In rural areas of Northern Uganda, strong patriarchal cultural practices take a toll on marriages and families. Even Christian families and churches tend to follow these practices, which demean women and treat them like slaves.
When a woman marries into a family, the family pays a dowry or bride price for her, which tends to make them believe that they have purchased a slave rather than welcomed a partner or family member. Because of this hierarchical and transactional relationship, the wife does all or most of the household work. That includes having to fetch water from as far as three miles away, work the garden, cook, and wash clothes for the whole family. Worst of all, any men in the family who contributed to the bride price (which often means the husband’s brother, father and others) have sexual access to the woman.
One might wonder how our training on equality would be received in this challenging context. Miraculously, a spirit of repentance and willingness to change often results from our New Man, New Woman, New Life training.
Empower Uganda President Pastor Joyce Ouko and her husband Rev. Julius Ouko recently traveled to Lokung, in the Lamwo District of Northern Uganda, to conduct a training at the Mustard Seed Church. They made the arduous 14 hour journey from Kampala to this village on the border of Uganda and Sudan.
Joyce recently emailed us about this training. Here is an edited version of her report.
Thanks are to God for His greatness.
Our sincere gratitude to the Empower Founder and international President, Dr. Carrie Miles, the dear Empower family, the untiring African Program Coordinator Rev. Frank and the Ugandan team of Facilitators for your continuous prayers and sacrificial contributions towards the success of empowering the Ugandan church and family with the Word of God.
We were warmly welcomed by our host Pastor Thomas Akera and his dear wife Eunice in Kitgum town.
This time round, we not only provided Empower training, but also, at the request of our host church’s team, officially launched Mustard Seed Ministry Church by ordaining the pastoral team and dedicating the children.
The Mustard Seed Ministry had been functioning for one year but had not yet officially been launched. It was a very timely training for the pastoral team not only for Mustard Seed churches but for a number of denominational pastors who turned up for the training.
The training bore much fruit. Participants came to understand that the Word of God is above culture, something they hadn’t considered before. Moreover, we saw concrete evidence of their changed hearts. For example, Acholi culture teaches that women are of less value compared to men. This cultural belief impacts life everywhere. Even in the church, men sit in high places while women sit in low places.
The second day of the training, we noticed that men freely sat with their wives, and seemed very happy. One gentleman even refused to present because he was to present within his team. He repented the following day and demonstrated love to his wife.
As often happens in our training, when we look closely at Genesis 3, people’s eyes were opened. The pastors and church leaders came to know that sin is not entirely blamed on the woman alone, because they were surprised to read in the book of Genesis that Adam himself was present when the serpent was conversing with Eve and did nothing to stop the sin temptation.
Before our training, men in this area could not carry their own babies. This reflected what culture believes about what a man should and should not do. But again, we saw a radical transformation. On the second and third day of the training, we saw men breaking away from culture and holding their babies. The babies, the men and the women were all joyful as a result.
When we asked participants to tell us how this training impacted them, here are some things they said:
- Pr Thomas told us the training was very productive, and it impacted his thinking on the burdened cultural practices.
- Innocent, a married pastor, testified that the Empower training expanded our knowledge of God and His Word. He said, “We have been oppressing women based on cultural norms, our marriages and families have not been happy. But now after the training we are happy, because we understand that a woman is equally special before God.”
- Irene, a new woman leader, told us she did not have organized material to teach women. But after the training, she has already started teaching and encouraging women using the Empower New Man, New Woman, New Life curriculum. Irene also works as a head teacher in one of the primary schools, she is planning to use the same content to disciple her staff.
May God richly bless your kind giving and prayers. It’s our prayer that God opens financial doors for His work to continue in Uganda through Empower International, for the need for leaders to be trained is high.