October 16 - World Food Day Focus

Dear PAOC Family,

We've just had our own family celebrations around Thanksgiving on October 12th, and we’d again like to encourage Christians across our Fellowship to remember the hungry on World Food Day, October 16th. While we celebrate the abundance of our own harvest, we have an opportunity and an obligation to share of that harvest locally and globally.

This year our World Food Day focus will be Syrian refugees. As we outlined in our communications in September, there are over 3 million people fleeing to safety due to the situation in Syria which is catastrophic and cannot be solved quickly or easily.

There are three areas where the PAOC is coming alongside Syrian refugees: resettlement assistance in countries bordering Syria, emergency relief for those still in transit and church sponsorship of refugee families here in Canada. ERDO, as the humanitarian agency of the PAOC, is responding to the urgent food needs of 3,000 Syrian refugees awaiting their next steps in temporary camps in Eastern Turkey.

This is our time, as a Fellowship, to reach these families – with emergency food. Winter is approaching, and locally grown food sources are diminishing so feeding families will be even more critical in the months to come.

If your church has already supported the work of ERDO through an offering that will provide food, we thank you. Please consider making a special offering to help ERDO provide emergency food packets to refugees who are struggling to feed their families.

Let’s remember the words of Jesus in Matthew 25:40: "Truly, I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me."

David Wells
General Superintendent

David Adcock
Chief Executive Officer, ERDO

For more information on ERDOs food response, and to donate:
www.erdo.ca/crisis-response-syria

For more information on the PAOC’s three part response:
https://paoc.org/family/general-superintendent/desk-of-david-wells/call-to-prayer---syrian-refugee-crisis