Back in the UK

It has been good to be back home in the UK, even though I had to scrape the ice off the car the first morning back. Have been enjoying being back with family and friends. The hope is to head back to Kenya in late April or May and I will update the blog when I know more about that trip.

Privilege

This morning I decided to take my coffee down to the beach and drink it with my feet in the water. Seabirds were flying across the view of the sun rising over Watamu Marine Park.I thought "What a privilege to be here and to sense that this is where God wants me to be and to get a glimpse of the possibilities." It is a small place, but in this place I can do something to take care of something that God cares about. These habitats and species have value because they are ultimately God's. How I feel about them or what they can do for me doesn't matter. They have intrinsic value because of who their Creator is, the same Creator that made me. And yet, the amazing thing is that it does have huge value for people. Not only the tourists that "like" that nature stuff, but the boat operators that earn a living taking them out to the reef and to see the dolphins. The people on the beach taking them to see the eels in the shallow holes near the shore. And as I learned in a recent symposium at the London Zoological Society on biodiversity conservation and poverty alleviation, marine parks are one of the few conservation measures that have been proven scientifically to benefit both biodiversity and the poor. The abundance of the park overflows into the surrounding area raising catch rates and providing baby fish that float into other areas to repopulate overfished places. And, as if it couldn't get better, the primary beneficiaries of the overflow of the park (the fishermen) and the boat workers are Muslim. So A Rocha, a Christian conservation organisation, is working to protect habitats to glorify God and whose primary human beneficiaries are Muslim. In this day and age, with all the conflict, this is a real area of hope that Christians are trying to bless Muslims.

There is still a long way to go, but I am looking forward to the next few years investing in this place where God has dropped me and we'll see what He has in store for this little corner of His creation.

Some more underwater pictures

Damage to coral, possibly from snorkelers
Note: all underwater photos taken by Benjamin Cowburn

a traditional fishing boat

Damage from a boat running into the coral head

measuring damage to the reefs - that's me :)

look for the scorpion fish in the coral head

Diving

Just returned from a great couple dives. Hard to believe it has been almost six years since my last dive. That was in Minicoy, Lakshadweep. So much has happened since then. Today went to a place within the park called Turtle Reef - didn't see any turtles on that dive, but did the next one. We are trying to map the biodiversity within the park and so I was keeping track of all the fish I saw. Eventually we will move on to all the other groups as well such as corals, snails and most excitingly worms. Second dive was very interesting. We went out into the area where fishing was allowed and seemed to me there was a noticeable lack of fish, but that is very subjective. Having said that, I saw a few favourite old friends like the coral grouper that I hadn't seen in a long time. Loads of soft coral.

Well, next dive probably in Miami in February.

Bushbaby!

Today was mostly sitting at my laptop writing. I have some problems with my screen that you can see below. Bit of a pain with about 2 inches of the screen on one edge missing and then just last week another 2 inches right in the middle has gone missing. About an inch near the other side is also about to go as it is a strange colour.Silly me. Just did a print screen and tried to paste the way my screen looks into the blog. But of course, the computer doesn't know the screen is wonky! So the image looked just fine.

Went for a swim about 5pm and watched the sun set from the water. Must be getting a bit acclimatised as the 80+ degree water seemed a bit cold at the end of the day.

After dinner we heard a strange sound. Henry said "Bushbaby." And we ran to get our torches (flashlights for the American readers) and went to find him. Henry spotted the eyes which reflect light. Then we got a descent look at that strange creature. Very cool, the first one I have seen, I think and only 30 metres from our dining room here at the centre.

Tomorrow we head to a city about an hour away for a meeting with Kenya Wildlife Service.

Guests

It has been an amazing week for guests. On Wednesday there was an unexpected visit from an old science friend who is also an eminent international scientists who is one of the world experts on the coral reefs here in Kenya. I've known him since my time in Maldives and read all his papers. So it was great to be in the water together.

Then in the course of sussing out a new couple who were here, I realized that we had lots of interaction together in England, but never met. I recently submitted a small book for publication on a Christian response to marine conservation and he was on the committee that approved it for publication. He is a Christian Ethics professor at Cambridge and so we had loads of great conversations and we are hoping to work together on a paper next year looking at an ocean and ethics related issue that we can submit to a theological journal.

Then I showed up at lunch yesterday and one of my A Rocha UK colleagues was standing in the queue for lunch! She had decided just a few weeks ago to come to Kenya and neither of us knew the other were here. We have done fun projects before like doing a moth trapping event at the church and then organising the church service the next morning using the verse about "where moth and rust destroy - where your treasure is there will your heart be also." We used the moths in the service and played bat calls. Fantastic to relate the scripture to God's creation. So we went out snorkeling.

Well off to a meeting and wondering who will show up next.

Community living

It has been good and at times challenging to live in a community of people from all walks of life and from many different cultures. We share the same general living space, eat together, pray together, and last night, released a recovered sea turtle together. While difficult at times, I do notice the difference in accountability. When you live your life in your own house with no one really to see what you are doing, it can be easy to think that what you do doesn't really matter since no one will see you. But when you have all these people around it does make you much more aware of how your actions affect other people. I like that about our village in England. I know that when the kids go out, people know them and watch out for them and that I will hear if they are doing something they shouldn't. I like it that people know me and especially as someone involved publicly with the church, that they are watching. Not that I want to do all these bad things, but just that it is much easier to live in the way I want to when I do that in community. I feel a much greater sense of responsibility. Of course, it should be enough that God is watching, so to speak. But sometimes that is too nebulous a concept. I think that is why God wants us to share our lives with others and why community is a gift.