Spirituality is a wide concept. Since it is a personal journey, it has different meanings to different people. Mainly, it is about tapping into your inner self and connecting it to God, a higher purpose or belief. For Bella Ngore and Paul Pogire, raising a spiritual child is a core value. They have a son, Klyne, who is two years and three months old. They share steps they take to nurture his spirituality.

Bella speaks about her spiritual journey before and after she had Klyne while Paul shares the significance of introducing their child to spirituality early on in life.

One of my favourite Bible verses is “as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” It is a phrase that I has been part of my life while growing up and I am intentional about it now that I have a child.

I grew up in a Christian family. We would go to church. As I grew older and had a baby, the urge to nourish myself with the Word strengthened. I am not where I want to be but I try every day to reach to a deeper level. I challenge myself to understand the scriptures by reading one or two stories a day with my son. I would then ask my spouse Paul to elaborate further on it.  

I hope to raise a God-fearing child. I hope that he chooses to take time in his life to serve God in church, whether it is singing or playing the piano or any other activity that he would be interested in. I already have plans to get him a piano and learn to play it.

Practices we do to grow his spirituality

We go to church. He knows that Sundays are for going to church. We pray together before we have a meal and when we go to sleep. We read the Bible right before bed. We watch sermon videos of TD Jakes, Joel Osteen and of other preachers. I am not sure if he knows what it is that we are doing. He may not understand it now but he will one day, especially when he starts to go to Sunday school.

The Bible tells me that if I train my child in the ways of the Lord, he will never depart from it. Generally what we are taught when we are young stays us. My parents took me to Sunday school and it became one of the things that grounds me. I want to train him to follow God’s path and that will help him wherever he goes and when he has a family of his own.

How is our training manifested through his actions in his early years?

When we are in church he sees his father preaching or singing in church, or playing the piano and he would mimic him. Simple things like bowing his head when we pray and singing Gospel music, is an assurance that he is learning and we are on the right path.

Paul on why raising a spiritual child is important to him

One of the things that a child can learn from me as his parent is spirituality. As a child, he has to learn from his parents first for him to explore it when he grows older. We try to raise him in a spiritual home for it to have a great impact in his life. My father is a pastor and it is through his teachings that I trust that everything is possible through prayers and became a pastor too. From that, I see that children imitate what parents do.

The best thing I can give my child is a tool to help him find his own identity. I believe he can through spirituality.” – Paul

Spirituality should not be forced. I try to instill in my son in a fun way. We learn a lot about ourselves when we are spiritual. That happens to a child too. They can find out things about themselves. Say, he could discover his talent of singing. The best thing I can give my child is a tool to help him find his own identity. I believe he can explore this through spirituality.

It helps a child know what is right and wrong. I would like my child to know why a thing is right or wrong guided by God’s Word.