Afghanistan: Church Mourns Pastor and Children Killed by Taliban Suicide Attack

The pastor of a South Africa church was killed in a Taliban suicide bombing in Afghanistan Saturday (Nov. 29) alongside his two teenage children. 

Pastor Werner Groenewald, 46, and his children Jean-Pierre and Rodé were killed when Taliban fighters attacked a house where foreign aid workers were staying. Groenewald’s wife was working at a hospital at the time of the attack. 

The family was in Afghanistan through the American charity Partnership in Academics and Development (PAD). The nonprofit aids children in Middle East and Central Asia. 

Groenewald served as a part-time pastor of Moreleta Park Dutch Church in Pretoria, though he moved to serve in Afghanistan in 2002. 

After the news broke of the deaths of the pastor and his children, the church’s Facebook page read, “The family was loved by the community and had stayed in contact over all these years.

"When the announcement of their murder was made on Sunday November it was received with great shock and sadness.

"It is not just a huge loss for the Moreleta Park community and for their close families, but also for the Afghan people whom they served with so much love."

Publication date: December 1, 2014