Anglican Communion News Service - Digest News

The World Food Programme and the Anglican Church worldwide deal with the needs - the primary needs-of millions of people everyday. And in this, as in so many areas, what we need is better and better resource partnership with the organisation. Here in Africa it is impossible to think of developments goals being achieved without partnership with those organisations on the ground which are best equipped to deliver locally. So here particularly in Sudan, with the churches, we look for further development of the partnerships that we've already seen. During this visit in Sudan and particularly in southern Sudan, we've seen some of this partnership at work, we've seen this morning 700 children who are fed daily in an Anglican school here in Malakal, with the co-operation of the World Food Programme, and this is the pattern which we need to work by.

Ash Wednesday in the Christian world, is a day when we ought to be thinking about what we need and what we don't need. A day where we ought to be thinking about how we clear space for the work of God to happen in and around us. Today is the day when I guess for me and for many Christians, the scenes we witnessed this morning will be particularly poignant, and particularly important, setting an agenda not only for Lent, the season that's coming for Christians, but for years ahead, the pressingly absolute urgency of relief work. At the moment the resources of the WFP to deliver at this level are stretched and slender. People here feel that relief is coming slowly, but although peace has been declared, the peace dividends are not here yet. Donor nations, donor groups and institutions, the western world as a whole, they all need to think with the utmost urgency, what is needed here, and how we could deliver it as speedily and as effectively as possible.

In feeding people here, we're not just talking about emergency work, about damage limitation, but the WFP are talking about a whole holistic approach which will allow education, health care, and general self confidence, the ability to take control of one's life and develop it fast, is a spiritual as well as physical matter.  This holistic approach must be the priority for the churches and for all western wealthy communities.

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