A sermon from Su McLeod, Director of supporter relations, Alongside Hope (formerly the Canadian Anglican Primate’s World Relief and Development Fund) on Sunday June 1, 2025 at St. John the Divine Anglican Church, Victoria BC
[Ken Gray] OUR UNPLANNED VISIT to my childhood church, St. John’s Iin Victoria brought to life so many fond memories of ministry and mission initiatives over many years. A serendipitous pleasure was listening to Su McLeod who in her new role with Alongside Hope well summarized the activity and focus of one of the Canadian Church’s greatest mission agencies.
[Su McLeod]
GOOD MORNING, IT IS AN ABSOLUTE JOY to be back with you this morning, to not only see so many familiar faces but many new faces too.
There is a sense of coming home for me so thank you for the welcome and the opportunity to share with you this morning a small insight into the work of Alongside Hope – formally PWRDF.
For the past 7 years my ministry has focused on the engagement of youth in the ministry and work of Alongside Hope. Looking at the partner model that is well established, local organizations and community initiatives identify an area that needs to be addressed and the best solution to that. Then through funding we receive from individuals, congregations, foundations and the federal government we are able to support the work that brings about transformation and change.
In the Gospel today we hear Jesus’ prayer for unity, “that all of them may be one. Father just as you are in me and I am in you” this isn’t a passive sentimental unity but one grounded in shared purpose and divine love.
- I have had the opportunity to see what this looks like here on these lands through the partnerships and relationships that we have with Indigenous communities. In Nuu-chah-nulth supporting language programs and a youth economic program supporting young entrepreneurs
- Supporting the repatriation of artifacts from the Smithsonian to the Debert Cultural Centre, in Nova Scotia.
- And water projects such those in Pikangikum and Kingfisher Lake, and an initiative I am involved in, supporting Indigenous youth in Mental Wellness, just to name a few examples.
I am so thankful to be able to see how change is happening and how we (and you) are responding to the TRC calls to action through these partnerships.
The joy of connection and common goal spreads throughout the work of Alongside Hope working with organizations dedicated to supporting communities and strengthening cultural identity and resilience. And we see Jesus’ prayer being fulfilled.
This past February I had the privilege of seeing that resilience and that prayer in action as I joined 2 Youth Council Members, 4 Diocesan Representatives, 1 Board member and 3 other staff on a 12-day delegation to Kenya to visit with Alongside Hope partners.
In Marsabit northern Kenya, near the Ethiopian border, we met a community gathered under a tree. Their leader called out: “God is good!” And they replied with enthusiasm and joy: “All the time!”
This community faces long, frequent droughts, the drought season is now happening more often and lasting longer. We crossed four dry riverbeds to reach the community. They survive on one meal a day and just 20 liters of water for three days, for all of an individual household’s needs. The well the water is drawn from is shared with animals. Not only is contamination a factor but also the inevitability that the elephants will come in the evening to get their fill of water and in doing so they destroy the well and the community must rebuild it each time.
Through partnership and community empowerment, Kitchen gardens grow. Chickens thrive. And a community bank has been established.
Women, once sidelined, now hold leadership roles. Men, who once dismissed the initiative to raise chickens, now recognize their power to feed families, and transform the community. With money from the community bank children can go to school, hospital bills can be paid, and businesses emerge. And instances of intirmate partner violence have decreased dramatically.
During the drought season the community members used to rely upon food assistance and government response. Alongside Hopes partner Church World Service – CWS is not working in the communities as an emergency response but for the long game, working with community members to identify and build on their resources. A community member put it this way:
“The food you offered gave us hope, but the training that we receive means we grow hope.”
We are not giving aid but dignity, and by that we are receiving faith. This is the embodiment of Jesus Prayer: joy, resilience, and transformation.
In the Diocese of Machakos, we met a young man, Justice, who, like many in his generation, had followed the well-worn path from rural life to the city in pursuit of education. He studied IT at college, but when no jobs were available, he returned home, not in defeat, but with a new vision.
With his friends, he began to dream of a different kind of future, one rooted in the land, in climate justice, and in hope. Together, they educated themselves on climate-smart agriculture, and began experimenting on the family farm with tomatoes, mangoes, and Pixie oranges, these are trees known not only for their fruit but for their capacity to draw carbon from the atmosphere.
