Longtime Empower partner St. Paul’s University in Limuru, Kenya again welcomed Empower Africa Director Frank Tweheyo last month for both a Master Class and a Training of Trainers workshop. Here is Part One of Frank’s encouraging report.
I was again overjoyed to travel on behalf of Empower to Kenya from Feb 20th to March 6th. During this time, we conducted a Master Class for a very exciting and unique group at St. Paul’s University (which was drawn from several seminars conducted before at the same place), A Training of Trainers and a seminar that combined the three campuses of the Teen Challenge. The Master Class is designed for participants who’ve gone through the New Man, New Woman, New Life training previously, and now go through it again so that they can be prepared to teach it to others.
The Master Class was exciting because it included a couple, James and Jacinta Mbogo, who had been married for seven years, then separated for eight years. But their story didn’t end there.
Thanks to the influence of the Bishop and his wife, Godfrey and Rosemary Kamau, James and Jacinta are now back together—and have been for six years. We lovingly referred to them “couple 7.8.6.” We were delighted that both this couple, and the Bishop and his wife attended the Master Class together.
The Bishop and his wife chose this couple to attend the seminar with them, as well as the Master Class, because the two couples plan to unite efforts in spreading the Redemption message that in Christ all is possible including reconciliation after a long time of separation.
Both couples were so inspired with the New Man, New Woman, New Life teachings, as well as by the Master Class, they plan to work together to facilitate Marriage Enrichment Seminars, based on the NMNWNL material.
The Master Class had participants drawn from a variety of churches and denominations, including: the Pentecostal and Evangelical churches, the Anglican Church of Kenya, the Presbyterian Church of East Africa. Many local civic leaders also attended.
Civic leaders often eagerly attend our trainings, hoping to find ways to deal with issues that plague the family in Kenya. One attendee, Dr. Campbell Margaret Mumbi, is a leader at a very high level with Kenya Power (the electricity regulatory authority). Another participant, Faith Kabiru, is a trainer with many civic and ecclesiastical connections. She is already recommending our resources to these connections, which will open doors for future trainings. We’re grateful for her endorsement.
We also had our first online student, Ven. Rev. Scholastica, who is a lecturer at St. Paul’s University in Limuru, but was on a three-week assignment to Lilongwe, the Capital of Malawi in Southern Africa. She arranged her schedules in such a way that she was with us online, participating as much as she could. Her participation underscored the need for us to begin thinking about how to include online trainings as and when it is necessary.
Participants were able to delve deeper into the studies, especially those they had not understood well in seminar. (The Master Class revisits the NMNWNL curriculum, with the goal of helping the participants prepare to teach it to others.)
We went deep to understand ezer kenegdo, ha’adam, kephale (headship) and hypotasso (Submission). (For more on these terms, look at the curriculum for NMNWNL here). The lesson on the framework for understanding gender was very well received and discussed positively, especially the corrective verses.
Engaging in these studies in groups and having enough time to discuss them also helped the participants to understand the difference between descriptive and instructive verses of the Bible. Because of this, they understood and appreciated that 1 Corinthians 14: 34-35 and 1 Timothy 2: 12-15 were indeed meant to be corrective, rather than instructive.
The new Director of SPILL (St. Paul Institute of Lifelong Learning) and St. Paul’s Enterprise Unit, Dr. Mwangi, joined Dr. Zablon Bundi to grace our final session and hand out certificates.
Participants went back on fire to go and take the message of the New Man, New Woman, New Life to their communities, churches, and families.
