“I woke up with a throbbing headache and as the day progressed, I realized that I was getting weaker each passing moment,” says Joshua Mwita, a 9 year old student. “I remembered my identity in God which means that am created in his image to live out my purpose,” he says. “I earnestly prayed to God to heal me and guess what? I started feeling better. God healed me because I have learned to trust him with all my problems, anxieties and desires as well.”
Joshua is among the first twenty pupils at Nyahora Primary School who successful completed the 8 week child friendly Empowered World View (EWV) Training. World Vision is bringing life, hope and a future, by empowering children to live out their God given purpose and see the world and their place in it through the lens of scripture and His plan.
“I realized in the training that God made me for relationships,” says Joshua. “I never used to have many friends but now, I have realized the need for partnership with others to make our community a better place to live in,” he says. Joshua also learned the value of being compassionate to others and he has started to help his friends at school and church.
Terry Rovi Masori, 35, Joshua’s teacher leads the pupils through the training and applauds World Vision for the timely intervention for the children of Kegonga Ntimaru. She says, “Parenting has changed and there is a lot of negligence. Some parents do not instill the right values in their children while others are not modeling the right behavior...in this community, children come from broken homes as we have lots of child headed households.”
Charged with the Pastoral Program of Instructions (PPI) in school, Terry has seen children who are undisciplined and lack motivation. This, along with negative traditional beliefs, result in poor academic outcomes. “This community still practices very retrogressive cultural practices like Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) and child marriage which limits the advancement of the girl child to realize their full God given potential,” she says.
Terry says that the coming of this training, which is intended to inspire lifelong hope and mindset change in children and adolescents, will help them overcome some of these challenges. She notes that there has already been a marked change in the mindset of the children who underwent the training, showing improvement in school. A majority have joined churches while others are helping parents at home.
The training has opened Joshua’s eyes. “I realize that I do not have to be a certain age for God to use me. At my age I can do great exploits for God. Surely my vision has been enlarged and I want to learn well and pursue my career dreams in life piloting airplanes,” says Joshua.
He says, “Thank you World Vision for helping [me] have a deeper understanding of God and His love for me.”