Through a micro-loan from Anglican Development Services Eastern, ADSE, they invested in an egg incubator and began raising non-brooding hens. When we visited, the incubator was running at about a third of its capacity—but they had only been at it for six months. What we witnessed was not just the start of a farming project, but the birth of a sustainable, youth-led response to both unemployment and the climate crisis. It was a powerful reminder; transformation can begin with return.
In the town of Machakos the Utooni Development Organization, UDO, water project aims at increasing access to adequate and clean water for communities in the Arid and Semi-arid Lands of Machakos and Kajiado Counties through the construction of sand dams, water tanks, and shallow wells equipped with hand pumps or solar-powered pumps. Combined with climate smart agriculture. It is a whole community endeavor to build a sand dam and a well, in addition neighboring communities will also participate in these projects.
Sand Dams work by building a dam across a river that will gradually over the seasons when the rains come fill the river with Sand. This might sound counter intuitive, but the benefits are far reaching and ensure both health and environmental benefits and sustainability:
- Families report being able to wash more frequently, remaining cleaner and thus reducing the frequency of illness
- Production of healthier foods through organic farming
- Having a wider variety of nutritional foods to harvest and eat
- Sand dams decrease the number of waterborne illnesses such as Schistosomiasis (bilharzia) as the water is protected beneath the sand from snails, mosquitoes, and other disease-carrying organisms.
Environmentally the sand dams
- Store underground water to create or replenish the aquifer
- Raise the water table in the surrounding areas
- Renew natural vegetation including Indigenous trees and riparian plants
- Protect riverbanks from caving in, reducing erosion
- Reduce water evaporation
- Reduce the speed of the water flowing downstream
The community could sell the water that is pumped at the wells but as John Nyhokoy who spoke on behalf of the Community put it “the water belongs to all of us, it flows through each community” And as we heard in the Epistle today “All are welcome at the well” this means neighboring communities without a well are able to access the well for water too. The wells are built next to the sand dams along with Mango trees and crops to support the community.
As with so many communities, organizations and projects around the world these partners have been hit by reduced support or removal of funding in international development, we were in Kenya just on the back of the immediate cut of USAID, and the impact of that was immediate, and ongoing. Alongside Hope partners impacted by these reductions and removals of support are
- Church World Service in Tanzania,
- VHW in Burundi,
- National Council of Churches in Kenya,
- EHALE in Mozambique,
- Panzi Foundation Democratic Republic of the Congo and
- Rayjon Share Care in Haiti.
All of these partners are responding to a variety of needs including refugee resettlement, food distribution, life-saving anti-retroviral medications for children, youth mentorship programming and support for school fees, maternal health services and access to health care for young mothers, programs for woman to recover dignity from gender-based violence and access medical services and referrals for more services.
Alongside Hope is responding to the emerging needs of these organizations and communities with the establishment of the Resilience Fund. A generous donor is matching donations made by June 30th to the Resilience Fund up to $250,000.
Currently we have been able to Support partners in
- Tanzania CWS supportingRefugees who had been accepted by and preparing for a new life in the US, and due to the cessation of support and funding have been left stranded as refugees.
- Burundi VHW are sourcing and procuring locally produced food for Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food packages to help prevent and treat childhood malnutrition.
We remain hopeful that the response to supporting the Resilience Fund will be strong enough to allow us to support and stand with even more of our partners who are feeling the impacts of the global reductions in support and funding.
Now more than ever, our commitment to partnership and relationship matters. What was once vital has become urgent. In the face of deep uncertainty, growing pressure, and the devastating consequences of these cuts, we are called to deepen our support, stand in solidarity, and continue building a future rooted in resilience—together. It is hearing the words of one of the people who we have been able to support through the Resilience Fund “I am here because someone cared” Know that you are making a world of difference.
This love that Jesus speaks of is not an abstract love, it is a love that looks like shared meals, community partnerships, prayers offered in multiple languages, it is lives changed through compassion. This prayer is being answered today, in Kenya, Tanzania, DRC, Burundi, on these lands and around the world. We ask for your continued prayer, and participation in realizing this unity both through your support of Alongside Hope and here at home, in this community.
Amen!
A audio recording of this sermon is available here
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