Empower was recently able to conduct a New Man, New Woman, New Life Master Class training in Arua City, in the West Nile area of Uganda. It was led by Joyce Ouko, president of Empower Uganda; her husband Julius; and Pastor Frank Michael Tweheyo, Empower Africa Director.
The Master Class is for leaders who have already completed the New Man, New Woman, New Life initial training. In this follow up training, they report on how they have applied what they learned, and also receive training on how to teach the materials to others.
Here is Part Two of Frank’s report on the training (edited for length and clarity). You can read Part One by clicking here.
In Arua City, Uganda, and the surrounding area, men who help their wives with household chores are looked down upon by their peers and often, their families. Women have very few rights, and men are the decision makers. But when these couples attend Empower training, these power dynamics begin to change.
In fact, when a wife cooks a chicken for a family meal, the most prized delicacy, the gizzard, is reserved for her husband. She is lucky if she gets to eat any of the meat. Typically, women in the household are allowed only the grains and vegetables, not chicken, and most certainly not the gizzard.
In a way, the gizzard represents power. A gizzard in our African cultures is treated as a delicacy that is supposed to be reserved only for the man in the house or a dignitary visiting the home.
For a woman to cook and fail to give the gizzard to the husband means that the husband is being demeaned. Doing so can actually result in beatings, or at worst divorce.
It is part of those patriarchal cultural practices that seek to lift the man high above the woman. The gizzard is not necessarily the most tasty part of the chicken. Rather, it just gives the man power.
After couples attend our training, they are inspired to change, to put Biblical equality into practice in their families. They work hard to challenge cultural norms—especially ones that have a deeper meaning related to power. At our recent Master Class, this topic elicited a lively discussion. Pastors report that they help cook and clean, and let their wives be a part of family decision making. But giving up their exclusive rights to the chicken gizzard? That’s a bit harder to do, and they said they needed time to make that transition.
Pastors and their wives report change
One participant, Pastor Okumu, said that as a result of the NMNW training, he has learned to make marriage a better place for him, his wife and children. Their children are now learning a lot from them as parents because they have changed many things that they used to do. For example (against cultural expectations), Pastor Okumu now helps his wife in cooking and washing dishes. He’s also stood by his wife when the rest of his family members are throwing words about how “this wife” is changing the husband’s cultural expectations.
Pastor Israel, another participant, said that he now believes it is no longer a role of his wife to do everything at home. It is no longer uncomfortable for him to mop the house and to help in cooking and he has no guilt about it!
While discussing all these, it was agreed by participants that biblical truths like submission are a process, not everything can change in an instant. They talked about how it is important to keep bringing our failures at the feet of Jesus and say, ” I come just as I am,” but never to give up. Change happens, but sometimes it takes a while.
One woman said that she always wanted to be the winner in an argument (cultural expectations not withstanding), and it was about to break her marriage. However, since going through the initial New Man, New Woman, New Life training, she’s changed. She has put her pride down and now accepts her husband’s input into the decision making process.
Pastor Joel said that he now allows his wife to sell what they produce and keep/manage the family finances, which was never the case previously. (He said that if it was not for the seminar, that could never have happened).
For most men, issues of headship (which have so much cultural attachment to them) and practical issues like eating the chicken gizzard are still issues they are working through. They said that they still needed time to transition from the cultural norms to the redemption truth.
The section of the training on “The Framework for Understanding Gender in the Bible (The Descriptive, Instructive and Corrective verses)” was a great eye-opener for the participants. The Advanced studies of 1 Corinthians 14: 34-35 and 1 Timothy 2: 12-15) were very lively group studies and the report-outs were well presented.
As I gave the talk on “Redeeming the Changing Family,” we contextualized the information to Uganda’s (and Africa’s) changing family phenomenon and we all agreed that the time to act is now, to live as well as teach these truths.
Overall it was a very successful training, considering the level of transformation already from the first seminar and the readiness to teach and/or challenge the cultural status quo to propel the church toward redemption and biblical equality.
This group of pastors asked Empower to do another training for a larger group, which was not available for the Master Class. They would also like us to facilitate another NMNWNL seminar for other pastors who did not attend the first time. We hope that we will be able to provide these trainings, as they are obviously bringing about tremendous change in families.
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