While many of us are starting to breathe a deep sigh of relief as we and our communities begin to recover from a year of COVID, for many of our most vulnerable brothers and sisters in Christ – in churches that have been disproportionately affected by the virus and job layoffs – the most difficult months may yet lie ahead. State and federal programs that have restricted evictions, foreclosures, and utility shut-offs are ending soon. The cumulative debts of many months may soon inundate PCA families who are still struggling to regain their footing. Evictions and foreclosures threaten to overwhelm them. The Ethnos Relief Fund awards grants to the diaconates of heavily-impacted churches that apply after exhausting their own mercy funds and congregational benevolence.
“The Ethnos Relief Fund has generated a powerful testimony of God’s provision, and the families who have been helped are using this blessing as an example to share with their friends and acquaintances of why they have placed their faith in God.” – so writes a PCA pastor in Orlando, Florida where Ethnos relief funds have temporarily expanded the church diaconate’s ability to provide temporary rent assistance and basic food for many of their members who lost jobs during COVID-19. Many thanks to all who have already given. on behalf of more than two dozen churches that have gratefully received and distributed relief funds to those who have been suffering.
Your next donation to the Ethnos Relief Fund might help a PCA family to avoid eviction or foreclosure, or keep the electric running and provide food for their children while the parents find new employment. Your gift might literally be life-sustaining for these fellow believers.
“If one member of the body suffers, all share in the suffering. If one member is honored, all share in the flourishing.” I Corinthians 12:26