It is a demanding trek to reach Pastor Ezekiel’s home. There are vast green fields as far as the eye can see. Beyond that is his home.
Pastor Ezekiel is heading home after meeting with a few ICM staff. That day, the sky was overcast. The field was wet and the mud thick and slippery. It had been raining the day before.
Carrying his work equipment, he takes his usual route on the water canal—walking on a cement wall about three feet wide and four feet from the ground, stretching around the edge of the field and about two kilometres long. Then, he trudges through mud to finally reach home.
It’s just another day at work for him. Pastor Ezekiel navigates these fields regularly to reach the families assigned to him as an ICM Community Health Champion (CHC).
Pastors like Ezekiel are the reason ICM can reach many of the remotest, almost forgotten communities in ultra-poverty. ICM pastors and volunteers live in these areas and know their hardships themselves. This makes them the most effective agents of hope to bring ICM’s programs to their people.
Pastor Ezekiel started attending the Thrive pastor network in 2016, around the time he started pastoring his church. Then, this year, with a desire to do more for his community, he signed up for the CHC training.
CHCs are informal health advisors, working with ICM’s health staff to teach families how to prevent disease, how to treat health problems at home, and when to seek medical attention.
“It is important that people feel that someone cares for them. Not just through the word of God, but also help for their physical needs,” he shares.
Pastor Ezekiel’s day starts early during home visits. With his CHC equipment, he heads out at 8 am hoping to reach as many families as he can. He is assigned about 50 families for regular monitoring and has become a welcome guest in their homes. “I start each visit by checking on how they are doing, and we exchange a few stories. There are times when couples who are fighting seek counselling because they know I am a pastor.”
Pastor Ezekiel’s home visits always end with a prayer. He never leaves without speaking blessings on the family, “Prayer is one of the best things I can do for them.”
For those in ultra-poverty, seeing an ICM CHC may be their only chance for a health check-up. There is a glaring shortage of health workers in the country and a huge gap in access to health services.
Pastor Ezekiel takes his role to heart. “I am poor myself—but that is okay. No matter how difficult my situation is, that is not a reason for me to give up. What’s important is that I am able to help others. This is my commitment to God.”
On Sundays, he holds services for his small congregation of about eight people. Without any financial support and hardly anything from church tithes, Pastor Ezekiel remains steadfast, fueled only by his passion to reach people with God’s love and a commitment he made to serve Him no matter what.
Quoting from his life verse of Philippians 1:21, Pastor Ezekiel shares, “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. Only death can stop me from serving God—not hunger nor hardships. We will overcome.”
