In late February and early March, prior to the coronavirus pandemic travel restrictions, Empower Africa Director Frank Tweheyo traveled to Kenya. Here is part 2 of his report.
March 2-4, we held an exciting Master Class St. Paul’s University in Limuru, Kenya. St. Paul’s has become one of the epicenters of Empower’s work in Africa, hosting two or three trainings per year. Our program has benefitted from the large networks that St. Paul’s Institute of Life Long Learning and Leadership Development SPILL & LDC) has across the country and beyond.
About 40 participants, selected from last year’s two seminars, were chosen for the Master Class.
One couple, Anna and Barnard, told us how the training has been so helpful in their home. The man is now able to make the be
d and go to the kitchen, which were ‘no go’ for him prior to the seminar. It’s exciting to see these small changes in daily life and how it impacts families in a positive way.
Over the years, Empower has worked closely with Dr. Zablon Bundi, who has been the director of SPILL. We learned on this visit that he had been promoted to Deputy Vice Chancellor of the University in charge of Finance and Administration.
Our team met the new director, Mr. Nelson Karanja, who was very interested in our work and hopes to attend the training next time we visit St. Paul’s.
Both Mr. Karanja and Dr. Bundi attended the Master Class opening ceremony.
The Participants were women and men with rich resumes: some were from public service with the government, an insurance consultant, business men and women, Realtor, counseling psychologists, tax consultants, ICT specialists, an agricultural officer, a soldier serving with Kenyan Defense forces as well as many church men and women, pastors and leaders at various levels. The mix was a great fun and so engaging and insightful.
After all the formalities, we dived into what they had been doing with the materials and what they needed to be more clear about. Our discussion provided clarity about the following specific issues:
1- Ha’adam and what happened in the Fall were understood more clearly by many.
2-Redemption brings back God’s ideal.
3-The teaching on submission, especially understanding the middle voice in the Greek, was especially helpful, particularly as we studied Paul’s message in Ephesians 5-6. One participant said: “ I have understood more about Agape Love, submission as demonstrated, especially lifting by voluntarily going down in order to make the other one better.”
4-That Jesus made sure the woman was the first post resurrection Apostle.
5- That man was in the garden when the woman was being tempted.
6-Another participant observed that culture blinds us, so that we are not able to see God’s ideal. He resolved to take the Word of God at face value, not interpret it using the lenses of culture.
7-Transformation begins with me!
By the third day, when the framework for understanding gender (Instructive, Descriptive and Corrective verses), were explained, and when the participants learned how to balance Scriptures by their historical, geographical, cultural and literary contexts, the whole place was exploding with “aha!aha!” and “Wow!” These wow moments are always worthwhile for Empower’s message to be propagated deeper and wider! (To hear another Empower Minister, Wayne Pelly, teach on this framework, watch this video.)
Participants understood that “Corrective verses” have been taken out of context and used by the enemy to stifle the voice and the potential of women in civic and ecclesiastical leadership and hampered their profitable participation in homes and other secular settings. It was encouraging to hear participants pledge to go and make a difference in their society.
The participants pledged to take the material seriously, and to go propagate it in their areas of jurisdiction as well as beyond. SPILL pledged to work with them by providing Empower materials and joining them where needed.
It was a wonderful three days, and thankfully the coronavirus had not yet shown its true colors so all participants were able to travel home safely.
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.