December 2018 a Gift of Food PWRDF Revives Food Aid Project in South Sudan After $100,000 Donation

A GLICAN JOURNAL Since 1875 vol. 144 no. 10 december 2018 A gift of food PWRDF revives food aid project in South Sudan after $100,000 donation Joelle Kidd STAFF WRITER A $100,000 donation from a Canadian Anglican philanthropist has enabled the Primate’s World Relief and Development Fund (PWRDF), the Anglican Church of Canada’s relief and development agency, to restart a food distribution project in South Sudan, a country facing severe hunger. PHOTO: CONTRIBUTED Richard Bird, a retired Enbridge executive who worships at St. Peter’s If I do Anglican Church in Calgary, Alta., something made the donation last March through “ the Ptarmigan Foundation, a charitable through the DGLIMAGES/SHUTTERSTOCK organization he runs with his family. Primate’s Because the donation was made to Fund, then the PWRDF’s equity with the Canadian money’s going Foodgrains Bank, the funds will also New life for the Christmas spirit to go to the receive a four-to-one match by the Anglicans share ideas for bringing Jesus back to the season. See pages 6-7. right place. Canadian government. Bird requested the funds go toward —Richard Bird restarting a food assistance program PWRDF had overseen in South Sudan Germond made metropolitan of Ontario in late 2017; and in September 2018, the Tali Folkins she said. “I really want us to think agency began a new series of eight food STAFF WRITER about that, and what that looks distributions, which will continue to April 2019. The program will see cereal, beans, Almost two years to the day after like as a province, because Christ lentils, vegetable oil and salt given to being elected bishop of the dio- is our unity and I think that alone families in need. cese of Algoma, Anne Germond will draw us closer together as a PWRDF does not often receive has been installed as metropoli- p e op l e .” donations this large, aside from bequests, tan of the ecclesiastical province She also, she said, hoped to communications co-ordinator Janice Biehn of Ontario. celebrate and encourage the min- said. Germond, who was elected istries being undertaken by the PHOTO: CONTRIBUTED Bird said he had already been indirectly on the first ballot at a provincial dioceses and congregations in the Archbishop Anne Germond involved in providing aid to South Sudan synod in Ottawa October 10, was province that are “changing lives through a number of organizations. He installed as metropolitan—senior Germond succeeds Archbish- in our communities”—work with has supported a Canadian NGO that ran bishop of the province—at Otta- op Colin Johnson, who is also refugees and homeless people, for wa’s Christ Church Cathedral the bishop of Toronto and Moosonee. example. an agricultural assistance program in the evening of the following day. Johnson announced this Sep- “The church is no longer just country, as well as Amnesty International As metropolitan, Germond is tember his intention to retire as a building, it’s no longer just a and a school in Kenya attended by many the third woman in the Anglican bishop at the end of 2018, and to machine for baptism and wed- South Sudanese refugees. “I’ve been Communion to have the title step down as metropolitan at the dings and funerals, but it’s really hearing from them how terrible the “archbishop,” and the second provincial synod. becoming a place where lives are situation is there,” he said. in Canada after Archbishop Germond said her first prior- transformed,” she said. The new country, which gained its Melissa Skelton, who was made ity would be to call the people of Germond was elected bishop independence from Sudan in 2011, has metropolitan of the ecclesiastical the ecclesiastical province to pon- of the diocese of Algoma Oct. 14, been embroiled in an ongoing civil war province of British Columbia and der their identity as children of 2016. since 2013. Armed factions that had Yukon last May. She will serve as God, and the centrality of Christ The ecclesiastical province previously fought together against Sudan’s president of the province’s synod in the church. of Ontario covers most of the central government are now fighting and its House of Bishops, chair of “We’re not a people who territory of the political province against each other and indiscriminately its provincial council and bishop gather around the archbishop, or plus part of western Quebec. It killing civilians. of the diocese of Moosonee, while who gather around a priest—we includes the dioceses of Algoma, “It is verging on a genocide,” Bird said. remaining bishop of the diocese gather around Christ, and we Huron, Moosonee, Niagara, On- A September 2018 study by researchers of Algoma. gather around Christ’s gospel,” tario, Ottawa and Toronto. g at the London School of Hygiene and See South Sudan, p. 11 Please