From Inherited Faith To Living Hope

2 February 2026

Sylvia Muia

February, 2026

From Inherited Faith To Living Hope

Rediscovering faith and wonder through creation.

A reflection on moving from inherited belief to lived faith—finding resilience, purpose, and hope through Christ, and rediscovering creation not as a source of anxiety, but as a place of wonder, presence, and renewed trust in God.

For a long time, being a Christian was more of an identity chosen for me by default, having been born into a Christian family. You start with Sunday school, learn Bible songs, graduate to teens’ church and eventually reach adulthood. It is then, I think, that the real question pops up: Why am I a Christian?

For me, it all came back to how my relationship with Christ held me through some of the toughest parts of life – unemployment, brokenness, heartbreak and illness. Through it all, He was there. Even in the darkest moments, there was joy, as Psalm 16:11 (NIV) says:
‘You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.’

Living in a secular world made this connection deeply relevant and kept me sane practically, but it became much deeper once I began working with A Rocha. It felt like I had been walking through life zoomed in, only seeing what was right in front of me. I cared about the environment, but I had never fully regarded it as God’s creation – never fully zoomed out to recognize the hand of the Creator in every boulder and lake, each curved into its unique shape.

When I worked as an environmental journalist, attending meetings and reading scientific reports, my mind was constantly crippled with anxiety, wondering what we would do once the climate clock ran out. It was a never-ending cycle of bad news. Most of the time, I would look at nature and immediately pick out what was going wrong, becoming a very negative environmentalist.

Nature is calming and beautiful, and it has always been one of the places where I felt closer to God – but my anger blinded me from appreciating it fully.

“Nature... has always been one of the places where I felt closer to God - but my anger blinded me from appreciating it fully.”

I recently finished my first year at A Rocha, and I am happy to say that this worry no longer looms over my head. One of the greatest lessons I learned early on was that we cannot care for the world without involving the Creator. Being reminded that the world is God’s, and everything in it, helped lift a burden that had been crushing me. What a relief!

I also have the privilege of being part of the first cohort of the A Rocha Conservation Certificate, alongside amazing people from all over the world – those actively caring for creation and others simply curious about it. One of the theology-based modules explored how God is not only the Creator of the world, but also deeply present within it. In pre-colonial times, many Indigenous communities in Africa and Latin America respected nature and its elements so deeply because of how they reflected God.

Our first encounter with God is through creation, as Romans 1:20 reminds us:
‘For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.’

One of my favourite parts of the Conservation Certificate is the weekly awe and wonder time, where people share both the glorious and wondrous, and the destructive and terrifying parts of creation they experience, whether in New Zealand or Hong Kong or elsewhere. In all of it, we are drawn back to look up to the Creator in reverence and worship, continually amazed by the wonders he orchestrates.

Sylvia Muia

Based in the bustling Nairobi city, Sylvia connects A Rocha to the world through creative writing and social media posts. Sylvia is a trained journalist and has a degree in Corporate Communications and Management. Sometimes, she can be spotted knitting, painting or baking cottage pies if she is not catching up on her favourite show.

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How Do You Protect A Forest?

1 September 2025

Anna Radkovic

September, 2025

How Do You Protect A Forest?

Faith, Conservation And Conflict In Kenya’s Forests

In Kenya’s Dakatcha Woodlands, protecting biodiversity is far more complex than drawing boundaries around nature. This reflection explores the realities of conservation amid climate change, land insecurity, poverty and human conflict, asking what it means to care for both people and creation in a fragile landscape. Through the challenges facing A Rocha Kenya, it considers how faith, justice and environmental stewardship can coexist in an increasingly pressured world.

How do you protect a forest?

That’s the question A Rocha Kenya is wrestling with in the Dakatcha Woodlands on the coast of Kenya. That’s the question facing the world as our planet undergoes a global biodiversity crisis with over one million species at risk of extinction.[1]

How do you create resilient landscape where biodiversity and people can thrive together?

In Australia, it was relatively straightforward. I worked for a few years with Cassinia Environmental; as long as we had enough money, we could buy land with good quality habitat, change the legal status of the land to conservation and, with a bit of weeding, that would be that. That land was now protected in perpetuity for conservation. Provided there were no natural disasters or anarchy we could pretty much set and forget. We could trust the legal systems and government structures and community attitudes to property ownership to protect the biodiversity of that property.

No so in Kenya, it’s an altogether different story! Protecting land in Kenya is complicated. A Rocha Kenya has been purchasing land to create a nature reserve since 2014. However, the government has not yet issued land titles for any of the property we have purchased. We can only buy the right to own the land – an agreement witnessed by a lawyer – not the land itself. A risky business. The alternative is doing nothing so we take the risk. More challenging, we’re not buying from one land owner in one clean deal, but from hundreds of landowners with complicated family dynamics and disagreements about who owns the land. After hours and days and weeks of conversations with cousins and brothers and village chiefs we finally locate the official owner of the land. They might own 100 acres but only want to sell 10 acres at a time to manage their finances. Instead of one deal to secure the 100 acres, we need to strike 10 deals. This increases the time and human resources needed, increases the risk of land degradation before we can complete the purchase and increases the price for every portion of land. Sometimes, when a price has been agreed on for the land but before the process is finalised, a cousin or nephew of the landowner will hear about the deal and cut down all the large old trees to sell for timber or charcoal for a bit of extra cash, undermining our original intent for purchasing the land.

