For $41 a month, you can transform a life through child sponsorship.
“41 is just a number, but every dollar is transforming someone. At the end of that number, there are powerful transformation stories. You never think you’re going to raise a giant. But giants are being raised,” says Pastor Munetsi Zowa.
Pastor Zowa is a bishop in the Pentecostal Assemblies of Zimbabwe (PAOZ), lead minister of Hope Community Church, and the overseer of the Social Concerns department of the PAOZ, running all their relief and development work done in partnership with ERDO (Emergency Relief and Development Overseas). He is also the previous director of ERDO’s child sponsorship partner in Zimbabwe, Villages of Hope: Africa Society (VOH Africa)—an organization dedicated to bringing education, nutrition, shelter and health care to children in Africa. Pastor Zowa is a man who has personally impacted the lives of thousands of children in Zimbabwe.
“When you don’t have a dad to coach you, it’s hard. Ed was willing to be coached,” Pastor Zowa says, describing one of the children he saw grow up at VOH. Ed and his mother came to church when Ed was in Grade 4. He started playing with the other children, many of whom were sponsored. Pastor Zowa saw a timid and respectful young boy and noticed a need in his life. Ed became part of VOH, and his mother was placed into a microloan program run by the local church to help her start a business and support her family.
When Ed graduated high school, the church stepped in to support him through university. During school breaks, Ed returned to VOH to work wherever he was needed. When a friend of Pastor Zowa’s from Dubai asked for a good worker, he sent Ed. Through his hard work and good reputation, a business consultancy for mining and oil in the United Arab Emirates hired him. Ed got a passport for his mother and brought her to live with him.
“God gave Ed many father figures,” Pastor Zowa says, “It’s one of those stories where we realize God is faithful.”
Running a child sponsorship program is not easy or straightforward. It is difficult to identify a child in need of sponsorship when every child in the community is in need. Competition and family pressure can easily become factors, including a family sending children away so another child can receive a choice education.
“You can create ‘Josephs’ in families through ‘the coat of many colours,’” says Pastor Zowa. Giving one child opportunities instead of another sibling can cause resentment, which is why it’s important to work with the whole community. “When we identify a child for sponsorship, we create an opportunity for dialogue,” he says.
If the caregiver feels disempowered or lacks ownership in the process of educating their child, disaster can ensue on both sides. A child could leave their community and never look back on their family. Families can begin to resent their children, and the cycle of poverty remains unbroken. Keeping the church in the centre of the community, engaging the whole family, and identifying children for sponsorship as a community, with leaders who hold respect, are the keys to success in sponsorship.
In the VOH sponsorship program, overseen in part by Pastor Zowa, caregivers serve as volunteers. Resources and programs are available for the entire community, not only the sponsored child. This serves the greater mission of VOH: to know Christ, make Him known, and declare Him to the world.
Pastor Zowa has become a powerhouse in the PAOZ with a heart for children and evangelism. But his life’s work started at a much smaller scale. He was saved in an open-air crusade led by Roy Davis, a PAOC credential-holder from British Columbia. In just two years, Zowa felt called to ministry and began working under a Canadian global worker, Colin Greig. Starting in youth ministry, he soon became involved in a children’s home in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, identifying children in need and spending time with them, helping wherever he could.
Pastor Zowa’s wife, Amina, was called by God in a dream before she was even saved; she saw herself working with children. Together, while pastoring Hope Community Church, they started children’s programs for kids in the community. They helped establish VOH Zimbabwe in 2001, and their passion for children, church, and community transformation has grown ever since.
On one occasion, when he visited Canada to attend a VOH Africa board meeting, Pastor Zowa met Roy Davis, the missionary who led him to Christ. Prior to the meeting, Davis believed his ministry in Africa was a waste of time with no results. When he heard Pastor Zowa’s story, he knew for the first time that God had used him. Thousands of children had come to Christ because of his small crusade.
“When you do ministry, it doesn’t matter how you do it. Do your part, and the water you’re working with God can turn into wine,” Pastor Zowa says.
When you involve yourself in missions, you never know what God is doing. By sending $41 a month to a child in Zimbabwe, you could be raising a giant.
