Barka Canada would like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. This year has been a busy one for us and our friends at Barka Poland, who opened their hearts and homes to many refugees from Ukraine. We helped organize a benefit concert put on by the BC Canadian Polish Congress which raised $4,100 which was used to directly support those who fled the war into Poland.

Our Barka Canada team spent almost 1000 hours this summer cultivating crops at the community farm, which were sold to fund our outreach program. We are confident that our investment in organic heirloom garlic will yield dividends next harvest. We are thankful to share our harvest with those who need it this Christmas, and that we can enjoy it together in peace, knowing so many around the world are not so fortunate.

We join Pope Francis in prayer:

Give us the strength daily to be instruments of peace; enable us to see everyone who crosses our path as our brother or sister. Make us sensitive to the plea of our citizens who entreat us to turn our weapons of war into implements of peace, our trepidation into confident trust, and our quarreling into forgiveness.

Keep alive within us the flame of hope, so that with patience and perseverance we may opt for dialogue and reconciliation. In this way may peace triumph at last, and may the words “division”, “hatred” and “war” be banished from the heart of every man and woman. Lord, defuse the violence of our tongues and our hands. Amen