DEVOTION
What moves above the waters Fresh water challenges of the Pacific By Nikotemo Sopepa, Council for World Mission
Nikotemo Sopepa, an ordained minister of the Ekalesia Kelisiano Tuvalu. Married with two children, he is currently the Mission Secretary of the Council for World Mission (CWM) in the Pacific region. In the following reflection he compares the life affirming spirit of God that was hovering on the waters in the beginning of the creation story with today’s “death dealing” spirit of commercialisation of water over the waters of the Pacific region which is worsening its fresh water availability. 2
"1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters." Genesis 1: 2 (NIV)
Above the waters in the Pacific, bulldozers are moving in rapid paces clearing forest for new developments. There are ripples above the waters too, caused by continuous noises from chainsaws debauching the beauty of rainforests. Usually, hopes for life moves above the water lenses in small island atolls of the Pacific, now salt water seeps in from beneath, while from above it’s a flood of salt water flooding these freshwater lenses due to sea level rise.
a looming danger of access to fresh drinking water.
Two years ago, we watched in disbelief and sorrow as king tides flooded the island of Tamana in Kiribati, sinking all the wells beneath the swell of waves contaminating drinking water. The excessive and illegal loggings in Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands create dry barren lands. The rarity of rainfall in most northern Pacific atolls due to climatic disorder has created few states of emergencies. What is moving above the waters in Definitely the current of the waters in the Pacific the Pacific is death. There is no affirmation of life have changed, and some are finding it difficult to that can guarantee safe drinking water for Pacific find even a pint of water to drink. I know, surrounded people in the future. by waters of the Pacific ocean, many Pacific Islanders do not think that we have a freshwater The pattern described above is almost the reversal crisis, apart from those in low lying atolls. But it of the Genesis creation narrative where the Spirit of won’t be long before the waterfall and rivers give up God as life affirming guarantor moves over the on the rapid pace in which development is waters in the midst of darkness, chaos and accelerating in the Pacific. And with the nothingness. The movement of the Spirit of God commercialising and privatisation of water, there is Waves crash against the wall at the end of Nauru International Airprot's runway. Rising sea levels pose a serious risk coastal erosion for small Pacific island countries. Image by Matt Robertson / DFAT.
02 INSiGHT OCTOBER 2021
