“Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these” (Matthew 19:14).
The Children’s Desk, popularly known as the Sunday School Desk in the Diocese, is one major desk within the Pastoral Commission. Its mandate is to address pastoral needs of children in the Diocese through various pastoral programmes.
The desk is guided by the understanding that while children are a blessing from the Lord, this blessing also comes with responsibility to help the children grow physically, intellectually, emotionally and above all spiritually.
The desk serves two main categories of children; those ranging from an average age of 5 to 13 years (called Junior Sunday School) and children between 13 years and 16 years (called Senior Sunday School). Currently, there are 38,962 registered children being served through the desk. These children are being served by over 1,448 instructors in their respective prayer centres.
To ensure that the desk fulfils her mandate in the pastoral ministry towards children, the desk, through her various pastoral programmes, is engaged in several activities:
- Offering weekly catechetical lessons for the children in all the 279 prayer centres in the Diocese.
- Offering weekly Sunday liturgy for the children in all the 279 prayer centres in the Diocese.
- Organising quiz and sports competitions among the children.
- Training of instructors for the children to improve their teaching skills.
- Provision of relevant Catechetical Material for teaching/learning in prayer centres.
- Promotion of formal education and faith formation of children in 48 selected primary schools.
- Increasing of outreach to children with relevant pastoral information through radio programmes on the Diocesan Radio, Tuntufye FM Radio.
The current head of the Sunday School Desk is Mr Benjamin Msowoya (+265 995 482 002. Email: benjaminmsowoya@yahoo.com). He is assisted by several pastoral agents at the Diocesan Curia and in parishes to coordinate all the pastoral activities in the Sunday School Desk.