Weekly Meanderings, 2 February 2019

I’m heading home today from a two wonderful days of ministry in Las Vegas at Lake Mead Christian Academy, and with my friends Paul and Caren Trainor.

A tree a day makes a wasteland go away:

This man has been planting a tree every day since he was just 16 years old. Now, almost 40 years later, he has grown a forest that is larger than New York City’s Central Park.

Jadav Payeng is the Indian man who has nurtured 1,360 acres of forest on what was once a barren landscape devastated by erosion.

A father of three, he lives on Majuli, the world’s largest river island. As a teenager, he was mortified after witnessing hundreds of animals dying from drought amid the dwindling greenery on the island, so he resolved to plant one sapling every day.

He started with simple botanical powerhouses, such as bamboo and cottonwood. After almost four decades of growth, his forest is now inhabited by hundreds of elephants, Bengal tigers, rhinos, boars, deer, reptiles, and birds. Payeng says that he has lost count of how many trees he has planted – but he believes there are now hundreds of thousands of trees providing shade and shelter to the wildlife.

Emoto-Gator:

YORK HAVEN, Pa. (AP) — A Pennsylvania man says his emotional support alligator helps him deal with his depression.

Joie Henney, 65, said his registered emotional support animal named Wally likes to snuggle and give hugs, despite being a 5-foot-long alligator. The York Haven man said he received approval from his doctor to use Wally as his emotional support animal after not wanting to go on medication for depression, he told Philly.com .

“I had Wally, and when I came home and was around him, it was all OK,” he said. “My doctor knew about Wally and figured it works, so why not?”

Wally was rescued from outside Orlando at 14 months old and is still growing; Henney said Wally could be 16 feet long one day. Henney says Wally eats chicken wings and shares an indoor plastic pond with a smaller rescue alligator named Scrappy.

Wally, who turns 4 this year, is a big teddy bear, in Henney’s words. The cold-blooded reptile likes to rest his snout on Henney’s, and “he likes to give hugs,” he said.

The alligator has never bitten anyone and is even afraid of cats, according to Henney.

Henney acknowledged that Wally is still a dangerous wild animal and could probably tear his arm off, but says he’s never been afraid of him.