| The 10 th Annual Caribbean Conference on Sustainable Tourism Development, which took place in the Turks and Caicos Islands between April 28 and May 1, opened up tremendous awareness on the rapid and careless way in which the planet was being the depleted, and as a result, the organizers saw it critical to seek God's forgiveness.
The man who was charged to give that intercessory prayer was no other than the hard-hitting, no holds bar preacher Derek Hamilton, President of the Turks and Caicos Islands Baptist Union and pastor of the Bethany Baptist Church .
During his prayer, Pastor Hamilton, while pleading with God to pardon us of our folly as it relates to the depletion of the environment, ruffled a great deal of feathers by slamming those who endeavour to ignore the threats of the world's fragile eco systems in the name of development.
He noted that there was a great deal of hypocrisy regarding the talk of sustainability, since some leaders, in certain fora, support the idea of the need to protect the environment, while on the other hand, turning a blind eye to the environmentally-hostile development to which they ostensibly gave the green light.
“We lament and we repent of our inofficiousness and neglect. We repent of our hypocrisy of much talk concerning sustainability, while in effect, we commit ecological genocide. It is our prayer today that we be forgiven. So grant us, now Lord, your forgiveness, and may your mighty power abide with us here, as we seek to evaluate the past, assess the present, and plan for the future,” Reverend Hamilton said.
The President of the local Baptist Union, implored the Lord to inspire the delegates with an even more environmentally-friendly point-of-view, one which he hoped would be commissioned in gear as soon as the various delegates depart for their respective homelands, so as to reverse or slow the rapid pace at which the environment was being depleted.
“May at the conclusion of this tenth annual conference each participant be adequately challenged to make a meaningful and positive impact on his or her homeland and the world,” Rev. Hamilton said. |
