Meet Doctor Peter Nalos
Dr. Nalos was raised in a Christian home and expressed his own personal faith in Jesus at the age of five, in front of his classmates, while living in Switzerland. His family church was very oriented to international missions and he was exposed frequently to missionary pilots and surgeons from around the world. While at a Christian summer camp, he vividly remembers an American surgeon who worked for many years as a surgeon in Cameroon, Africa. He showed the children some amazing photos of tropical diseases. This must have planted a major seed in Peter’s life as many years later; God spoke to him in the Cameroon jungle to care for the children of Africa (see beginnings). As a child, his mother, Margaret, would read him stories of David Livingston, who was a pioneer explorer and missionary. Many years later Peter would listen to Reinhard Bonnke’s testimony about David Livingston’s work in Africa at an impartation breakfast in Anaheim. He was prayed over and felt he had received a gift from God to preach the gospel in Africa.
His African experience started with big game hunting in Zimbabwe in 1998. He took nine safaris over the next twelve years with his daughter Olivia, before changing over to African missions work in 2011. Being in the African bush changed his perspective on life. Peter developed a love for the African people and saw a great need physically and spiritually. His was charged by lions, elephants, rhinoceros, and sable antelope and also went chest deep in the water with crocodiles. After this his fears seem to lessen and made him comfortable with working in the remote African tribal areas. As early as 2005 he was giving his testimony in French in the Central African Republic, just after a major revolution there.
On one trip to Cradock, South Africa, he and Bob Bell started a ministry there with the Tam family for HIV children. He was involved in feeding children in Lesotho and supporting missionaries in Nigeria and Tanzania with Valley Bible Fellowship in Bakersfield, California. In 2010 he was made Mission’s Pastor at VBF by Pastor Ron Vietti. After the first trip to Ethiopia with a team of leaders, Ron told the congregation that VBF would help usher in the end time revival in Ethiopia. That was a massive claim, but Peter believed God for it and has made it his life’s calling. Psalm 2:8 says “Ask of me, and I will make the nations your inheritance and the ends of the earth your possession.”
Peter and his VBF team members have made 11 missions trips to Ethiopia as of 2021 and plan to visit the country at least annually. The first stage of the vision was to build 45 Ethiopian schools, stretching from the Southwestern border with Sudan, all the way east, to the border of Somaliland, stretching about 1000 kilometer (620 miles). We are finished with this stage. We have been able to come back with more teams and preach the gospel at our school sites, show the Jesus film, visit prisons and do children’s ministry programs. We have built big school complexes and orphanages in Uganda, Kenya and Zambia in the last few years.