Repurposing Retired Tires

It's not every day you find an indigenous African project that is dedicated to cleaning up the environment. But that's just what I found today here in Guinea-Bissau, West Africa. Walking across the compound of the church center where I'll be giving a leadership workshop tomorrow, I ran into Iolanda and her youth group project. She has inspired her teenage kids to repaint old tires and, with the help of three metal posts, turn them into recycling receptacles. She showed me how the tires, stacked in the colorful symbol of the national flag, can then support a large plastic bag that can then collect spent water bottles, pop cans, etc. "We've already gotten permission from the city authorities to place them around Bissau," she explained. "And they were so enthusiastic that the regular city trash collectors have agreed to empty them out on a regular basis." Sure enough, on the way to lunch, I spotted several of the eye-catching containers even on the prominent city round-point in front of the main government house.

Trash-free streets is not one of Africa's assets, especially in really poor and developing countries like Guinea-Bissau. Old habits of throwing a banana peel on the ground were fine when most folks lived

in the forest. But today in towns and crowded cities, that has translated into people freely tossing their bottles, cans, and plastic bags anywhere. Piles of trash have become one of Africa's greatest social plights, in some places becoming breeding grounds for disease.

That's why I have been making environmental care one of the key topics the past couple years in my workshops on being a Faithful Steward. It's challenging enough for many African friends to think about applying stewardship theology to their ministries and marriages, but stewardship of the environment is often a concept they have never considered at all. Until now, I haven't have any good illustrations in an African context of what that sort of stewardship could look like. Thanks to Iolanda and her "juventude evangelica" of Guinea-Bissau, I can start showing what can happen when a little creativity connects with a passion to care for the Creation God has given us!