"Protecting our forest is complicated."

Finally, A Rocha Kenya owns the rights to the land, the community recognizes the land ownership and we can begin managing the property for conservation. The complications continue. In a cash-poor economy, a forest is a big temptation for any young lad with a chainsaw and a motorbike to earn a bit of extra money. We have had to employ a team of 12 to regularly patrol our land for illegal activities. Every day they spread out across our Reserve, preventing poachers from helping themselves to our resources. We even have to protect our grass. In Kenya, livestock are grazed across the landscape. The world is their oyster. Anywhere there’s a spare bit of grass, you’ll find a goat or cow chomping away. These guys don’t even know what fences are. For the local community, we don’t mind them grazing in our reserve. We’ve got good relationships with most people and the herds are only 5-15 head of livestock. Low impact grazing is not a problem and we’re happy to share our reserve with the local community – as landowners we are now part of the community, after all.

However, word has got out that Dakatcha grass is good. From 2020, thousands of livestock started moving into our Reserve. Sheep, goats, cows and camels bulldoze through the landscape, demolishing community crops and protected biodiversity alike. Dozens of herders from the north now bring their livestock every year to graze in this green space we have preserved. Climate change means that the north of Kenya is growing drier every year so the herders and their livestock hit the road in search of food. Increased privatization of land, a growing population and no national land use strategy means that there aren’t that many spaces left for the herders to go. Their traditional way of life is becoming increasingly difficult. Conflicts with other communities kept them moving in search of feed for their herds. And now they’re in our home. We have tried to meet with them, talk with them, explain to them they’re trespassing but they don’t want to listen. They don’t want to go. The community are frustrated, and the situation is becoming increasingly tense and violent. Last week we recruited 32 police officers to remove 16 different groups of herders and thousands of livestock from our Reserve. Where will they go? We don’t know, but the consensus is that they can’t stay here.

“How can we be people of peace and love and generosity?"

Protecting our forest is complicated.

It is not easy to steward this land we’ve been entrusted with. It’s a messy patchwork of threatened trees and endangered animals and vulnerable people. What does it look like for A Rocha to protect this forest? As conservationists, yes, but primarily as Christians who care for nature and for people. How do we love our neighbour when our neighbour comes with thousands of hungry livestock? How do we defend the cause of the local community and the threatened trees AND the herders – all of whom are at risk and fighting for survival but whose interests seem at odds with one another. How can we be people of peace and love and generosity? How can God’s kingdom come in Dakatcha, on earth as it is in Heaven? How can we protect our Reserve and offer it as a blessing to others? What does it look like for the risen saviour Jesus to be Lord of Dakatcha? What does it look like for us to be His people in this place.

Pray for us as we protect our forest. We protect it for the Sokoke Scops owl to have a safe home. We protect it for the community to have a landscape with healthy ecosystem services. We protect it for the African coast to keep its original, God created habitat. We protect it for the world to have natural spaces that reflect the glory of God. We protect it to worship Christ, who made it, sustains it and redeems it. From hungry cattle to no formal land protection and increased desertification from climate change, the micro to macro challenges feel weighty and far beyond our control. Pray that we would trust all the challenges of every size into God’s able hands and do our bit as His people to protect His forest.

Anna Radkovic

Anna works with A Rocha Kenya to make Christ known by caring for his creation. She helps the leadership to support and empower the staff. She is also continuing to learn Swahili and some Giriama.

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An axe laid to the roots: Invasive plant removal in the Stenis Tract

21 June 2025

Noah Guthrie

June, 2025

An axe laid to the roots: Invasive plant removal in the Stenis Tract

Restoring native woodland through faith-led conservation.

Three A Rocha USA interns work to restore a Texas woodland by removing invasive species such as glossy privet that threaten native biodiversity. Through hands-on conservation, they wrestle with the tension between loving all creation and the necessity of ecological intervention. Grounded in faith, the work seeks restoration of the Stenis Tract into a thriving, diverse ecosystem where native plants and wildlife can flourish once again.

Beside the coiling waters of Bull Creek, three A Rocha USA interns waded through thorns, waging war against the Glossy Privet. As we heaved our shoulders through viper-green barbs, we brandished our weapons: a red flip-saw for hacking, a hawkbill knife for slitting trunks and a weed-wrench for dragging saplings headfirst from the soil.

