World Relief Grateful for Receipt of Some US Governmental Funding Reimbursements for Lifesaving Humanitarian Assistance, Urges Further Resumption of Foreign Assistance and Recommitment to Refugee Resettlement

Contact: wr@pinkston.co

(Baltimore, MD) March 12, 2025 – Today, for the first time since December 2024, World Relief received a reimbursement for past work done on an existing grant for humanitarian assistance from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). World Relief is grateful for the U.S. government following through on this commitment, and we urge our governmental partners to both follow through on other past grant commitments and to resume continued funding for lifesaving humanitarian programs.

World Relief, which is the humanitarian arm of the National Association of Evangelicals, currently operates direct programs in eleven countries, in addition to working through church and ministry partners in other countries and operating programs serving refugees and other immigrants throughout the United States. We have grants from the USAID’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance to respond to urgent crises in four conflict-affected countries: Sudan, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Haiti. 

World Relief had not received reimbursements for work already completed under these grants since December, forcing us to dramatically reduce our operations in these countries, though some lifesaving work was able to continue with support from churches, individuals and other private donors. 

“Today, we received reimbursements for one of our grants, for work in Sudan, which is an answer to many prayers. We are thankful, and hopeful that additional already-committed funds will be forthcoming as well,” said Lanre Williams-Ayedun, Senior Vice President for International Programs at World Relief. “For most of our eighty-year history, World Relief has been able to combine U.S. governmental funds with funds from churches and individuals — to both help us meet our mission of boldly engaging the world’s greatest crises in partnership with the church but also to clearly advance U.S. national interests: saving precious lives made in God’s image, halting the spread of disease and building goodwill toward the United States.”

The funds received today are for work done prior to the “stop work” orders that World Relief and other USAID grant recipients received in late January. Since then, several of World Relief’s USAID grants were formally terminated, but then those terminations were subsequently rescinded. In one case, in Haiti, we have not received any formal communication beyond the initial “stop work” order — but the funds have also fully halted, such that we have had to dramatically scale back our programming. Until today, even in situations where terminations had theoretically been rescinded, we had not received any fund transfers, even for reimbursements for work completed months ago.

Similarly, World Relief’s longstanding partnership with the U.S. State Department to provide initial resettlement support to lawfully-admitted refugees for their first 90 days in the United States was terminated in late February. At this point, that agreement has not been reinstated, the State Department has still not provided reimbursement for funds expended under the terms of the prior agreement for refugees resettled prior to the “stop work” order, and new resettlement of refugees remains suspended. 

“While the funds received today for past work are received with gratitude, we continue to urge our government to commit to restoring funds for ongoing responses in these and other contexts facing humanitarian crises, and to restore the U.S. refugee resettlement program” said Myal Greene, President & CEO of World Relief. “As Christians motivated by our faith in Jesus, we believe these programs both advance American interests while also allowing us to come alongside local churches in ways consistent with their biblical values.”

“We value and hope to continue our partnership with the U.S. government, but our first and most important partner will always be the church,” added Greene. “We’re thankful for this payment from our governmental partners, which we hope will be the first of many instances when they follow through on past commitments, but we also could not have sustained our global work over the past few months without the remarkable outpouring of support from local churches, individuals and other private donors, who have contributed more than $8.7 million since late January to stand in the gap created by abrupt governmental policy changes. We’re praying the church here in the U.S. will continue to respond as we partner with churches around the world to respond to crises.”

World Relief continues to invite churches and individuals to contribute to sustaining our work by giving at https://worldrelief.org/stand-in-the-gap.