Linus Aleke, Abuja:
Worried about the debilitating conditions of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), widows and orphans in the country, the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN) Gwarimpa region has launched a trust fund christened ‘Barnabas Trust Fund’ to provide relive to vulnerable groups in Nigeria.
Speaking to our correspondent exclusively after the launch of the programme the initiator of the project, Rev. Nzete Favour explained that he was inspired to initiate the project following the difficulties they encountered in the process of burying two pastors in their zone.
His words, The name Barnabas in the scripture means son of encouragement, therefore, the idea of the trust fund was born out of the need to have respite for the ministers of the gospel, especially when they are in need.
“In the recent time, we lost two pastors and ran into challenges in the process of planning their burial and we decided that to continue in that light would not be a legacy any leader would want to bequeath his successor.
“So we decided to have a structure on ground that would address the aforesaid challenge. The core idea behind the project is to pull resources together and see how we can harness it together to deal with certain challenges such as the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), scattered in different camps across the country, prisoners, orphanages, bereave families of pastors among others.
“We are doing that so as to mitigate any seen and unforeseen challenges, this is in line with the fact that it was not raining when Noah built the Ark. Therefore, we wish to put structures in place to be able to confront some of these challenges when they occur.”
On how they intend to provide helping hands to IDPs he explains, “As soon as we attract funds, we would look out to see the possible ways in which we can help, especially during this Christmas period. If we are able to attract the anticipated funds, we plan to reach out to them in the area of food items, clothing and other basic necessities, which is the basic reason why we are here.”
But when asked if the fund intend to provide scholarship to children in IDPs he responded thus; “At the moment we have a lot of children in our church that we are catering for their education, especially children of late pastors. Nonetheless, we are working hard to involve other churches to buy into our vision so that this act of charity will be extended to other vulnerable school age children that are out of school due to economic hardship.” He concluded.
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