by Empower African Program Director, Pastor Frank Michael Tweheyo
Empower got another turn for the better by engaging young high school minds with the Empower material last weekend.
Phobice and I drove to Kasese , some 350 km away from Kabale for a weekend Empower mission with students of Rwenzori High School.
BBUC Empower alumni, Rev. Alice Nabirye , who coordinated Empower at Bishop Barham Universrity College, while studying from there , was our host. She is the Anglican Chaplain as well as a teacher at the same school . She chosen a few students from each class and we ended up with an equally distributed number of students amounting to 5 .
Needless to say that these students are very clever and openly engaging. We gave them discussion questions and they engaged like adults.
We asked, “How would you like your marriage to be different from your parents marriage?”
They don’t want polygamy.
They hate witchcraft.
They want to marry in church.
They want to respect their wives and share life with them.
They want to pray with their wives.
This was group discussion but when they came back to report out it was amazing .
Phobice took time to discuss answers with them after report outs. Great engagements! I sat there drinking in and just happy to see high school kids with that level of understanding.
Next we gave them the manual and I did the overview sermon. They were eagerly drinking in every information. Ezer kenegdo, patriarchy, submission, love, etc. They were at the edge of their seats.
They all agreed with Rev. Alice to learn a chapter every week.
By the time we had the last session with them, 14 students had given their lives to the Lord. What a joy!
We were scheduled to meet with the Bishop of the Anglican Diocese of South Rwenzori but another of our BBUC alumni who had made the appointment, Rev. Jeneva Terangoma , fell very ill. We therefore missed the appointment but left the gift to him, Carrie’s book, The Redemption of Love, with the two wonderful reverends who will take it to him while introducing Empower to him.
This opportunity to meet and engage young minds has added to our desired goal of reaching the unmarried in order to prepare them for the social cultural, challenges ahead and how to overcome them.