The deconsecration service for Trinity Church in Springfield was held yesterday June 28, 2020. It was a breezy, sunny day and Bishop David Edwards gave a lovely service to the 50 people in attendance. Trinity was consecrated in 1826 by Bishop of Nova Scotia, John Ingliss. It predates the Diocese of Fredericton. Over the last 194 years many families have made memories in this church and it is a very special building to these families and the community. We had a handful of speakers yesterday who provided their personal memories of the church or memories from their families which included Sunday school, Christmas services, weddings, baptisms, and funerals. There were multiple mentions of the flies and the beautiful view of the church as you drive towards it down the hill on Route 124.

Even without having grown up in this church I have special memories of many events from our family over the past 17 years, even after it was deemed a Chapel of Ease. My brother-in-law and sister-in-law were married in 2006, my mother-in-laws funeral service in 2007, my sister-in-law was baptized in 2008, my oldest nephew was baptized in 2011, my niece and oldest son were baptized in 2014 and my other nephew was baptized in 2015. My husband and his family could add so many more before my time and hearing their stories I am glad I can picture where these events for them happened.

Please feel free to add your own memories in the comments. Thank you for the memories Trinity!

One of the organizations The Primate’s World Relief and Development Fund works through is the Canadian Foodgrains Bank. PWRDF, alongside 15 other church agencies, is a member of the Foodgrains Bank. This relationship allows PWRDF to have access to government funding for responses to global food and nutrition emergencies.

The Foodgrains Bank was created as a pilot project of the Mennonite Central Committee in 1976 to allow Canadian farmers to share their harvests with those less fortunate than themselves around the world. The project was opened in 1983 to include multiple church agencies and was then re-established as “The Canadian Foodgrains Bank”. Today the organization fights hunger in over 40 countries and it’s member’s represent 30 denominations and more than 70,000 congregations.

When famine was declared in South Sudan in February 2017, PWRDF allocated $25,000 of the funds in its Foodgrains Bank equity towards famine relief. Combined with $83,750 from ADRA Canada and a 4:1 match from Global Affairs Canada, $320,000 was used towards famine relief work.

Because of PWRDF’s working relationship with the Foodgrains Bank, it has led to numerous instances of government matching in our funding towards emergency relief and global aid and development projects.

The relationship is furthered by our similar goals in public education and advocacy. The Foodgrains Bank has a wide variety of resources available to the public, offers learning events, and policy expertise on global food security.

If you’re interested in learning more about its members’ work or accessing some of the Foodgrain Bank’s resources, I would encourage you to check them out at foodgrainsbank.ca.

PWRDF is currently working to deepen its longstanding relationship with the Canadian Foodgrains Bank as both organizations recognize the importance and effectiveness to “A Christian response to Global Hunger” (Foodgrains Bank, 2017).

Food Security

Agricultural education initiatives in the face of climate change

One in nine people in the world goes to bed hungry each day.

Most of those people are in developing countries and they are small holder farmers. The effects of climate change are acutely felt in many of these communities where people cannot farm the land and feed their families in the way they have for centuries. PWRDF programs examine environmental impact, and work to promote adaptation and mitigation of climate change.

A number of PWRDF partners engage in a wide variety of agricultural training to increase the quantity and quality of food produced in ways that do no harm to the environment, taking into account the changes in the environment that have already occurred such as reduced rainfall and deforestation.

PWRDF-funded projects include training, mentorship and extension advice in raising awareness on the short- and long-term consequences of using pesticides, herbicides, synthetic fertilizers, growth hormones, genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and heavy farm machinery. Harmful agricultural practices are second only to fossil fuels as the main drivers for climate change.

Care is taken to ensure our projects use agricultural inputs that do not harm the land but also improve the land by regenerating water and nutrient cycles, maximize photosynthesis and increase biodiversity in gardens and cropping areas. Use of cover crops, mulch, compost and contour ridges draw rain into the soil without runoff and allow it to spread slowly through the soil profile by osmosis and gravity for use by plants and recharge of groundwater.

