Church responds with hope and love

Every other week, our staff team at Little Trinity spends some time in prayer that we take turns leading. A couple of months ago, this time of prayer was focused on how we were feeling about world events. What was our reaction to the rapid-fire changes in U.S. policy? How did we feel about the wars around the world? About the devastation wreaked by the sudden cutting of funding to so many vital aid organizations around the world?

In response to these questions, we found ourselves spending the majority of our time together not in prayer, but in lament and grief. We voiced our pain and anger at the injustices we saw. We raged at the way that unfair policies always seem to hurt the most vulnerable first. It felt good to be able to name it together, to say out loud how hard it was, and how frustrating and painful.

But gradually, as we spent time processing together, the question arose: beyond lament, beyond grief, what does a Christian response to these things look like? How do we respond to world events as followers of Jesus Christ? How do we proclaim the hope that we have? And how do we help the people in our churches do the same?

The result, born out of that staff meeting of lament and grief, was a challenge both to us and to our congregation. Because, as a wise staff member reminded us, as followers of Jesus, we are called to respond the way Christians have always been called to respond: in hope, in prayer, in speaking loving truth to power, in giving, in serving, and in laying down our lives for the other. In remembering that earthly powers are temporary and limited, and that we follow one who showed us a better way.

And so we decided to lean into the positive this past Lent. What were ways that we could respond that weren’t just reacting in fear and frustration? How could we model a different way of being human, one that was not turning inward in self-protection or anger but reaching out in hope and love?

Alongside Hope (formerly PWRDF) works closely alongside many organizations that have been affected by drastic funding cuts over the past few months. One particular place that has seen devastating cuts is the Nyarugusu Refugee Camp in Tanzania, run by Church World Service (CWS) and the Resettlement Support Center (RSC). This refugee camp is a temporary home to more than 180,000 people who have been fleeing from conflict, mostly from the Democratic Republic of Congo. The indefinite suspension of refugee resettlement programs as a result of U.S. policy changes has affected thousands of families who were in advanced stages of refugee resettlement. At least 10 families had already liquidated their assets and were on their way to a new life in the States when they were informed that they would be returned to the camp and forced to start over, including having to re-apply for food and shelter within the camps.

Alongside Hope has, in partnership with CWS, agreed to support these 10 identified families, raising $5,000 for each family as they try to get back on their feet and in the programs in the camp. When we reached out to them to ask some of their current initiatives, we were invited to join in this response – a way to make a difference for a few people on the other side of the world who are most acutely feeling the effects of U.S. policy.

Our youth group had already planned to spend a part of their March Break on a service “trip” at home, sleeping at the church and spending their days visiting local shelters and ministries, hearing about the many ways that people are acting in loving and positive ways for those who live on the margins of society. One aspect of this time was to put together care packages for local shelters and refugee claimant homes. We also set a goal of raising $1,000 towards these efforts.

Knowing how helpful it had been to have space as a staff team to grieve, to voice our anger and pain, and to pray together, we decided to offer our congregation the same outlet. We held a Day of Prayer on April 5, along the theme of the Prayer of St Francis:

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.
O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Different prayer stations were set up throughout the church, offering ways to pray for the most vulnerable people in our society and our world, while also acknowledging the darkness and brokenness within our own hearts. As the Rev. Canon Stephanie Douglas said in her beautiful sermon at the Lift Up Our Hearts service at Trinity, Streetsville, prayer lays the tracks that the power of God can roll down.

All of these different ways to respond are small drops in a very large bucket of need and hurt. But we pray that the God who took five loaves and two small fish can take this small offering of love and transform it into a sign of hope for a hurting world. Lord, have mercy.