During recent decades the relationship between man and nature has taken on a more dramatic character. Our beautiful planet, our only home, has been literally choking on the garbage that people leave behind.
 
In order to understand the causes behind the clogging of the planet, the SMS club held a meeting on May 31 in the Christian Ministry Center. This meeting took the form of a workshop. Each participant received a simple linen bag and had the opportunity to personally decorate it with special paints and stencils. The participants took the decorated bags with them as a reminder of the meeting. As a result there are now a number of bags in use in our city with the slogan "Plastic? No thanks!" This phrase was also the slogan of the activity, and promotes the idea of using bags made of environmentally friendly material, instead of plastic.

As it happens, quite a few young people care about the environment.  There were about 50 participants in the workshop. But let's return to the main question of the meeting: what are the global environmental problems an indication of? Is overproduction to blame? Perhaps there are deeper reasons? People say: "A mess all around you - a mess in your head." The meeting participants concluded that environmental problems are the result of the human ego, which manifests itself in laziness, irresponsibility and short-sightedness. And this is much worse than the trash lying on the streets. This is garbage inside of people. To get rid of it we need to turn to Him, whose blood washes away the selfishness in the human soul.

Of course, we understand that meetings like ours will not solve the global environmental problems (as much as we might wish the contrary). Nevertheless, we very much hope that meetings like ours will make the young people of our city reflect on the true causes of the problems in society and in their personal lives and draw the appropriate conclusion: the need for reconciliation with the Creator.

Yulia Kovaleva
Vladimir Golovashov