With certainty in what God called us to do, we began our work. In those first years, we spent much of our time providing education about creation care to a variety of groups, and demonstrating what it looked like in reality. Our work included environmental education in schools, sermons in churches, workshops, conferences, and gatherings focused on listening to concerns.

We gave practical demonstrations on restoring bare land by planting trees, grasses, vegetables and flowers, creating sack gardens, and Farming God’s Way among other activities. We took part in conservation advocacy. We fought for the protection of wetlands. We taught practical community conservation including how to make biosand water filters, briquettes and fireless cookers to reduce charcoal usage.

We helped people plant kitchen gardens and organized rubbish cleanups of land and water. We showed people how to recycle plastic and educated them about the importance of doing so. We organized environmental mission experiences and trained communities and churches in creation care principles.

Working in different places and with different people, we continued to learn more about caring for God’s earth and the growing sense of community that develops when we work together.
From time to time, we also fielded hilarious questions like:

‘What should I do about the huge python on my land? Can you come and take care of it?’ Another asked if we could help them manage monkeys that indulged in their neighbour’s fruit trees. ‘I smiled when I imagined our small team, made up mostly of young people, wrangling pythons or chasing monkeys. I responded to both people that we would call the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) on their behalf,’ Dr. Sara Kaweesa recalls.

The work of A Rocha Uganda has been growing steadily and currently spans 35 districts spread throughout all the four major regions in Uganda. Based on a biblical response to our calling to care for creation, our work is targeted at vulnerable communities and individuals while at the same time grounded in good scientific research.