Several Empower ministers are traveling to Africa this summer to bring a variety of training seminars to people who are eager to learn. We will have teams in Malawi, Uganda and Tanzania.
We could not do this important work without your prayers and support. Thank you! (If you’d like to make a tax-deductible contribution to this summer’s trips, click here.)
Here’s a summary of the upcoming trips. We’ll be highlighting each in more detail in the coming days and weeks. If you haven’t done so already, be sure to subscribe to our blog so that you won’t miss any updates.
Empower Minister Sally Bryant will be in Malawi (her ninth trip there!) starting this weekend.
Suzy Powers with His 2 Offer (H20) is making her first trip to Africa this summer, joining Sally in Malawi July 22 – August 5th. Susy is a reading specialist whose expertise is a welcome addition to the training. They will conduct two train-the-teacher workshops in Mulanje, Malawi for village volunteers. For many children, this is their only hope of an education.
Because of a request from our ministry partner, Sally and Susy will also be working with pastors’ wives to teach them soul care practices as well as how to lead a group and deal with conflict.
Sally will return as a speaker to the Southern Africa Conference of Independent Evangelical Churches (August 2-5) to present an abridged version of the New Man, New Woman, New Life material.
Empower Ministers Francine and Dan Thomas will be traveling this month to Tanzania. They have gone there to teach Empower seminars for many years. This year, they will be accompanied by Francine’s brother Frank and his wife Sheila. They leave this Tuesday, July 24, and will be in Africa through August 7.
They will be teaching seminars at Chemba village, conducting five classes on each of their two days there. The next day, they’ll offer a sermon and testimonies at the Church of the Good Shepherd in Kondoa. From there, they’ll visit several villages. They’ll offer sermons and testimonies at some, then teach seminars in the village of Wekesa. For more details on their trip, check the blog next week.
Linda Ikeda and Sue Kerrigan, RN will be going to Rwanda and Malawi August 8-25. In Byumba, Rwanda (about 1.5 hours outside of the capitol city of Kigali) they will be working with new partners through Bishop Emmauel Ngendehayo of the Anglican Church, and presenting Created to Belong and Healing From Trauma, along with the Women’s Health class.
Then they travel all night by plane, to Blantyre, Malawi. From Blantyre, they’ll travel to the Mulange area and teach the Master Class for Created to Belong in Phalombe, and for the first time ever in another location, the new Master Class for Healing From Trauma. Sue will be teaching her Women’s Health class in both locations.
Empower Minister Wayne Pelly is traveling to Uganda and Malawi in August. Wayne will join with Frank Tweheyo, Empower’s Africa Program Director, to conduct a New Man, New Woman, New Life seminar at Kampala Evangelical School of Theology (KEST), continuing a partnership already begun by Frank. They will be in Kampala August 20-22.
While in Kampala, both Frank and Wayne will attend a conference August 23-25. The conference, sponsored by partner ministry Ekklesia Foundation for Gender Education (EFOGE), is entitled “Faith and Gender: Equality for Women and Men in the Church and Society.” Wayne will speak on “Women’s Role in the Church: Considering ‘The Whole Counsel of God’” and Frank will speak on “Gender and Redemption.”
Following the conference, August 27 through September 8, Wayne will spend two weeks in Mzuzu, (northern) Malawi, teaming with Pastor Arnold Phiri, Empower’s Coordinator for Malawi. They will conduct two New Man, New Woman seminars, one with the local synod of the Central Church of Africa, Presbyterian, continuing the partnership we formed last year, and one with a new partner, an African Indigenous Church.
Be sure to check back in coming weeks when we will share more details about these trips. And please be praying for our teams!