All three of us were tree-huggers. What could have possibly compelled us to destroy these poor, ill-fated privets in the Southern US? They’re doing what God made them to do – namely, being fruitful and multiplying by their many seeds (Genesis 1:12). But they’re doing it in the wrong place.

The privets were growing in the Stenis Tract of Austin, Texas, a narrow wedge of land between Bull Creek and Spicewood Springs Road. About 57 acres, this area is a mix of open meadow and subtly sloped woodland, with myriad plants weaving through the soil: Spanish Oak, Ashe Juniper and Yaupon Holly, Cedar Sage and Bluebonnets, as well as the Live Oak – burly and mystic, arms undulating like kraken tentacles. By day, hikers and cyclists speed down the path and by night, stags nose their way between the trunks.

And then there are the invaders. King Ranch Bluestem bristles like blanched porcupine quills, Nandina flares its jade and scarlet starbursts, and canopies of privet leaves – perfectly shaped, perfectly polished, perfectly green – blot the sun, smothering the understory. As beautiful as they are, these exotic ornamentals rapidly out-compete local plant-life, lowering the overall health and diversity of the ecosystem.

"What could have possibly compelled us to destroy these poor, ill-fated privets in the Southern US?"

Since 2021, A Rocha USA has gone to great pains to remove these plants from the Stenis Tract – focusing on the privet, since it’s especially prevalent. We’ve joined forces with the Bull Creek Foundation to host more than 15 volunteer work days, employing over 500 volunteer hours to remove over 7,500 invasive plants. Our removal methods include weeding, weed-wrenching and girdling, the latter of which starves a tree over time by removing a ring of phloem tissue from its trunk, cutting off its circulation of nutrients.

In some ways, this systematic destruction of a species is especially hard for us as people of faith. God deems all the plants of Creation ‘good’ (Gen. 1:12), the Psalmist affirms God’s loving provision for trees (Ps. 104:16), and Jesus identifies even ‘the grass of the field’ as recipients of God’s lavish and varicoloured love (Matt. 6:28-30). To girdle a privet, in other words, is to strangle a member of God’s beloved Creation. Yet, girdling is meant to support the healing of the Stenis Tract ecosystem, and the Bible offers a framework for understanding that, too. While Genesis 1 and 2 affirm the innate value of each member of the biotic community, other scriptures affirm the need to uproot certain individuals for the sake of communal flourishing.

Depending on how we interpret Old Testament law, Exodus 21:28 and Deuteronomy 17:2-7 seem to allow for destructive creatures (an ox in one case; a human in the other) to be stoned for the greater good of the Israelite community. This principle also arises in the New Testament, when John the Baptist warns the Pharisees – who oppress the socially vulnerable in Israel – that ‘the axe is laid to the roots of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire’ (Matt. 3:10).

If God allows for certain people to be ‘chopped down’, then maybe we can justify doing it to invasive plants as well, as long as we do it with a two-fold love. First, love for the biotic community as a whole, refusing to allow invasives to impede the flourishing of their neighbours.

"If we’re forced to destroy, let it be from a desire for restoration."

Second, love for the invasives themselves, finding ways to honour them even as we’re forced to destroy them. After all, Jesus taught us to love our enemies. This tension between love and extirpation emerges among other members of the global A Rocha family, too. A Rocha Kenya, having noted the over 40,000 invasive crows distributed across the Watamu and Malindi areas in 2024, has used great quantities of avicide to try to thin them out, striving to protect local birds from the crows’ harassment and killings

Meanwhile, A Rocha Aotearoa New Zealand has removed over 14,000 invasive predators from around Mount Karioi, killing off ferrets, opossums, stoats and feral cats for the sake of native Ōi chicks. When we kill certain species, it can be hard to sustain our empathy for them. It’s easy enough to love the native and hate the invasive. What’s harder for us, as Christians, is learning to love both, even when forced to drive one of them out.

In the U.S., our Texas team has explored small ways of honouring the Stenis Tract’s invasive plants. Aside from verbally acknowledging their beauty, we’ve also fashioned laser-engraved ornaments from chopped privet wood, affirming the value of the privet’s life while also shaping it into fresh beauty. Meanwhile, we already see signs of a healthier, more diverse Stenis Tract being born. Sunlight washes through the bones of the privet canopy, painting the forest floor with native green sprouts. Across the meadows, which were once stifled by clots of King Ranch Bluestem, breezes of Bluebonnets revive the soil.

If we’re forced to destroy, let it be from a desire for restoration. If we’re forced to kill, let it be from a desire for rebirth. This is our hope for the Stenis Tract, a little resurrection garden spreading one patch of soil at a time.

If you want to support A Rocha USA’s invasive plant removal, feel free to donate to our Texas Conservation Project!

Noah Guthrie

Noah supports A Rocha USA’s Churches of Restoration programme in Nashville, coordinating church creation care activities and communications. He brings experience in eco-theology, writing, and habitat restoration to inspire church-led environmental action.

Posts tagged: Creation care