milk, and egg prices, and rising demand for ethanol has already begun to push up corn prices, making it more expensive for food companies to source the raw materials they use to make their products. Moreover, there is simply not enough farmland to meet the growing demand for biofuels. If every bushel of corn produced in America today were allocated for ethanol, only about 20 percent of the nation's demand for renewable fuel would be satisfied. And as more corn and farmland go for fuel production, there is less land for the production of locally grown fruits and vegetables, which can reduce the fossil-fuel consumption needed to ship those items from distant locations.

"We need an energy policy and agriculture that guzzle less, not more," said author Christopher Cook. "We cannot simply replace oil-powered cars with the lesser evil of those run by corn fuel. Far greater changes are needed in production and consumption if we want sustainable energy and agriculture in our future," Cook added.

From Foodlinks America - August 4, 2006 (from the California Emergency Foodlink, Sacramento, CA, distributed by Weinberg & Vauthier Consulting. Information is not copywrited and can be freely shared, though attribution is appreciated)

FOOD, BIOFUELS COULD WORSEN WATER SHORTAGES
SWEDEN: August 21, 2006

STOCKHOLM - Surging demand for irrigation to produce food and biofuels is likely to aggravate scarcities of water but the world's supply is not running out, an international report said on Monday.

"One in three people is enduring one form or another of water scarcity," the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) said in a report compiled by 700 experts and backed by the United Nations and farm research
groups.

http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/37758/story.htm

--

March Focus: Land!
from the Presbyterian Hunger Program and Presbyterians for Restoring Creation

"A poor person's field may produce abundant food, but injustice sweeps it away." (Proverbs 13:23)

Love becomes the unifying theme of the biblical text, specifically when expressed as a relational love for God and for one’s neighbor. The false dichotomy existing between faith (love the Lord your God) and ethics (love your neighbor as yourself) is collapsed by Jesus, who demands manifestations of both by those wishing to be called his disciples. The doing of love becomes the new commandment Christians are called to observe (John 12:34-35).
- Miguel A. De La Torre, Theologian, professor

WHAT, THEN, SHOULD BE OUR ‘ETHICAL PRAXIS’ (LOVE DOING) IN REGARDS TO LAND -- ITS USE, MISUSE AND OWNERSHIP PATTERNS?

* Reflection on Land and Farming
* Farm Bill Overview
* Land Loss and Growing Enough Food?
* Land, Soil and Dead Zones
* Christian Principles on the Farm Bill
* Land-focused Reform in the Farm Bill
* Action for the Land

REFLECTION ON LAND AND FARMING
Land is where we live. From land comes our sustenance. Where there is land, there is food. Without land, many starve.

Modern farming is a paradox. Never have we produced so much food. In fact, about a billion people eat too much food. Also, never before have more people been hungry.

Modern farming policies and practices:
* Erode nutritious topsoil at an alarming rate
* Require synthetic fertilizers and pesticides to create a harvest
* Poison the soil, waterways and air
* Force smaller-scale, family farmers off the land
* Result in land, profits, and the ability to produce and sell in the hands of a few people and companies

The (Food and) Farm Bill debate is hot this year! Let’s take a look at the pieces that relate to LAND with “global eco-justice eyes.”

QUICK OVERVIEW
The Farm Bill was devised during the Great Depression, and was created to give U.S. American farmers a safety net when the market bottomed out. Today's Farm Bill gives out commodity subsidies, or large government payments made to producers of a small number of crops. Most American farmers get little or nothing. Through food stamps and nutrition programs, the (more appropriately named - Food and) Farm Bill is also the way our government supplements the diets of the many unemployed, under-employed, and poorly-paid Americans unable to fully provide for themselves. Still there are more than 13 million US Americans who are food insecure or chronically hungry.

LAND LOSS AND GROWING ENOUGH FOOD?
The size of individual farms has grown significantly, yet overall, fertile land for
farming is being lost. In the United States, the loss of highly productive farmland is a national issue as urban development expands into agricultural landscapes. This trend
could affect our future capacity to produce food, feed and fiber. The same is true internationally. The world’s population is estimated to reach 8 billion by the year 2025, a 38 percent increase from its current population. Yet, expansion of cropland has not kept pace with growth. Eighty-eight percent of the projected population increase is in Africa and Asia, where land development has been increasing faster than anywhere else in the world and where food shortages are common, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). The FAO’s new study - “Livestock’s Long Shadow” - indicts livestock production as the major user of productive land. They report that 70% of all agricultural land and 30% of the land surface of the planet is needed to produce livestock.

