Harvest resource 2026

At harvest time, we celebrate the generosity of God and the way his abundant love reaches everywhere – including the places where conflict, climate disaster and injustice push millions of people into the unrelenting hardship of extreme poverty.

In our free resource for your harvest service, we invite you to the Karamoja region of north-east Uganda, to meet Pastor John. Not so long ago, people in his community were dying of hunger and hope was in short supply. Rains had failed and drought had taken hold.

Pastor John wanted more for his community. Much more.

He knew God’s invitation to abundant life is for everyone – including people in places where conflict, climate disaster and injustice mean they face the unrelenting hardship of extreme poverty.

Now, through Tearfund’s work and the local church, the community are learning to grow vegetables and pulling together to help one another break free of poverty. Gradually, they are seeing God’s abundance taking root.

We hope this remarkable story of transformation will strengthen your faith and fuel your prayers for all that God is doing through the local church worldwide.

What's in the resource?

• Poster – to display at your church
• Service planner – to help you plan your service
• Video – hear Pastor John, Esther and Rakele’s story in their own words
• Powerpoint – to share these stories with your congregation
• Prayers – to help your church pray for transformation around the world

Where is God in a hungry world?

As rains failed and drought took hold, people started dying of hunger in Losakucha community, in the Karamoja region of north-east Uganda.

Esther and her siblings often had to survive on bitter leaves from thorny Balanite trees. It took hours to boil the leaves and make them edible – and even then, they could still make the children ill.

'We work hard, but without rain there is nothing to gather. I worry for my siblings.' – Esther, Uganda

Like many other people in the village, Esther’s parents were forced to spend many months away from home, looking for work in more fertile areas. The children and elderly relatives who were left behind often survived on just one meal a day of leaves.

When Pastor John arrived, he found a community that was fearful and desperate. His congregation were often too hungry to listen to God’s word.

When God's love breaks through

But then Pastor John signed up for Tearfund’s Bible-based training programme, Transforming Communities, and started to see how his small church could be ‘salt and light’. First, he encouraged the congregation to share what they had with people in need. Then, they started providing meals at church services.

Through the training, the church set up a co-operative farm where Esther and her neighbours were taught better farming methods and learnt how to grow vegetables all year round. Their harvests flourished so much that they sometimes had enough left over to sell at market.

'Vegetables are no longer scarce. Hunger won't touch us again.' – Esther, Uganda

Now, the community are growing together in other ways, too. Thanks to a livelihood support group set up by the church, community member Rakele has gone from merely surviving to starting her own small business selling salt and fish.

'[Before] there was nothing I could afford; there was nothing I could manage. When the training came, my mind was opened.' – Rakele, Uganda

This harvest, inspire your church with a story of what’s possible when a local church follows where Jesus’ love leads.