support the Anglican Journal Appeal A ‘living wreath’ for Advent 4 5 8 $ A reader’s PM# 40069670 Christmas memory Church giving in the digital age 2 anglican journal • december 2018 CANADA4 N.B. joint mission reaches out to dads, kids “We’ve found that a lot of the problems Project second in world socially here have to do with absent fathers, and fathers kind of fall between the cracks under Anglican-Roman often in different programs,” he says. “So Catholic agreement we just wanted to give them a simple way of getting together and having time to really Tali Folkins learn to play with their children…Hopefully the fathers will connect with one another, STAFF WRITER and maybe will develop friendships as well, A play program for fathers and their young and have more of a network of support.” children launched in Saint John, N.B., Research compiled by psychologists this fall is the second project in the world Charlie Lewis and Michael Lamb shows to have started under an international relationships between the parenting styles of Anglican-Roman Catholic partnership for fathers to the IQ performance and language mission. development of their children, and the level “Dads & Tots,” which began as a pilot of involvement of fathers in their children’s project October 13, will see a small group of lives to their likelihood of having a criminal fathers gather to play with their kids, aged record by age 21. 3-5, Saturday mornings under the guidance There’s a need among many underprivi- of two parenting mentors. The goals of the leged fathers to learn better how to interact program are to help fathers—especially, Edwards, bishop of the Anglican diocese of with their children partly because often 5 Fathers but not necessarily, single ones—from 5 Studies Fredericton (which covers the entire civil they themselves never experienced healthy are relatively some of the poorest areas of the city build have linked the province of New Brunswick) and Robert interaction with a father when they were underserved their parenting skills, says the Rev. John parenting styles children, Westin says. Harris, Roman Catholic bishop of Saint by existing Paul Westin, rector of St. John’s Anglican of fathers to the For some, he says, “Just knowing how to John, liked the idea. A joint committee support services, Church (also known as the Stone Church), IQ performance play with children is kind of a foreign con- of the two dioceses eventually settled on says the Rev. where the sessions will initially be held. It’s and language cept because mostly [they] as children were working with fathers and children from the also hoped the program will assist them in just stuck in front of a TV or some kind of John Paul development of Waterloo Village and South End, two espe- Westin, rector making connections with other dads, he their children. a game…They don’t really know how to says. cially impoverished areas of Saint John. connect because they’ve never been taught of St. John’s PHOTO: CALEB The project has its origins in a 2016 sum- According to a 2017 report by the Hu- that,” he says. Anglican Church, JONES/UNSPLASH.COM mit organized by the International Anglican man Development Council, an organization As of press time, the pilot project was Saint John, N.B. and Roman Catholic Commission for Unity concerned with social issues in the city, slated to last six weeks, after which organiz- PHOTO: BRADEN and Mission (IARCCUM), a group formed 45% of the children in Saint John’s Ward ers were planning to run four series of Dads COLLUM/UNSPLASH.COM 3—which contains the South End—live in in 2001 to foster mission work between the & Tots in 2019, starting in January. Anglican Communion and the Roman Cath- poverty, compared to the national average Sessions are fairly unstructured, Westin olic church. At the 2016 meeting, Archbishop of 17%. Half of all New Brunswick’s children says: participants arrive and are invited to of Canterbury Justin Welby and Pope Francis in single-parent families live in poverty, make use of toys and reading material. Then commissioned 19 pairs of Anglican and compared to one-tenth of children in fami- they all make a light lunch together. The Roman Catholic bishops from around the lies headed by couples. program is free, and participants may take world to undertake collaborative projects for On Oct. 1, 2018, Edwards and Harris part in more than one six-week series if they helping people on the margins of society. The signed a memorandum of understanding, wish. Present at the sessions, in addition to first such project, a scholarship program for officially launching the project, which has the two mentors, will be committee member needy students in Malawi, was launched in also been endorsed by the Anglican and Leslie Allan, a specialist in early childhood September 2017.

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