A child has his arm measured in Angola. Measuring arm circumferences is part of the nutrition training center’s determination whether a child is malnourished. Photo: Gail Avery
As nations across the globe are becoming more insular and the effectiveness of international health efforts and aid in question, the Episcopal Church of New Hampshire is making a bold yet necessary move to counter this trend. A new committee has been created—the Global Missions Committee (GMC)—whose goal is to support ministries across the world that our congregations have been participating in and working alongside of for decades. These efforts intentionally make visible our sacramental relationships with our global brothers and sisters who are worthy of dignity and respect as well as our attention and care.
We are experiencing in real time the rippling impact when financial support is withdrawn. The gutting of USAID, an agency providing 40 percent of all aid worldwide, has resulted in the collapse of food aid programs in Africa, refugee resettlement, childhood vaccines, PEPFAR (a US government program providing aid to fight HIV/AIDS in developing countries). Lives are on the line; tens of thousands of people are already in the depth of poverty and starvation due to civil unrest and climate change.
“While the work is not new, the newly established Global Missions Committee helps the Episcopal Church of New Hampshire to extend its vision beyond our own tiny borders and see how we are woven in a global vine of prayer, love, and concern,” said Bishop Rob.
For 18-plus years, the Episcopal Church of New Hampshire has supported a partnership with St. Andre’s Anglican church in Ondjiva Angola, a community ravaged by war and drought. The relationship began in 2006 when a men’s group at Church of our Saviour in Milford began praying for the members of St. Andres, resulting in a mission trip to Angola a year and a half later.
“We arrived with some ideas about what we could do, and suggestions from members of our parish about what we should do, but very quickly it became clear that our job, perhaps our only job, was to listen,” says Elizabeth Rotch. “To listen to the people of St. Andre’s, to listen to the Holy Spirit…and to respond. If we went out with the slightest notion that we were somehow carrying a light to Ondjiva, we soon understood we could only hope to hold up a mirror that might reflect the light that already shone so brightly there.”
What started off as transactional (one community giving and the other receiving) was soon transformed. Prayer and friendships were born—a church built, and a community school reopened, as well as a nutrition training center that combats malnutrition due to dramatic food shortages caused by floods and then drought—all this in partnership with St. Andres parish, the Episcopal Church of New Hampshire and the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit remains on the move. Recently the Mother’s Union nutrition training program has expanded to the village of Namacunde, due in part to our ongoing global partnership with MANNA and ALMA, two Angolan initiatives within the Diocese of London.
The Rev. Canon Gail Avery, who chairs the committee overseeing the work in Angola, has been appointed by Bishop Rob to chair the GMC. She sees the church’s involvement in global ministries as reparatory.
The Rev. Mark Pendleton, rector of Christ Church Exeter, with congregants at Iglesia Episcopal San Francisco de Asís in Cardenas, Cuba, in 2023.
“There’s an intersectionality to the reparation work that churches in our diocese are embarking upon,” says Avery. “The first Africans enslaved landed in Jamestown in 1619 were from Angola, and they were strong and healthy. Our current partnership with the Mother’s Union nutrition program is repairing that breach by effectively nourishing and strengthening Angolan families. We have been participating in Restorative Justice with the parish of St. Andres and the new Diocese of Central South Angola from the beginning. We’ve been doing the work, not just talking about doing the work.”
Avery points out that there are lessons to learn from our global partners. In Africa, the Anglican church in Angola led the way in their fight against HIV/AIDS and malaria and was an active participant in Angola’s peace process at the end of their civil war in 2003. Angola shares a long northern border with the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and in recent years has played a valuable mediation role to end the conflict between DRC and Rwanda. Rather than tightening its borders, Angola is doing its part in alleviating the global refugee crisis, including opening its borders to the Congolese. The small country of Angola exemplifies what it means to welcome the stranger, hosting 57,000 displaced refugees, more than half of the United States’ quota.
Our churches are also ministering to global neighbors closer to home. Christ Church in Exeter has a companion relationship with Iglesia Episcopal San Francisco de Asís (St. Francis of Assisi Episcopal Church) in Cardenas, Cuba, and has sent 10 delegations to the island over the last decade. Cuba is a member diocese of The Episcopal Church.
“Though geographically close to the U.S., it is isolated like few other countries in the world due to its unique history of being occupied and influenced by the world’s superpowers,” says Christ Church rector, the Rev. Mark Pendleton. “Today, with the electrical grid near collapse, the people are enduring daily indignities and food shortages. With support from the Episcopal Church in New Hampshire through a Sustainable Development Grant, the church in Guantanamo, not far from the U.S. naval base, received $2,000 to support their hurricane preparedness program as climate change brings more storms through the Caribbean.”
Other global initiatives supported by our churches include St. Vincent’s School in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, a ministry of St. Andrew’s, New London, and the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem, where our efforts bolster its ever-critical work for peace and justice among both Palestinians and Israelis.
“We hear within us Jesus’ call to go to regions beyond us for the sake of the Gospel, mindful that God has much to teach us by those we seek to love,” said Bishop Rob. “The Global Missions Committee will help the whole diocese raise awareness and resources to fulfill commitments and to nourish relationships in the Body of Christ.”
Learn more about the Global Missions Committee and Global Missions Grants here.