News

Blooming One Year Later - Renewal & Transformation for LIFE!

Earth Day 2014 was a time for us once again to join in the cleanup of our environment (see picture at end) and for a look at an important first anniversary for our Church. A year ago each of our Congregations in Cayman was given a small native Whitewood tree to plant (while our Congregations in Jamaica were planting their local cedars) as a symbol of our commitment to the launch of the Theme for the new Synodical period. This had a two-fold emphasis, as the theme, “Renewal & Transformation for LIFE”, referred to life in the general (though “abundant”) sense, as well as standing for Liberty, Integrity, Faith, Environmental stewardship. Therefore the tree was an icon of both the glory of “life” and our focus on caring stewardship of the environment, in which trees play a critical role. (The Whitewood trees were donated to the Church by Mr. Gary Chisholm of Cayman Native Plants in North Side.) At our John Gray Memorial Church, the tree has done well in its first year, thanks in no small part to the faithful stewardship of Member Mrs. Patriann Smith, who ensures it is always watered and cared for. It even bloomed for Easter! And has jumped a couple of feet in the last few months – and the main growing season has not yet arrived! (See article below about other blooming at John Gray Memorial!) See photo of one of its flowers at start of article and another below showing its growth!
As usual, a team of John Gray Memorial members also headed out in the community for the annual Earth Day roadside/beachside cleanup. In prior years we have tried to separate glass and/or aluminium whenever it was currently possible to recycle either or both of those (as the facility to do so was somewhat inconsistent in the past). Thankfully, this year we were able to separate both of those plus a number of plastics from the other garbage slated for the landfill. We later took the bags of recyclables to the Camana Bay collection facility and sorted them into the respective glass, aluminium and plastic containers. We did not photograph one of the team in a flurry of enthusiasm hauling empty plastic bottles out of one household’s roadside garbage container, to save them from unnecessarily cluttering the landfill! Caymanians are not used to seeing ‘strange women’ digging through their garbage containers! So hopefully that sight was a good reminder for those who are not yet taking advantage of the current recycling collection facilities available to us on Grand Cayman. For almost half of the bags of ‘garbage’ we picked up along the roadsides were recyclable materials – and that seems about the same ratio by which a typical household can reduce its weekly garbage by separating just those items that can now be easily recycled here, with drop-off points at the supermarkets or Camana Bay. There are even commercial services that will collect recyclables from you. So it is really worthwhile – and very easy - for everyone to ‘get with it’ in this respect (and other items can be dropped off for recycling at the Landfill or other types of metals in addition to aluminium can be taken to those commercial places that collect, even purchase, all metal for recycling). So let’s see what we can all do to stop trashing God’s beautiful creation.

Posted by: Administrator Tuesday Apr 29, 2014 15:14
Categories: Cayman Islands, John Gray | Tags: Environment, John Gray, new life, Renewal & Transformation, trees