Years ago, I got a close-up look at what happens when a religious institution uses government aid money to achieve its mission. At the time, I was on a trip to Africa with Catholic Relief Services, for whom I worked in U.S. advocacy. We visited an Ethiopian community that had a long history of relying on global food aid when weather-related disasters caused famine. Devastating rains in the hilly region would cause erosion and mudslides, leaving land unfit for agriculture. Tribal communities with little else to support them economically relied on herding animals and collecting and selling firewood, which further denuded the eroded hillsides. Clean water was hard to come by, affected by either flood or drought.
That was the case until a project funded by USAID equipped the residents to terrace the hillsides around their communities to catch fertile soil and keep it from washing away. This gave them fertile spaces in which to grow crops for their herds. A large well with a pumping station created the means to grow crops for consumption and sale, alleviating the need to fetch water by hand from distant sources. People from the many communities in the area learned how to work together to manage and repair the equipment, how to grow crops for both sustenance and sale, how to keep their people safe from insect-borne diseases, and how to ensure all children had access to education.
Training, support, materials, and technical expertise came from partners coordinated by Catholic Relief Services. The physical labor, especially carving terraces on the hillsides by hand, came from the people who lived in the area. And when the project was finished, and the money was spent, the communities had an entirely new food and water system that allowed them to be self-sufficient, avoid food insecurity in future droughts, and rise out of poverty. They also had a set of skills that they didn’t have before and the means to work together to ensure that their land was used efficiently and well. It also meant that this community didn’t need to rely on U.S. funds or other support from global donors in the future.
I’ve always loved this story because it so well illustrated to me how these programs work and the ongoing stability they bring. In the scheme of things, it doesn’t cost very much. While the U.S. government is the single largest donor to global relief and development, it spends only 1.2 percent of its budget on that investment.
A good deal of that money goes to faith-based organizations such as World Vision, Samaritan’s Purse, and CRS, which, according to a recent Time Magazine article, administered the most USAID funding at $476 million in 2024.
When it comes to the separation of church and state, the First Amendment of our Constitution prevents Congress from establishing a state religion or limiting people’s free exercise of their faith. Many think the phrase means that religious institutions and local, state, or federal governments have nothing to do with one another. But religious groups have significant involvement in efforts that are sponsored or funded by the state.
This is especially true in serving the needs of marginalized people. Churches and religious institutions have significant involvement in government programs that serve vulnerable people, both locally and globally. This includes people who are in poverty or who are marginalized by their race, sex, or religious identity; those who are leaving prison; those threatened by violence, abuse, or displacement; and those who are experiencing food insecurity or disaster. In the Episcopal Church, we find this mandate in our Baptismal Covenant, where we vow to “seek and serve Christ in all persons and love our neighbor as ourselves” and to “strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the human dignity of every human being.” These sentiments are not limited to our church, of course; they tend to be reflected in some form in just about every religious organization that receives government funds to serve vulnerable people.
And there are thousands of them.
The administration’s recent decision to cut 90 percent of USAID funding is already having devastating effects upon the world’s most vulnerable people. It is a violation of the human dignity that we, as people of faith, are called to uphold and of the global humanitarian work that we have all been long committed to. Organizations such as CRS, which was founded more than 70 years ago to assist World War II refugees, will cease to exist. Episcopal organizations have been affected as well.
And threats of other federal funding freezes are having devastating effects on local programs such as St. Peter’s local partner, Family Promise, which provides food and shelter to at-risk people in Monroe County. Episcopal Community Services could also be affected.
At St. Peter’s, we have long been committed to developing relationships of support and solidarity with our siblings both nearby and overseas, especially in our partner dioceses in Guatemala. We have also stated our commitments in the past to UN initiatives like the Millennium Development Goals that made significant impacts on global health and wellness by 2015. So we know the power of faith-based relief and development work, even on our own very small scale.
As we consider the impacts of the decisions that are coming out of Washington at this time, it’s important to look at them through the lens of our Baptismal Covenant and our call to use our country’s vast resources to help people both at home and overseas. At our best moments, these have been American values as well. We have a responsibility as people of faith to foster civil society that is built on values of human dignity. This is where church does meet state, and where our faith must speak directly to power.
Learn more about how to support the restoration of foreign assistance funds on the Episcopal Church’s Office of Government Relations webpage.
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