Empower’s Africa Program Director Frank Tweheyo traveled to Kenya last month to facilitate seminars with some of our partners. Here is his report.
This journey to Kenya was so refreshing in a big sense: meeting new people, visiting with friends and relaxing a bit from heavy schedules for the past several months.
My first stop was Embu town. This is the hometown of one of our trainers, Purity Njagi, who together with her husband Bishop Angelo Njagi, oversees several Missions For Christ Ministries (MCM) churches in this region.
Purity is a counseling psychologist and the proprietor of Lighting Light Counseling Center in Embu town. She has been a key trainer for the New Man, New Woman, New Life seminars at St. Paul’s University.
In the past, she’s also helped us facilitate the seminar at Pwani University, in Kilifi.
“The training has really been an insight. I love to know that I can go back to God’s original intent of creation even after the Fall. I am really enlightened, it is a great eye opener.” –participant in Kyanjokoma, Kenya
Purity’s husband, Bishop Angelo, was a post-graduate student at St. Paul’s University a few years ago, and I met him during a seminar there in which Purity was facilitating with me.
Bishop Angelo came to one of the trainings Empower held at St. Paul’s University last year. He was totally convinced that his leaders needed to go through the seminar, and invited us to train his leaders in their home church. So on this trip that is what we did.
The seminar took place at one of their church locations in Kyanjokoma, a few kilometers outside Embu town. Several of their leaders who attended this training had been through the NMNWNL program at St. Paul’s University, together with Bishop Angelo. These NMNWNL alumni, so to speak, helped facilitate the group discussion and guided participants to make informed cultural applications in their groups and report outs.
Another participant told us: “I am glad to know about God’s plan of redemption, that after man fell, redemption came through Jesus Christ. That redemption in a sense buys us back to the garden, to God’s original intent of creation: equality of humans.”
Bishop Angelo spiced discussions with in-depth and relevant examples to help his people understand and apply the concepts being discussed.
I never fail to be amazed how “the long-told lie” travelled far and wide, that man was not in the garden when the woman was being tempted, or that both man and woman were cursed in the garden, or at least the woman. As often happens at our trainings, both men and women were surprised to see in the Bible that Adam was there beside Eve during the temptation. (See Genesis 3:6-7)
Seeing the “aha!” moments when participants come to grips with the word of God and realize that both man and woman were in the garden at temptation, that both participated in the sin of disobedience, but that God did not curse them…is always a great highlight of NMNWNL training.
As another participant put it: “Great to know that God did not curse man or woman, but instead cursed the serpent and the ground. This is because he had created man in his own image so he could not have cursed his own image. I am also glad to know that when the serpent was talking to the woman, the man was also present.”
These dear leaders were understanding for the first time the grace of God that he showered on the humans even in the fall, and the prophecy of redemption in Genesis 3:15. Some repented that they had been teaching falsehood to their congregations.
They also were so glad to understand the contextual analysis of headship, submission and the mystery of marriage in Paul’s letter to Ephesians chapters 5 and 6.
These few days with the leaders were so refreshing to me and I will not forget the sense of peace and contentment as I headed back to Nairobi, to facilitate in the Master Class that was to be at St. Paul’s university in a few days.
We are forever grateful to Empower supporters who make these travels and trainings possible, so that people’s mindsets are changed for the better and communities are transformed.
Note: Per recommendations of the World Health Organization and countries around the world, Empower is currently suspending travel from the U.S. to Africa because of the coronavirus pandemic. We continue to revise our policy as the situation unfolds. Visit our Facebook page for more details.