Empower Minister Sally Bryant recently traveled to Malawi (for the 10th time!) and Rwanda. Your prayers and faithful giving opened the door to changing lives of families, and of orphans. The training broke cultural yokes, setting people free. She taught New Man, New Woman, New Life, and also conducted teacher training. Here is her report.
Thank you for praying for me while I was in Malawi and Rwanda. Your prayers were felt and greatly appreciated!
I am so thankful to say that all my bags, including 100-plus white boards, 35 wall quilts (to teach math skills) for the school being started on the Malawi/Mozambique border, 50 backpacks for the students, and new coats for “my” kids at the orphanage in Mulanje, arrived safely!
Training Highlights:
My 10th trip to Malawi focused in Mulanje, near the border of Mozambique. Empower Malawi Director Pastor Arnold Mphulupulu Phiri (and my translator for the past 10 years) has created Empower committees in Mulanje, Phalombe and Mzuzu. These committees not only help multiply the effectiveness of Empower’s work, they are opening up new opportunities for us, including an invitation from an African church in Mulanje to present the New Man, New Woman, New Life seminar. According to Pastor Arnold, the African churches are very bound by cultural traditions and do not allow women to speak in their church services. The NMNWNL training went very well!
The Empower committee, aided and encouraged by Pastor Arnold, did an excellent job in planning and organizing the workshop.
On the first day, we had 30 men and four women attending. By the end of the first day, the men were saying, “We must have our wives attend this training.” All 30 men returned, and 10 women joined us on the second and third days of training. This is a significant change for these churches!
At the end of our training, the participants engaged in a time of confession and repentance. I was so touched to see many kneeling on the rough concrete floor to seek God’s forgiveness.
Sarah, one of the women attending the training, is a beautiful young woman with shoulder-length, relaxed curls. Her first husband died, leaving her with two children. She remarried. When that husband became ill, people started saying she was cursed because both husbands became ill. Unfortunately, this is not unusual in Malawi where illness is often seen as a curse. And this is especially true when a wife’s second husband gets sick. She is often shunned by the community and seen as “damaged goods.”
The community accused Sarah of “killing her husbands.” Her second husband is still alive, but has left her and their two-year-old child because she is “cursed.” She is now a single mother raising a two-year-old, as well as a ten-year-old daughter and twelve-year-old son from her first marriage. For her to hear that God has not cursed her was so powerful! It truly gave her new life.
Rex is a genial man with a lovely smile, and was so engaged with the training. He said, “I will never forget this training. God is at work. I’m changed. I’ve learned to treat my wife with kindness. Today my wife will be surprised. You have helped us.”
Several women commented: “This training has changed my life because I didn’t know I should respect my husband. I will teach others to respect their husbands in church. I am changed because of this training. In the past, I was denied [a voice] in church and I am now encouraged much. I am empowered to start ministries to teach our friends.”
One man said: “This is very good training to love. I will take these materials to teach in churches. For everything to be okay we need to respect one another. You must come again! This is the first time since I was born to hear materials like this.”
The Bishop was a strong encourager of this training. He consistently addressed me as “woman of God.” He said, “This training has broken the cultural yoke for Malawi. No more ‘boss’ in the house to fear. During our lessons, we have been receiving ‘lunch’ because the teaching is so rich.”
These changes in attitude truly transform the communities we visit.
The Teacher Training workshop was held in an area of Mulanje we’ve not visited before. At present there is no school in this area, so there was high anticipation for the training. It is always a challenge to train teachers how to teach when they lack books, papers, and even electricity! It is always a joy to see how these women and men are able to prepare a lesson plan and teach it by the end of our time together!
Since we started the teacher training, we have had about 700 kids receiving a preK through 3rd grade education: children who otherwise would have no education at all. At the end of our time together, I was told: “You must come back. You don’t give a child nsima (a favorite food) once and not again. You must return.”
The second round of Teacher Training was in Byumba, Rwanda, a new location for me, but not for Empower. Byumba is near the border with Uganda, and about an hour-and-half from the capital city of Kigali.
I was hosted by the Headmaster of King Solomon Academy, Mr. Arsene Nkurunziza. They have a lovely, well-equipped school, so our training focused on how students learn, how to teach students with disabilities, and how to include more participatory learning in their classes.
Grateful for your prayers!
I am ALWAYS grateful for your prayers, and especially so while I was traveling to Rwanda: The first leg of my flights to Rwanda was canceled without notice; the flight I was rescheduled on was delayed, giving me a very good chance of missing my next flight (and final flight of the day). Fortunately, they held that flight, which was then delayed due to a fire in the #1 engine. After arriving in Rwanda (an 11 hour journey) we embarked on the second most frightening road trip of my life (the first remains the bus journey from Zambia to Malawi). Imagine…a righthand drive car in a left- hand drive nation with dim headlights, no seat belts, veering off the road as we barrel around corners on a steep, pitch dark mountain road with sheer drop offs.
Add in men coming out of the darkness trying to flag us down, being pulled over by a man with a rifle (fortunately he turned out to be police). It was an hour and a half of terror.
I was thankful to arrive at 2 a.m. to a very rustic guesthouse where one fills up the toilet tank with a jug of water thoughtfully provided by management in order to flush the toilet.
It was a very long day – capped off when the headmaster told me we were going to the training by motorcycle. I am grateful he was able to find a closer location!
It’s said that “you drive two cars in Malawi,” and I had ample opportunity to observe this. The location for our first training required a long drive over a heavily rutted dirt road. Pastor Arnold decided to get his driver’s license last year, in part to help Empower save money. He said much of his driver’s ed training was spent learning how to drive on dirt roads, especially during the rainy season.
Cyclone Idai hit Mozambique and parts of Malawi last March, damaging roads and bridges. This gave us the opportunity to experience several crossings over a rickety, one-way bridge filled to overflowing with overloaded trucks, cars, bicycles carrying loads bigger than the men pushing them, while noticing how the erosion from storm resulted in a significant lack of structural integrity.
As always, I love reading the road signs! This year I spotted “Beauty from Ashes” beauty shop; “Difficult to Understand” grocery store; and “Divine Destiny” primary school.
Other Highlights
I was asked to preach in one of the African churches, perhaps the first time ever they have had a woman preach. The worship was rich! I always visit the chief of the village where our school and orphanage is located. As we drove into her village, the children playing outside started to shout, “It’s the chief’s friend!” as they ran alongside the car.
The chief is not doing well. She is more frail and in pain, but she immediately welcomed me, stroking my hand and saying, “Thank you for not forgetting us, thank you for coming,” over and over. She is grooming her son to become chief in her place. Empower coordinator Arnold says he is a good man and they are happy he will become chief.
The children at the orphanage are thriving! They have grown so much! One has graduated high school and is in her second (and final) year working towards a diploma in community health. One child is currently in high school, and four will start next year. These children were homeless, lacking hope, but now they can plan to attend high school. You make a difference in the lives of so many!
Thanks to your support, children are receiving an education; husbands and wives see their marriages restored; churches welcome both man and woman as being created in the image of God; and women like Sarah realize they have not been cursed by God. Thank you for praying and partnering with me!
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