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Weekly Prayer Cycle Palm Sunday

Robin Gibson, former Executive Director of PWRDF.

April 13, 2014

By Suzanne Rumsey

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Week of April 13 (Palm Sunday and Holy Week)

Scripture: Jesus Enters Jerusalem (Matthew 21:1-11)

When they had come near Jerusalem and had reached Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, “Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, just say this, ‘The Lord needs them.’ And he will send them immediately.”

This took place to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet, saying, “Tell the daughter of Zion, Look, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them; they brought the donkey and the colt, and put their cloaks on them, and he sat on them.

A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. The crowds that went ahead of him and that followed were shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven!”

When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil, asking, “Who is this?” The crowds were saying, “This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee.”

Editor’s Note: PWRDF’s history is rich in stories of places and people from throughout the world. This week’s prayer cycle offers two brief PWRDF stories as told by Robin Gibson, former PWRDF Director[1] to the congregations of Christ Church, Coboconk and St. James, Fenelon Falls in 1996. While the stories are almost two decades old, they speak to current work on food security and resource extraction being carried out by PWRDF partners in various parts of the world.

PWRDF Story: Called to be Signs of Hope, excerpts from an address by Robin Gibson, former PWRDF Director March 24, 1996

You may think of PWRDF as a poster, as an offering envelope or as a picture in a pew bulletin, but it is far more than that. PWRDF is an essential ministry and fundamental characteristic of who we are as the Anglican Church of Canada”¦ In a deep and significant way, through PWRDF, we are part of a ministry that extends the caring of this community around the world”¦. PWRDF is involved in creating signs of love and hope around the world. Let me give you some examples.

A Vegetable Garden: In Peru, there is a vegetable garden. A few years ago the vegetable garden was a plot of barren land. Then with the support of a grant from PWRDF, a community organizer gathered the women in the village to talk about their troubles and anxieties and share their dreams”¦ With some training, encouragement and a little bit of money to get started, the women created a vegetable garden. Now vegetables from the garden improve their families’ nutrition, and profits from the sale of extra vegetables are saved for school fees”¦ The vegetable garden is a modern day sign of God’s love. If the gospel writer had been writing in Peru today, he might have written, “And this shall be a sign for you, you shall find a vegetable garden.”

A Footbridge: High in the mountains in the Northern Philippines, there is another sign. It is a footbridge. It is not very sturdy, and most of us would have to muster up considerable courage to venture across it. But it is new. It is there because a local organization asked PWRDF for support so that they could meet with people in some of the most remote villages. In these villages, indigenous peoples live in poverty. The government has largely forgotten about these remote areas except to issue to multinational mining and logging companies permits to extract the valuable natural resources with little benefit to the local population”¦ The footbridge is a sign to the community that they are not forgotten. It is a sign of God’s love that you helped to create through PWRDF. If the gospel writer were writing in the Philippines, he might have written, “And this shall be a sign for you, you shall find a footbridge”¦”

I want to close by encouraging you to give thanks for how you as a Canadian Anglican express your love for the world.

Robin’s complete address is [documents_link docid=”241″ docname=”here” link_only=”yes”].

For Reflection: The signs of God’s active presence are everywhere. They are the donkey and her colt that Jesus rode on into Jerusalem. They are the garden planted by Peruvian women and the footbridge built in the Philippines. As we enter Holy Week, what are the signs of God’s active presence in your life? What is one thing you would like to do in the coming days to yourself be a sign of God’s active presence in the world?

Concluding Prayer

Be a gardener,
dig a ditch,
toil and sweat,
and turn the earth upside down
and seek the deepness and water the plants in time.
Continue this labour
and make sweet floods to run
and noble and abundant fruits
to spring.
Take this food and drink
and carry it to God
as your true worship.

Julian of Norwich (circa 1373), Revelations of Divine Love, 6th edition, London: Methuen, 1917


[1] Robin Gibson was the Director of PWRDF from 1993 to 1998. Born in Uganda, he lived and worked in many different communities throughout the world, joining PWRDF in 1987 as Asia-Pacific Development Coordinator. Robin was a man of passion and empathy, who worked to make the world more just and caring. Robin died peacefully in his home, December 27, 1998 after a four-year fight with cancer. He was 45.

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