Activity
10 minutes
If you could only eat one thing for the rest of your life what would it be? Share answers. Ask: who said porridge? (Hopefully no one!) Invite people to come taste the porridge you’ve prepared. Say: today we will learn about a young girl called Yasmin who would be relieved to know she had porridge to eat every day for the rest of her life. Yasmin lives in Chad, Africa. She is six and living through a disaster: the disaster of hunger.
Climate Change
5 minutes
Spend a few minutes asking the group what they know about Climate Change. Here are some thoughts:
• Climate Change is one of the major challenges of our time: it is harming the Earth on a global and unprecedented scale.
• It is harming the poor and vulnerable the most.
• It disrupts the natural balance of the Earth and seasons come at the wrong time.
• There are more disasters being reported around the world than there were 30 years ago.
• Human activities contribute to Climate Change; the top three that we can do something about are transport, food and energy.
The changing climate is affecting poor communities who are reliant on predictable weather for crops to flourish. If there are floods or prolonged dry spells, crops are ruined and the impact is devastating.
Film Clip
5 minutes
Watch Yasmin’s story here. Ask: what stands out to you? How does it make you feel? What do you think God says about Yasmin’s situation?
Bible
10 minutes
Ask: Would Jesus use a young person to stop hunger? Yes! Read John 6:1–15 and say: in this story, an unlikely young boy, gave what he had and swapped his lunch for an adventure that we still talk about 2,000 years later. The hungry people in the passage are not representative of people living in poverty like Yasmin, but perhaps there are some similarities between us and the boy in the story who offered what he had. He saw a need and had a decision to make: to keep his lunch for himself, to take his best mates to a quiet corner and just share it with them, or to offer up his food knowing there it wasn’t enough to feed everyone and run the risk of looking foolish for having such a small solution to a large problem.
Reflection
10 minutes
Discuss how the boy may have felt and take a moment to consider what your group might have done. Say: it is easy for us to think what we have in our hands is too miniscule to solve a problem, especially when we are talking about something as big as Climate Change, disasters and hunger. But that’s not how Jesus sees us. Scripture is full of unlikely people doing God-prompted things: Esther, a young woman who was brave enough to risk herself to save her nation. Ruth, a widow whose faithfulness to her mother-in-law resulted in her being a direct ancestor of Jesus. Samuel, a child whom God entrusted to relay a message to his mentor. David, a shepherd boy who defeats Goliath.
Jesus chooses to use us, our ordinary selves, for his mission. God partners with people to see his kingdom come. He doesn’t wave a magic wand or have a special trick to make the world a better place. As 2 Corinthians 4 says, God chooses to work through his Church and his children. Even when self-doubt creeps in and we don’t feel like we are good enough, Christian enough or smart enough for God to choose to work through us, he still does because we are his Plan A! God believes in us, more than we believe in ourselves.
Activity
5 minutes
Hand out paper and pens and ask them to draw around their hands. Invite people to close their eyes and ask: what do you love doing? What do people say you are good at? What resources are available to you? Write these things inside the hands.
Response
5 minutes
Say: Understanding that we live in a broken and damaged world can be difficult to comprehend. Sometimes we don’t need to look far to see how much of a mess the world is but sometimes disasters like Yasmin’s can feel so far away they almost don’t seem real. The best place to start is to pray. Ask God to help us see the world as he sees it and to see ourselves as he sees us. God invites us into his mission to see a world restored and believes in us so much that he thinks we can be his hands and feet and love those who are hungry, vulnerable, afraid or alone.
We can make thoughtful lifestyle choices, we can be generous by giving money or fundraising and we can pray – we worship a God who never leaves anyone to walk alone, so we can pray for Yasmin and her family.
Application
10 minutes
Discuss the paper hands. Ask what you could do as a group, using individuals’ passions and skills to respond to the issues of Climate Change and the disaster of hunger? Here are some suggestions – for more details visit here.
Renewable energy: Speak to your school about choosing a green energy supplier. Or meet with the church leadership team to suggest ‘The big church switch’ to a green energy provider.
Lifestyle actions: Refer to the other sessions in this edition for ideas on waste, recycling and fashion.
Fundraise: If the group enjoy cooking or baking, join Tearfund’s ‘Big bake’ to raise money for people like Yasmin.
Food: Producing meat for our meals is resource intensive and is having a negative impact on the environment. Why not buy meat produced locally, or reduce the amount of meat you eat?
Get political: Write to your MP and tell them you care about climate change because you love your global neighbours who are going hungry because of a changing climate that they didn’t cause. Ask them to keep the promises they made at the Paris Agreement.
Prayer
5 minutes
Spend some time praying for people like Yasmin and her family and the effects of climate change. Pray about the actions people are going to do, encourage one another about the love they are demonstrating for their global neighbours.
Kiera Phyo leads Tearfund’s youth and emerging generation team.