LAND, SOIL AND DEAD ZONES
Modern agriculture plows massive tracks of land, formerly balanced ecosystems, and converts the soil, formerly rich with billions of micro-organisms, insects and other life forms, into monocultures of one crop. Chemical fertilizers, needed to grow the hybrid and genetically-engineered seeds, end up in rivers and some in the Gulf of Mexico, which has created a dead zone where few sea flora and fauna can survive. The dead zone is roughly the size of the state of Massachusetts. While most food comes from the land, the oceans also supply food - or don’t.

CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLES ON THE FARM BILL
The Religious Working Group on the Farm Bill, in which the PC(USA) participates states:

From God’s initial command to be good stewards of creation to the Prophets’ call for justice among governments and nations, people of faith in every age are called together to work for the common good. Inspired by Jesus’ command to care for poor and hungry people, we join together to support policies that promote economic justice, strengthen rural communities at home and around the world, care for the land
as God’s creation, foster right relations among nations and achieve an end to hunger. Accordingly, the 2007 farm bill should:

* Increase investments that combat rural poverty and strengthen rural communities

* Strengthen and expand programs that reduce hunger and improve nutrition in the United States

* Strengthen and increase investment in policies that promote conservation and good stewardship of the land

* Provide transitions for farmers to alternative forms of support that are more equitable and do not distort trade in ways that fuel hunger and poverty

* Protect the health and safety of farmworkers

* Expand research related to alternative and renewable forms of energy

* Improve and expand international food aid in ways that encourage local food security

Learn more about the principles behind why Presbyterians are working to reform the Farm Bill at http://betterfarmbill.org

LAND-FOCUSED REFORM IN THE FARM BILL

The Presbyterian Church USA is calling for reform based on the above principles. Bread for the World, in the Offerings of Letters done throughout the U.S., gives specific changes needed in the Farm Bill. The complete list is available at bread.org, but here we highlight those reforms that relate to the health of rural areas and good stewardship of the LAND.

INCREASE INVESTMENTS THAT STRENGTHEN RURAL COMMUNITIES
* Increase funding for the Rural Development Title
* Promote local initiatives to revitalize rural towns
* Foster opportunity and innovation in agriculture
* Provide resources and incentives for rural entrepreneurs
* Increase investments in telecommunications and broadband access in rural counties

PROVIDE A BROADER, MORE EQUITABLE SYSTEM OF SUPPORT FOR U.S. FARMERS AND RURAL COMMUNITIES
* Provide a transition for farmers from existing commodity payment programs to alternative kinds of support. An alternative support system for farmers and ranchers should be based on the following objectives:

- helps farmers and ranchers better manage their own economic risk
- allows farmers and ranchers to respond primarily to market signals
- no longer ties support payments to specific crops
- ensures farm payment programs comply with current trade rules and eliminates trade distortions that disadvantage farmers in developing countries
- provides more support to those who need it most, and phases out support to those who need it least
- helps minority farm families
- directs payments to those who are farm operators or to owners who live in rural communities
- supports new farmers and ranchers who want to enter agriculture
- encourages diversification on farms and ranches
- curtails the farm consolidation trend
- simplifies farm support mechanisms

STRENGTHEN POLICIES THAT PROMOTE
CONSERVATION AND STEWARDSHIP OF THE LAND
* Increase funding for the Conservation Title
* Reward stewardship of working farms and ranches
* Increase access to and coverage of land retirement programs
* Expand technical assistance to include minority farmers

LAND ACTION

* Contact Rev. Fritz Gutwein, the Presbyterian Hunger Program’s Farm Bill Organizer, to learn more and help out - 1-888-728-7228 x.5711 or by email - Fritz Gutwein

* Get the skinny on the Food and Farm Bill at PC(USA)’s Farm Bill Web site - http://www.betterfarmbill.org/

* Learn about and support the amazing Landless Workers Movement in Brazil @ http://www.mstbrazil.org/

* Learn about the relation between land and water in the U.S. related to our sinking land (land subsidence) at the U.S. Geological Survey @
http://water.usgs.gov/ogw/pubs/fs00165/

* Then work for sustainable water use and conservation. See action steps at http://www.pcusa.org/trade/thirst.htm and the Bottled Water Campaign of PRC @ http://www.prcweb.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=resources&fuse=water

God's justice is rooted in our stewardship of the earth. The earth is God's gift to all, and from the bounty of the earth God expects that all will be fed.

Step It Up 2007 - Climate Change Special Edition

Dear Global Eco-Justice Friends,

[Our February-March Issue on LAND is coming in a few weeks, but in the
meantime, here is a great opportunity to educate and compel action on
climate change.]

Climate change may be the most urgent issue facing the world today. We need
to act quickly and decisively to reduce our carbon impacts -- individually
and collectively. We want to make sure you know about an newly-announced
campaign that is mobilizing people in the United States for climate action:
Step It Up 2007.

