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	<img alt="" src="{filedir_5}Student-Writers-copy-300pxl.jpg" style="width: 250px; height: 188px; float: right;" /><em>Au Sable is pleased to publish the following article written by guest writers to the blog: Adeito Masika Tahirana, Annie Mboligihe, Baraka Kambale Alex, Patrick Masomeko Mikajo, and Nadine Kavira Vitya (see photo on right), students from the &#39;Creation Care and the Common Good&#39; course at&nbsp;Universit&eacute; Chr&eacute;tienne Bilingue du Congo (UCBC) in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). These students have engaged in a service-learning project to share the pressing creation care issues facing the DRC with other Christians around the world.&nbsp;</em></p>
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	In the Democratic Republic of Congo, a great number of the population is rural and live depending on forests. People are exploiting trees for selling timber, making charcoal, woods, etc. The exploiting of the forest has negatively impacted the environment in many different ways. These impacts tells us that our environment is not saved.</p>
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	The climate also is no longer the same. In Beni, which is one of three cities of North-Kivu, we have been touched by climate change. People can see nowadays the disruption of seasons. During the last ten years in Beni, people are no longer able to identify exactly in which months we have the dry season or rainy season. It is confused. In former times, from January to March and from August to September was the dry season and people were used to that. But nowadays we see disruption in this. We have rain during this period and sometimes drought appears in other months like in April, May or October. Because of these things, some Congolese have decided to struggle against this global warming. People must be involved, for nowadays in Beni, we are not saved from environmental exploitation.&nbsp;</p>
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	<img alt="" src="{filedir_5}UCBC-Academic-Dean-Honore-Kwany-prepares-for-planting-300pxl.jpg" style="width: 200px; height: 133px; float: right;" />On Wednesday, June 19th, 2013, there were special activities of planting trees at the campus of the Christian Bilingual University of Congo/Chr&eacute;tienne Bilingue du Congo (UCBC) (See photo of the College&#39;s Dean, Honor&eacute; Kwany, on right)). Students planted trees at UCBC and downtown. The main purpose of those activities of planting trees was not only an act of pleasure, but also to show how a small group of people can initiate actions that can benefit all the community. People in town showed their appreciation for what we were doing when planting. Some of them asked questions about how they can also be involved to take care about the environment.</p>
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	<img alt="" src="{filedir_5}Broadcasters-at-RTB-300pxl.jpg" style="width: 200px; height: 150px; float: right;" />Apart from this activity, there were other activities that were initiated in the course, &#39;Creation Care and Common Good.&#39; Students were divided in different groups and each one had a theme to develop or to explore. One of the groups had a broadcast on the university&rsquo;s radio station, Radio Tele Bilingue (RTB) (see photo on right). &nbsp;They explained the importance of trees and the negative impact of plastic bags on the environment. The other group had a meeting with the grounds crew of the UCBC&rsquo;s campus so that they can explain to them how they can analyze and protect the water and how and where they can burn weeds. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>
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	We understood how much the environment is important to our welfare, and that we are all responsible to take care about it. The actions and activities that were made will not end there but will continue and each person in our community will feel obliged to consider nature as his own and take care about it as was the purpose of God from the beginning.</p>
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	<em>UCBC is a new Christian university in Beni, North Kivu, that seeks to address issues in eastern Congo through higher education. Courses focus on integrating classroom instruction with service and practical experience in the community. This assignment provides students with the opportunity to use their English to record recent creation care events in the hopes of sharing the story with an outside audience. You can learn more about UCBC through their website (www.ucbc.org).&nbsp;</em></p>
