This report was written our host in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Milly Ibanda.
This program is important because Pastor Milly (a man, by the way, married to a powerful woman minister, Agnes) has been waiting patiently for this program since 2012. We didn’t dare send Americans – or rather, none of us Americans dared to go – because of all the violence that DRC has suffered recently. But in keeping with our mission to empower African leaders to transform their own countries, we were delighted to be able to send a team from Uganda.
From October 21st to 23rd, 2015, The Democratic Republic of Congo welcomed the first ever training seminar of Empower International Ministries. Congo DRC especially Eastern DRC has suffered greatly for over two decades from civil wars and mass rape. Goma city was one time named world rape capital because of mass atrocities and rape. We received a team of facilitators led by Africa Program Director, Frank Tweheyo and his wife Pastor Phobice Tweheyo, accompanied by Rev. Canon Jovahn Turyamureeba of Bishop Barham University College.
It was an honor, privilege and blessing for us to welcome such a team and to attend this transformative seminar. Participants were thrilled to discover new things in the Bible, to read the Bible as it is written and removing our harmful beliefs. Among the discoveries were:
1) The fact that God created man and woman, and that before the creation of a woman, the man was not called man but human being. In fact, to add on that, participants understood that both man and woman were created in the image of God;
2) Another discovery was that God did not curse the woman as it is perceived here in our culture and beliefs. This kind of Empower ministry teaching is very important in a country like ours where men are regarded as superior and women inferior. We are dominated with patriarchy society; a country where women pastors are not encouraged to ministry and looked as backslider.
We call upon EIM to come back again to DRC and send more teams and facilitators in order to equip more servant of God with this kind of transformative teachings. Also, we would like to encourage EIM to not follow what media are propagating about Eastern Congo. Congo DRC is safe, and we take seriously the safety of our visitors and guests here. When we invite you, kindly come and you may be surprised to see a number of other nationals working and living here.
To add on that, I would like to inform you that Congo is big in terms of size, a quarter of the size of the USA, with more than 450 tribes or ethnic groups. This requires multiple training in order to reach out to as many as possible people with this message: New Man, New Woman, New Life.
We would not end this report without saying: A big Thank you to Dr. Carrie Miles for honoring her promise to send a team of EIM to Congo, we are very grateful for that. Thank you too to the Tweheyos and Rev. Canon Jovahn for accepting facilitating this seminar; Thank you to all EIM Board team and whoever contributed financially and prayerfully to make possible this training.
May God richly bless all!
Yours,
Milly&Rev. Agnes Ibanda