Matongo Lutheran Church
Rising poverty levels? A pastor's perspective
by Diana Magwari • 7 April 2022
This article continues our series of articles on poverty in the southern Nyanza region of Kenya. In this series, we seek to understand the causes of poverty, its effects on the spiritual lives of ordinary people, and solution ideas. The present article is based on an interview with a pastor: Jackson Mogaka has graduated with a diploma in theology and later he pursued bachelor in theology from Daystar University. He is an experienced pastor having been a man of the cloak for the past 23 years. He has vast knowledge about the life in Nyanza and Kenya at large. He started out his career at Lutheran Nairobi Cathedral as an assistant to the bishop before getting a position at a parish sub-station in Kisii. He has risen through the ranks to become the main pastor at Matongo.
In my quest to know more about poverty in southern Nyanza, I sought to hear from a church leader. In the interview, he painted a picture not so different from my past interview. He highlighted some major issues that he considers are major impendiments to poverty eradication.
The church leader‘s perspective on poverty seems to be parallel to that of Mr Job, the researcher at Kisii University. In addition, my interview with the pastor reveals that disease is a one of the major causes, especially HIV. The region has the highest HIV caseload in Kenya, coupled up by a very high prevelance rate of 14% according to data from ministry of health. According to pastor Mogaka, in many families the adults of working age are because of that illness unable to work. Their dependants suffer in that they can not afford basic needs and relevant medical care. In the worst cases HIV has killed people in numbers, leaving the families of the deceased even miserable. Pastor Mogaka says it is the responsibility for the missionaries to build medical facilities and pray for those who are sick (James 5:15).
As the old adage goes, education is the key to success. Where, according to Pastor Mogaka majority of the population here is largely illiterate, pastor says that due to lack of knowledge, people end up being poor (Hosea 4:6). There are very few people with college and University education and in remote areas, it is even difficult to come across someone with highschool education. This leads to a huge untrained population which can not be absorbed by most lucrative jobs that require higher levels of education qualifications. The pastor says that due to poverty, kids drop out of school to try put food on the table, only to end up in the same cycle of poverty they found their parents in. It becomes a repetitive process. Pastor Mogaka asks that seminars and instructions should be created for young people to have knowledge on how to improve the income.
Laziness was another issue highlighted by pastor Mogaka. He notes that the majority of people in rural areas are not hardworking, hence ending up being poor (Proverbs 24: 30-34). Most of the people in southern Nyanza do not try different methods while practicing farming ending up with poor quality of yields. The pastor encourages hard work, in fact he says people should always be very hard-working (2 Thessalonians 3:6). The pastor also recommends the creation of more income generation projects like retail business, zero grazing and bee keeping in order to eradicate laziness that causes poverty to many people.
The pastor points out that the high number of orphans in the region is a significant cause of poverty. Where diseases are killing people in large numbers, mostly adults, that leads to orphans. Young kids who can not fend for themselves, who are fully dependent on guardians for food, education, clothing and shelter. This huge responsibility is left for grandparents to shoulder and clearly it overwhelms them due to old age and age related issues. This has left a good number of kids growing in unpleasant environment, where going a day or two without a meal is normal. Educationbecomes a feat they can not afford, while decent clothing and shelter is only achieved in dreams. With all these problems pilling on orphans, they end up getting forced into child labour, or —even worse— subjected into young marriages where some even get infected with HIV due to this crisis of poverty.
Poverty can not only be measured in terms of material conditions, but also in psychological and spiritual needs of humans to understand their own minds. Pastor Mogaka says that there is degradation of human dignity in various Churches, where there is a negative attitude towards the poor, more especially in leadership. The pastor says that the poor in the church will not be chosen to be leaders, since they are underated. Allording to the pastor, also due to poverty, the development in the church has become so low. Because of low finances, most of the equipment used in the church ends up lacking. The pastor’s view isthat the faith needs to play a key role in alleviating poverty by presenting itself to the society in all forms, and also through showing charity to all people.
According to the pastor, it is the responsibility of missionaries to build medical facilities like the mission hospital, and also to subsidise the cost of medicine, inorder to eradicate the crisis of poverty. The government should also buy some livestock and distribute it to rural areas, which will be greatly helpful to different people.
From the pastor's interview it is clear that southern Nyanza is a poverty stricken area, with the situation not getting any better day by day unless the causing factors are looked into.
Next in the series of articles on causes, effects and solution ideas for poverty in the southern Nyanza region of Kenya: Perspective of ministry leaders on drivers of poverty.
About the author:
Diana Magwari is a Kenya based journalist who comments on topical issues.
About the image:
Photo of Matongo Lutheran Church, taken 24 February 2022 by Diana Magwari.
Suggested citation:
Diana Magwari: Rising poverty levels? A pastor's perspective. MissionField News (ISSN 2813-2270)
https://missionfield.news/2022/2_Pastor_perspective_on_poverty
2022-04-07.