The Banner has a subscription to republish articles from Religion News Service. This story by Jack Jenkins was published March 11, 2025, on religionnews.com. It has been edited for length and Banner style. The Banner added the 12th paragraph to provide context for the Christian Reformed Church.
In mid-March a group of about three dozen largely evangelical Christians assembled at Capitol Hill Presbyterian Church for a “Prayer Vigil for Foreign Aid.” Arguing the actions by President Donald Trump to suspend disbursement of U.S. foreign aid will hurt millions of people around the world, the groups are calling on Congress to reinstate foreign aid programs.
Rev. Eugene Cho, president and CEO of the group Bread for the World, denounced the “broad, un-targeted cuts” recently implemented at the U.S. Agency for International Development as an assault on vulnerable populations all over the globe.
“These indiscriminate cuts are not just a policy failure,” said Cho, standing in a sanctuary dotted with candles. “For us, especially, as followers of Christ, as uncomfortable as it may be, we must clearly … but prophetically, say: it is also a moral failure.”
The vigil included World Relief, World Renew, and the Accord Network and came a day after Secretary of State Marco Rubio declared on social media that the government will cancel 83% of programs at USAID. The announcement came six-weeks after a Jan. 20 Executive Order from President Trump paused “United States foreign development assistance for assessment of programmatic efficiencies and consistency with United States foreign policy.”
In an email March 10, Matthew Soerens, vice president of advocacy and policy at World Relief, the humanitarian arm of the National Association of Evangelicals, told Religion News Service the group’s contracts were among those canceled. Although he celebrated the fact that four of World Relief’s grants in Sudan, South Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo were unexpectedly reinstated, he noted two of those grants are “scheduled to be completed this month,” and the organization has not received “any information on proposals for renewal.”
The group’s work in Haiti hasn’t received a formal cancellation but remains on hold after World Relief received a “stop work” order in January. As of that March 10 email World Relief hadn’t received any reimbursements for work already done.
“It’s very difficult to operate until we’re confident we will be reimbursed,” Soerens wrote.
During the March 11 vigil, several speakers highlighted the human toll of the cuts. Kombo Choga, senior director for program design at Compassion International, pointed out that his organization currently does not receive government funds, but said they “are witnessing how the withdrawal of aid is devastating” populations they work with—including children.
“It’s causing harm now, and into the future,” he told the crowd, which included evangelical Christian USAID staffers who were laid off during recent cuts. Several held signs emblazoned with slogans such as “Hunger won’t wait” and “Aid strengthens American national security.”
Choga argued that while the government has a responsibility to assess the proper use of taxpayer funds, the Bible offers “very clear guidance.”
“Whoever is kind to the poor lends to the Lord,” he said, citing Proverbs 19:17.
World Renew, the development and relief agency of the Christian Reformed Church in North America, issued a call to action on foreign aid a month earlier (Feb. 10). The group was a joint recipient of a USAID grant for a three-year (Nov 2021-Sep 2024) crop yield increase project in Nakuru County, Kenya, and according to the call to action “has programmed more than $13 million in U.S. Government grants over the last 25 years.”
Co-executive director Carol Bremer-Bennett offered a prayer at the Washington, D.C. vigil.
“We lament the choices of those in power who have turned away from the suffering of your children,” she said, adding that funding “has been withdrawn from clinics where babies take their first breaths, from hospitals where mothers fight to survive childbirth, from communities where clean water and medicine once flowed.”
The cuts, Bremer-Bennett said, are “not just numbers on a page,” but “real lives lost.”
Cho, of Bread for the World, and others expressed frustration at the administration’s actions but also highlighted the potential role of Congress, arguing lawmakers have the power to reinstate the programs.
“We are here today to urge the administration and Congress, Democrats and Republicans alike, to do all that they can,” Cho said. “It’s not too late to protect critical international aid that supports tens of millions of people suffering alone right now.”
Multiple speakers made clear that while they believed the foreign aid system has issues, drastically reducing programs was not the answer. Randy Tift, senior adviser at the Accord Network, raised concerns that a cycle of grievance was driving many of the Trump administration’s actions.
“People involved in these recent decisions on all sides, some in current leadership, were grievously mistreated in the past,” Tift said. “I fear grievance is driving a lot of the new team’s decisions; dedicated and faithful USAID staff, including former staff—some of whom are here today—have now been treated with cruelty by some who were aggrieved in the past.”
After the vigil, Cho told RNS that it might take time to turn hearts in Congress but said his group was prepared. “We’re not interested in putting on one-time events,” he said.
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