We strongly encourage our friends to participate in the Step It Up events.
See http://www.stepitup2007.org/

On Saturday, April 14 -- in communities all across the United States --
Step It Up rallies will be held calling on the US Congress to take strong
action to reduce our country's contribution to global warming. At every
rally, the call will be for an 80% reduction of carbon dioxide emissions by
2050.

In the cover story for the February 20 issue of Christian Century, Step It
Up organizer Bill McKibben makes a strong moral case for why churches need
to be actively involved in addressing climate change. (Read Bill McKibben's
article) An editorial in that magazine, and the publisher's opening letter, reaffirm
the call for churches to take part in the Step It Up movement.

In the face of the recent scientific report on the accelerating pace of
climate distortions, the awareness and concern generated by (Oscar-
winning!) An Inconvenient Truth, and the shift in political leadership in
Congress, we are in a Kairos moment when new possibilities are opening for
change. This is the right time for people of faith to join and strengthen
the movement for climate healing.

We encourage you to participate in a Step It Up event in your community! If
you can't find a local rally (search your state on the Step It Up site), go
ahead and plan one.

These rallies across the US on April 14 will be a powerful force in
mobilizing a broad-based grassroots movement. It is important that our
churches be actively involved.

The Presbyterian Hunger Program, Presbyterians for Restoring Creation, the
Presbyterian Peacemaking Program, and the Presbyterian Washington Office
urge you to involve your church community in the Step It Up events, and to
join in this movement to bring healing to God's creation.



Examples of Presbyterian involvement and an update from Oregon!

Jenny Holmes is the Presbyterians for Restoring Creation (PRC) Moderator
and works with Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon on Climate and Food Systems.
She wrote this update on developments in the northwest!

We are encouraging people of faith in our area to focus their energies on
state legislation on renewables and global warming. There are major bills
coming to votes over next three months in Oregon and in other states.

*** And possibly your state, too. You can find information on State
Legislation from Around the Country - at the Pew Center of Global Climate
Change Web site -
www.pewclimate.org/what_s_being_done/in_the_states/state_legislation.cfm

Jenny continues, “As of yesterday, there is now a Western Regional Climate
Action Plan (Oregon, Washington, California, Arizona and New Mexico) that
includes setting regional targets for greenhouse gas reductions and
establishing a cap and trade system that parallels what we want on the
federal level.

“I have been working closely with the Governor's office for several years,
and it is great to see him take the lead in bringing these five states
together. This regional action will very concretely push action at the
national level. We had over 130 people attend the Interfaith Energy and
Climate Stewardship Advocacy Day in Salem, Oregon yesterday. Many were new people who saw An Inconvenient Truth in their church and decided it was
time for them to test the waters of advocacy!

Very inspiring. Sincerely, Jenny Holmes



At last count, there were (GET THIS!) 766 Step It Up 2007 events being
spontaneously organized for April 14 around the country. Among those, in
Atlanta, Alan Jenkins is working with local groups and congregations to
organize an event there, and Hunger Action Enabler and PRC Coordinator
Rebecca Barnes-Davies is helping to organize the San Francisco Theological
Seminary’s involvement in San Anselmo.

So - well, step it on up!

Sincerely,

Andrew Kang Bartlett, Presbyterian Hunger Program
Climate Change and Hunger http://www.pcusa.org/hunger/features/climate.htm

Jenny Holmes, Moderator, Presbyterians for Restoring Creation and Director
of the Interfaith Network for Earth Concerns (INEC) - Global Warming
http://www.emoregon.org/global_warming.php

Rebecca Barnes-Davies, Coordinator, Presbyterians for Restoring Creation

PRC and Energy http://www.prcweb.org/index.cfm?
fuseaction=resources&fuse=energy

Amanda Craft, Presbyterian Peacemaking Program

Leslie Woods, PC(USA) Washington Office

* Special thanks to Eco-Justice Ministries and Peter Sawtell for some
content!

SPECIAL EDITION FOR LENT
from the Presbyterian Hunger Program and Presbyterians for
Restoring Creation

As you continue your Lenten journey, we wanted to make sure you have some resources that help connect this important liturgical season and time of reflection with our common concerns of eco-justice.

We are including two PDF files. The first one is a simple 12-page devotional resource from Presbyterians for Restoring Creation that offers tips of ways to fast/feast in this season and includes reflections particularly for Holy Week. The second one is a 26-page resource from Seeds recommended by the Presbyterian Hunger Program that gives alternative and creative suggestions for the Lenten season.

Blessings on your Lenten season,

Rebecca Barnes-Davies
Coordinator, Presbyterians for Restoring Creation