Shepherding Beyond Church Walls

Pastor Peter Chituta is a Seventh Day Baptist pastor and chairs the Onga area programme Pastors’ Fraternal group. The fraternal has 14 pastors, and also works with sheiks from the Muslim community; and he shares on his experience working with World Vision for the past 13 years

“I have been working with World Vision since 2012. The Onga pastors’ fraternal was already there, but World Vision came in and empowered us to do so much more than what we were already doing.

Working with World Vision has been a game changer for our church members and communities. We have seen the number of child marriages and teenage pregnancies decrease tremendously. We have also noticed that child malnutrition has been reduced. I can confidently attribute this to all the inclusive trainings that world Vision has given us over the years.”

“As a fraternal, our responsibility has been mainly to work with village development groups, mother groups, chiefs, and police to collaborate for change. After the trainings with World Vision, we would trickle down the knowledge to our fellow partners in development. For instance, after a child protection training, we would work with the police, mother groups and child protection committees, and we continue to do so till now.”

“My vision as a pastor is to bring more people to know God as a good Father who loves them. I therefore love working with children in the Bible clubs, teaching them the statutes of the Lord, so they can grow up morally and become responsible citizens.”

“As pastors, we also put together our resources to help people in need, for instance, we pool our money together to rent land and grow crops to help others. Sometimes we can each give in kind towards the cause. In 2019 we supported 45 children with bags of maize. In February 2020 we planted 100 trees; 50 at Mwanga primary school and 50 at Nkuyu Primary school to regenerate natural resources.”

World Vision works with existing structures, such as Pastors’ Fraternal to bring social and behavioral change in communities. And as World Vision transitions from Onga AP, Pastor Peter Chituta is confident they will continue to use the knowledge gained, to bring change in their communities.