Mobilizing the Global Alliance Family to Help Those Most in Need During the Pandemic

As Alliance family, we are grateful to the Lord for your participation in the AWF Global Response to COVID-19. We were able to assist more than 170,000 brothers and sisters among Alliance churches around the world.

Only two months after the pandemic started, the Alliance World Fellowship, along with CAMA Services (C&MA United States) and Justice and Compassion (C&MA Canada), began working together to mobilize a global response to COVID-19. By praying together, they felt the responsibility to seek a quick and effective way to meet the needs of the most vulnerable communities served by the Alliance churches around the world.

Compassion ministry is central to the Christian and Missionary Alliance movement. CAMA Services (USA), Justice and Compassion (Canada), CAMA Zending (Netherlands), and Hong Kong Alliance Mission have been on the frontline of this ministry. As the Alliance movement has grown, we have been seeking the engagement of more national churches to multiply our resources and extend our reach.

To offer a unified response, AWF invited the national church presidents and directors of the Relief and Development departments to meet online in May 2020. Nearly 100 representatives from 38 national Alliance churches participated in the meetings. The objective was to collect information about the needs of the most vulnerable communities served by the Alliance worldwide and discuss responses that are fast and well-targeted.

“We cannot help everyone, but we can help those who have nothing,” said the president of an African Alliance church. This summed up our leaders’ understanding that the challenge before us was beyond our ability, but that God would provide the necessary provision for his people.

Our prayer was that the information that would be received would help strengthen the hands of those in the field in a meaningful and productive way to sow seeds of God’s love among the needy. The COVID-19 pandemic has provided the church with a great opportunity to express God’s care and compassion for all people. Jesus taught us to care for the physical, emotional and spiritual needs of our neighbors, as illustrated in the parable of the Good Samaritan.

The global Alliance family has reached out to share God’s love and mercy with thousands of communities in more than 50 countries since the beginning of the pandemic. Local churches have distributed food, masks, soaps and medicines, and have raised awareness about proper hygiene habits and the use of protective measures.

“By doing this we will be avoiding hunger, weakness, and vulnerability to disease, and even people from committing suicide,” said Bikash Adhikari from Nepal. “Families will receive money for rent so they do not run out of physical space during this time of pandemic. Marginalized families, including the ones with disabilities, would get enough food.”

The leader of a ministry in the northeastern part of India told us that “After approaching three months since the national shutdown began, we were more aware that many local communities were without food. Most of the people were unemployed and living from day to day. With no income, they were quickly running out of supplies. The need was so great that we wanted to provide essential food kits with rice, wheat flour, lentils, and oil to 600 more families in communities with which we are associated, and 150 families of children who are under our sports training program.”

Through generous donations from our Alliance family, we were able to allocate $110,900 USD in aid in Phase One of the AWF Global Response to COVID-19 to meet the immediate needs of congregations and communities. Since January 2021, Phase Two of the AWF Global Response to COVID-19 program has been implemented in 16 countries through development projects aimed at restoring what the pandemic has devastated.

“Our vision is to see congregations and their communities be restored and thrive once again. We desire to see food security restored, people able to produce food, return to work, and children to continue their education,” says AWF President Jura Yanagihara.

We thank God for our global Alliance family that has allowed us to reach out to the needy at the right time.

If you want to read the complete report of Phase One of the Global Response to COVID-19, click here.