Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to David Peterka. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
David, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Is there a heartwarming story from your career that you look back on?
Years ago when I was 18 I put a “bucket list” together. The list did not have a lot of things on it. I would say, not more than 10. The one that stuck out to me the most was, “help save someone’s life.” From time to time I would wonder if I would ever get the chance. I would even go as far as to daydream about coming upon a bad car accident and helping the person out of the car in order to get them to the hospital or diving and pushing someone out of the way of a moving vehicle. Maybe part of it was selfish and I just wanted to feel like a hero, but the thought of someone being alive because of something I did was intriguing.
About 7 years later I had started the non-profit organization called When the Saints. We had just opened the first and only long-term trauma counseling safe home in the southeastern African country of Malawi. We brought a 5 year old girl into this safe home who was being abused by her own biological father. He was arrested for 14 years. After she went through the 1 year counseling program I tagged along with our social worker to her grandmothers home where we would be reintegrating her into her community. The grandmother came running up to me and grabbed my arm. She looked me in the eyes and said, “This granddaughter was not the only one to be abused by their father. I had another 3 year old granddaughter that had wounds which got infected as a result of the abuse. This 3 year old died as a result of those wounds. I believe this granddaughter here is alive today because of what When the Saints did to help us. You helped save her life.” In that moment I realized I could check an item off my bucket list.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
My name is David Peterka and I am 35 years old. I recently celebrated 5 years of marriage to my wife Esther and 2 years ago we became parents to a little guy named Taji (crown in Swahili). Not only that, but last week we had our second child, a girl named Nuru (Shining light in Swahili). I grew up attending church at the instruction of my stellar parents. Toward the end of my senior year of high school however my own faith started to come alive inside of me. It finally became my own and not just what my parents raised me to believe. I also started learning about major forms of injustice in our world. Things like genocide in Sudan, child soldiers in Uganda and sexual abuse in Southeast Asia. I read cover to cover through scripture and discovered that God’s heart beats passionately for the orphaned, widowed and downtrodden. I discovered that He calls those who believe in Him to do things like defend, rescue and speak up for those who are exploited, abused and marginalized.
So I began a journey to find out what God created me for, what purpose He had in mind for my life. At the age of 21 I fasted or refrained from all solid food for 3 weeks straight and spent the whole last night alone in my basement praying. I believe this night in January of 2009 the Lord made it clear that He created me to be a part of seeing an end to sexual abuse through mentorship of men and trauma counseling for girls. There is a documentary called When the Saints on Amazon Prime if you’d like to learn the details I am leaving out.
All of a sudden the country of Malawi kept coming up in my life and I started to realized in 2010 that Jesus was calling me to this place. My father, pastor and I took a trip a year and a half after the fast and discovered there is no long term trauma counseling safe home for girls who have been sexually abused in all of Malawi. We met a woman that founded the Malawi Human Rights Resource Center and when we told her we might be building a trauma counseling center her jaw dropped open. She said that for the last 14 years she has been praying for and trying to build something exactly like that. We started working together and were given 12 acres of land in the city that has the highest levels of sexual abuse in Malawi.
Since then we have gone on to start the organization When the Saints and have been running the first and only long term trauma counseling safe home for girls ages 3-16 who have been sexually abused in Malawi. 191 girls have graduated from our program and 43 girls are currently in the program. We partner with the Victim Support Unit of the police and all the girls get referred to us from them. We also gather in 5 villages every week with men to teach them what it looks like to honor God with their marriages and to treat girls in their villages with dignity and respect. It has been such an incredible journey and is such n privilege to be a part of.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
Last December I was sitting at my desk right next to my wife’s desk. We share an office. I know right? Some people wonder how sharing an office with your spouse could even be possible, but somehow we love it and wouldn’t have it any other way. On this particular day our head trauma counselor came into our office and started walking us through the three girl’s stories that we received into our trauma counseling safe home that week. The last story was a girl that was kidnapped on her way home from school and taken to the woods. One leg was tied to one tree and the other to another tree and multiple men abused her for hours. Then she was left tied up crying until someone thankfully heard her a few hours later and took her to the hospital around midnight. It was horrific. Our head trauma counselor left the room and my wife and I quickly went back to the deadlines we were working on as we were hoping to get everything submitted for the opening of a school before the beginning of the school year in January.
A few minutes later my wife turned to me and said, “How can we hear something like that and just go on with our day?” I realized that we were experiencing burnout and had calloused hearts. This started me on a journey that took 3 or 4 months as I sought important answers to questions like, “Is this normal? Could this hardened heart be a defense mechanism that helps us continue the work or is it not suppose to be like this?”. It has been quite the journey and among other things I have discovered that God desires for my heart to be like his. God’s heart never gets calloused to the suffering of those he loves. He breaks the same every time his children are exploited. He doesn’t want me to worry that my heart will become too broken that it will hinder me from continuing in the ministry. Instead his desire is that I harness that brokenness and allow it to propel me forward to the glory of his name by brining healing to others who have faced atrocity.
Training and knowledge matter of course, but beyond that what do you think matters most in terms of succeeding in your field?
If you haven’t been able to guess by now I will come out and say it. I would consider myself a deeply spiritual person. Don’t hold it against me. If you do not consider yourself spiritual all I ask is that we still do our best to be loving toward one another. For me, the two things that have had the greatest influence on the success of the work I am a part of are the wisdom found in the Bible and the power of the Holy Spirit that dwells within me. I could go on listing a number of profound truths from God’s word that has helped us navigate difficult challenges and shaped the way we have gotten to where we are.
On top of the Bible I believe I have the best gift that could ever be given to any human being. This is the very presence of God almighty living inside of my physical body that he has chosen to make his dwelling place. Thought his Spirit it has given our board and I direction in decision making and vision casting. I will forever be grateful for the way that God has invited us into the work of defending, protecting and rescuing those who are downtrodden and enslaved all to the glory of his name.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.whenthesaints.com
- Instagram: @wtsministries
- Facebook: When the Saints
- Twitter: @wtsministries
- Youtube: When the Saints