30: Hope in a God of Order

Uganda

A Climate Pollinator story by Sierra Ross Richer

It’s 6pm in Uganda, and Okoth Simon Onyango is sitting under a banana tree in his home compound in Mukono. “It is still hot,” he said. “It’s too hot and you sweat.” 

March is traditionally the beginning of the rainy season in central Uganda, but this year, there has been no sign of a change in the weather. 

“We have lost the pattern of the climate,” said Simon, a bishop and the national coordinator for Mennonite Church Uganda. “We cannot tell when it’s going to rain, we cannot tell when the drought will end.” 

There are 40 Mennonite churches in Uganda, the majority located in rural subsistence-farming communities. 

“The greater part of the church, that is how they survive,” Simon said. With the weather patterns becoming less predictable, he said, “they’re just waiting upon the rains.”

Ugandans are used to having two rainy seasons a year, one lasting from March to May and the other from September to December. That’s all changing due to climate change. 

“When the drought is too much,” Simon said, “you’re not able to dig even a hole in the ground.” Farmers can no longer rely on traditional knowledge of when to plant their beans, corn, sweet potatoes and other crops.

“When people are surviving on subsistence and when the pattern changes, people are affected and of course (it is) the subject of discussion every other moment,” Simon said. Church members often have conversations about the changing climate, but Simon said they have yet to come up with solutions to the problem. 

As the natural patterns around him seem to unravel, Simon finds hope in the belief that God “is an orderly God.” 

“When God started the work of creation in the book of Genesis,” Simon said, “he separated the waters. There was chaos in the world, there was confusion everywhere, and then he ordered the environment to order.” 

The environment God created included plants, animals, fish, birds, people, water and stars all in their designated places. 

As climate change and environmental destruction and degradation disrupt natural systems and weather patterns, Simon said, “It’s like we are going back to the chaotic world that God did not like.”

God gave order to the environment in Genesis and protected it in the Garden of Eden. Simon believes the church needs to carry on that work of protection. 

“That’s what encourages me,” he said. “It’s like an anchor; I hold onto that.”