Eco-friendly strategies include:

• Use of grasses, plants, bushes or trees, vegetation remains to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and to sequester carbon both above and below ground.
• Use of green manures, compost, livestock integration and bio-fertilizers to contribute to soil fertility, which is so important for larger yields of nutritious food crops.
• Use of agro-forestry and planting of crops in guilds and stories to maximize photosynthesis for greater biomass and food production in projects.

To read more about our food security and climate change mitigation programs, please click on the country below:

• Tanzania
• Burundi
• Bangladesh
• Cuba (Episcopal Church of Cuba)
• Cuba (Cuban Council of Churches)
• Sri Lanka
• Uganda

The PWRDF Difference

Preventive Health

Food Security

Empowering Women

Indigenous Programs

Humanitarian Response

Supporting Refugees

Education

2018 Development Program

It all started when I was visiting my brother, Jim and his wife Lisa in their home a couple of weeks before Christmas. We were talking about Christmas gifts and how hard it is to buy for our adult children. I suggested the PWRDF World of Gifts as a way to help vulnerable people and honour our adult children. So we looked at the various selections and pricing. There is something that will make a difference in someone’s life in every price range. We looked all the wonderful things that we could purchase and eventually, we reached a point where we just could not decide what to buy.

Then we saw this page and Jim said Let’s buy The Whole Farm” !   I was worried about the prices and we talked about it for awhile. It is such a good buy, we pay $470 but with the monetary matches, we would be getting a $3, 290 farm. I love a bargain but I also have limited funds and so did Jim and Lisa. That’s when we had the best idea ever. Instead of us purchasing the farm for our children, we decided to have our children pay for the farm! We really like that idea and decided that was the way to go. (Story continues following the picture below)

Ok , we will ask the family to donate to the farm to help a village in Africa. We were pleasantly surprised when the family responded generously to to idea. Soon I had quite a little nest of money for the farm, but our family is not very big, and it looked like we may have bitten off more than we could chew. However, we were having fun with the farm that we named the Mott/Walling Family Farm. Jim’s daughter even named the animals so it became like a real farm to her.

I am the Parish of Central Kings PWRDF Representative (also the Diocesan of Fredericton Representative), and as such I decided to share with the parishes of Central Kings and Upham our idea of buying the farm. I didn’t expect the response I got, but several people immediately and generously donated money to the Mott/Walling Farm project. That was enough to put us over the top! Now we can buy the farm for real.

The next decision was who will we honour with the purchase. We made donors out of all the family and that was blessings for them. Now we were looking to bless someone else. A family meeting came up with the idea of dedicating the farm to our priests in Central Kings and Upham: Rev. Rob Marsh and Rev. Brenda Fowler. They are so supportive of PWRDF, and it was their two parishes that donated the money to complete the project. The whole family loved that idea.

That’s the story about the Mott/Walling family farm. Both our family and our church family are very pleased to have dedicated the farm to Rev. Rob and Rev. Brenda in appreciation for their support to PWRDF.

Who will benefit from this gift to PWRDF? We have indicated that we want the gift to benefit the All Mothers and Children Count program (https://pwrdf.org/amcc/) . Follow the link for more information.

What is the meaning of poinsettias? Also known as the Christmas Star and Christmas Flower, it’s said that poinsettias’ association with Christmas comes from a Mexican legend. The story goes that a child, with no means for a grander gift, gathered humble weeds from the side of the road to place at the church alter on Christmas Eve. As the congregation witnessed a Christmas miracle, the weeds turned into brilliant red and green flowers.

Named after Joel Roberts Poinsett, first United States ambassador to Mexico and the amateur botanist who introduced the plant to the U.S. in 1825, the poinsettia is also known as Mexican Flame Leaf, Winter Rose, Noche Buena and, in Turkey, Atakurk’s Flower, because it was the favorite flower of Atakurk, the founder of modern Turkey.

While considered by the ancient Aztecs to be symbols of purity, in today’s language of flowers, red, white or pink poinsettias, the December birth flower, symbolize good cheer and success and are said to bring wishes of mirth and celebration.

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