In October, several of our teams visited Kenya, bringing the message of biblical equality and mutual respect to a variety of audiences.
Empower Missionary Pam Frohreich, a retired attorney and former prosecutor for Los Angeles County, was among those traveling to Kenya. She and Pastor Frank Tweheyo, Empower’s director of African Operations, presented the New Man, New Woman, New Life seminar at Teen Challenge of Nairobi.
Teen Challenge is a Christ-centered, international residential drug treatment program serving adults as well as teens. Several leaders from the ministry had attended a presentation of NMNW in 2015, offered in Nairobi to pastoral leaders.
In 2015, Dr. Carrie Miles’ Empower team taught “New Man, New Woman, New Life” to pastoral leaders in Nairobi, Kenya. In that group were ten leaders of Teen Challenge.
They were so enthused about the content of the seminar that they invited Empower to return to Nairobi to present the NMNW program to 50 men and women in their program.
Initially, Dr. Miles expressed concern about whether the NMNW content was a good fit for this audience. The program is typically presented to pastors and church leaders and their spouses. The goal is that participants would incorporate their new understanding of Scripture into their own relationships, and then take the training to their home churches. She wasn’t sure if the material would connect with mostly single people. But Teen Challenge leaders said that whether the participants are single or married, “our residents need strong Christian relationships too.”
So, on October 5-7, Pastor Frank and Pam presented the NMNW Bible Study at the Teen Challenge Center in Nairobi. They were joined on the last day by Dr. Miles herself, and retired educator Donell Peck. Donell presented a new segment about the Christian view of sexuality, which was particularly well received.
The director of the Nairobi residence, Joseph Kajani, remarked after the first day of working with the NMNW studies that the residents liked the materials and concepts, which they found both to be understandable and easy to discuss. The individual study groups reflected that understanding, as they each “reported out” their assigned chapters to the rest of the group.
The participating rehab residents were men and women ranging in age from 17 to their mid-40’s, most were in their 20’s and 30’s. They appeared to be especially responsive to Pastor Frank, with his warm style, and occasional use of native languages and humorous well-known idioms.
The Teen Challenge international leadership said that the program had such a strong impact for their residents that they are determined to bring it to their centers, not only in Africa, but around the world.
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