By Pastor Frank Michael Tweheyo
Driving in Kigali City these days gives you a tremendous sense of fulfillment and appreciation to God, since what happened in Rwanda twenty years ago is still fresh in the minds of many around the world. New buildings have sprouted and are mushrooming everywhere. Cleanliness on the streets and buildings surpass many cities and towns around Africa. People are proud of who they are and they are fighting hard to overcome what happened twenty years ago and its aftermath. Save for official genocide memorials which will often leave first time visitors speechless, Rwanda is a real land of Hope, beautiful and promising. Thank God that Empower has a humble contribution to this transformation.
Overlooking the uptown Kigali is the Kaciru hill that houses many important government offices, embassies, hotels, etc. and is serene and pacific. Here is the beautiful Scripture Union premises that has hosted Empower training both in 2012 and last month, July 17-18.
Charlotte from International Justice Mission coordinated this Master Class training and was jointly planning with Pastor Francis Mutabazi of Christ Gospel Church who is the Empower’s representative in Rwanda and Frank. These three had several meetings to plan for the Master Class. David and Sarah Nutter together with Frank Tweheyo facilitated the training.
The Master Class was attended by those participants from the 2012 Empower-IJM New Man New Woman New Life training who reside in Kigali and the periphery. Some few came from Christ Gospel Church as Empower has conducted several trainings with them.
It was gratifying to hear the testimonies of the 2012 participants in the NMNW seminar.
One participant reported that after the seminar, he reconciled with his wife after twenty five years of separation. His son had been ganging up with the mother against the father, but after realizing that the father had changed, not only reconciled with his father, he gave his life to the Lord also.
Another one saw his children come back to the Lord and the church after he changed the way he was treating them and their mother.
Yet another saw couples reconcile after sharing with them from the NMNW material.
We had seen in 2012 a man who employed many people in his carpentry workshop. Convicted by the biblical material in the seminar that he was mistreating his employees, he left the seminar to go back to his shop to pay them and apologize to them.
God is bringing transformation in many people’s hearts, lives, families, churches and cultures because of the New Life teachings-praise God!
While we still saw blame placed on woman as the originator of sin from some participants, others vehemently put the Genesis 2 and 3 in its proper perspective, as well as redemption as taught by Jesus and Paul.
Participants have been teaching these truths in house groups, church fellowships and few in Sunday services to the whole church ever since 2012. Many use the material in their pre-marriage counseling as well as marriage seminars. The few who still held to the cultural practices of domination of women gave it up in this Master Class.
After two days of deliberations, the participants resolved to have a committee to oversee the work in Kigali. So now we officially have Empower-Kigali Chapter committee in place to oversee the spread of this transformational and dynamic teaching of how agape Love transforms humankind to be a New Man, New Woman and live in a New transformed Life that respects everyone irrespective of race, color, gender or social status.
To God be the glory.
Frank Michael Tweheyo.