As Nigerians are celebrating yet another peaceful transition of power today, the cleric in charge of the Breakthrough parish of the New Testament Assembly Worldwide, pastor Olutuase Rufus, has called on the new administration to give more attention to the needs of children.
Pastor Olutuase made this known at an event organized to celebrate children’s day at Abule-egba, Lagos on Saturday.
According to him, “children are a precious gift of God to mankind and they are His heritage. We are celebrating them in a unique way because we know their importance. My candid counsel to the incoming government is to look in the direction of the younger generation because they are the one that will take over when we are older. We should be able to carry them along by providing them with whatever will help mold their lives positively,” he said.
He added that the church, which is the body of Christ, should give children a more prominent place in the operations of the church, while also challenging the children to be focused and understand that there are responsibilities resting on their shoulders.
The head of the children’s department of the parish Mrs. Olushola Keshinro explained that the goal of the event was to win other children to the kingdom of God. “We decided to give our children a colourful event this year because when we inaugurated the children’s day event last year, we just thought of organizing something small for our children and because it was done outside the church we had a lot of other children that joined them so we could not really meet their needs and some of the children that joined them last year are still in the church today.”
Mrs. Keshinro added that the society can use the opportunity given by this celebration to give scholarships to children and also make those who are indigent students have a sense of belonging in the community, which will help to reduce crime in the society.
One of the children who attended the event Joy Innocent while expressing her appreciation to the church commended the leadership of the church for the effort made to have such a colourful event. According to her, ” I am happy that the church can come together to organize this kind of event for us because some parents could not afford to take their children out on a day like this to have fun and for the church to have done it, that’s good. My message to other churches is that they should also do this kind of event to encourage more children in the future,” she said.
