In every season of 2019, your faithful giving enabled us to share life-changing, biblical truth about relationships. Whether teaching on equality, sexuality, trauma or parenting, our seminars changed lives, families and entire communities.
As we look forward to 2020, we have some amazing invitations and opportunities. Our dream is that you will partner with us to allow us to say yes to these requests for teaching and training that allows men and women to discover for themselves the truth that sets all people free.
Winter
A chance meeting in California led to an exciting opportunity to partner with the Presbyterian Church of East Africa, a huge denomination headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya. The PCEA includes 4 million members in more than 1,000 congregations, 310 parishes and hundreds of house fellowships.
When Empower team members in Tustin, CA, happened to meet Rev. Rob Ngugi, director of missions of the PCEA, we ended up being invited to train the top leaders at the PCEA.
In February, Empower President Dr. Carrie Miles and Empower Minister Donell Peck flew to Kampala, Uganda, where they were joined by African Program Director Frank Tweheyo. The three of them led a Master Class (advanced training for those who have already participated in the basic seminar) at the Kampala Evangelical School of Theology (KEST). Last May, Donell and Frank led the second New Man, New Woman, New Life seminar there. The school was eager to have our team return.
From there, they went on to Nairobi, Kenya, where they were joined by Empower Minister Pamela Frohreich to conduct the training for the PCEA leaders.
Like leaders around the globe, denominational leaders in the PCEA are concerned about family deterioration, and they are looking for creative solutions to bring biblical truth to families throughout East Africa. New Man, New Woman, New Life seemed the perfect solution. They plan to follow our train-the-trainer model. The seminar we facilitated was for their key leaders, who will now take the program down to the grass-roots level themselves.
Our team also led a Master Class at St. Paul’s University in Limuru, Kenya. We have been conducting one seminar and one master class a year there, but demand is growing so rapidly that we added a second seminar in December.
Carrie also spoke at Presbyterian University in Kikuyu, Kenya, and conducted a couple’s breakfast at Africa International University. Pam and Frank led a seminar at Teen Challenge, where we have also visited several times in the past.
Spring
Empower partners Apokla Ben and Bendang Toshi are based in Guwahati, Assam, which is the largest city in northern India.
In May, they hosted a total of nearly 200 people for four seminars in Longpang and Hukphang, Nagaland. Nagaland’s population is primarily Christian, but quite patriarchal, so the message of Biblical equality challenges their perceptions, but is sorely needed.
Also in May, Empower African Program Director Pastor Frank Tweheyo was scheduled to attend a program in Kenya. Unfortunately, the training was cancelled. Frank, however, was undeterred. Besides, his flight was non-refundable. So off he went, to network with Empower’s many new partners in Kenya, and share his inspiring testimony.
He was able to follow up on the training we did for the PCEA. One Master Class graduate he met with, Nancy Wanjiru, told him what she has been doing with the knowledge she learned, including helping a nearly divorced couple to come back together.
He was also invited by another PCEA pastor, George Mwaura, of Banana parish in Ruaka area, to talk to his Women’s Guild meeting. Frank not only shared some of the Empower content, but told his testimony about he and his wife being blessed with twins after years of hoping and praying for children. Many were impacted by this testimony.
He also met with our frequent partner, Teen Challenge. We talked about future plans with Empower, so that everyone who comes into the Teen Challenge program gets a chance to go through the New Man, New Woman, New Life seminar. They testify that it is one of the most important programs so far for their participants.
He also visited Africa International University, where he met with the leaders of a couples ministry to discuss the possibility of bringing New Man, New Woman, New Life to the university.
Summer
Empower Ministers Linda Ikeda, RN MFT and Sue Kerrigan, RN, traveled in July to work in Malawi and Rwanda. (Read their full report here.) In Mzuzu, Malawi, Linda and Sue taught Women’s Health and Anatomy, our immensely impactful sex education seminar; Created to Belong; and Healing from Trauma, for the first time in this part of the country.
They had been invited by Pastor Arnold Mphulupupu Phiri, Empower’s Malawi Director. Empower’s work is well established in the southern part of Malawi around Blantyre, but this trip took our team to Mzuzu, about 375 miles away.
From there, Linda and Sue traveled to Byumba, Rwanda, where they first presented the material last year. The Anglican Diocese has invited them back to teach the same three classes to new and returning students.
Empower Minister Sally Bryant also traveled to Blantyre, Malawi on July, and together with Arnold Phiri. They facilitated a New Man, New Woman, New Life seminar in Luchenza, near Mulanje. This village is close to the Malawi-Mozambique border.
On the same trip, the first week of August, Sally facilitated another Train the Teacher seminar at King Solomon Academy, at the invitation of Headmaster Arsene Nikurunziz. Read her full report here.
Autumn
Empower Minister Wayne Pelly returned to Kigali, Rwanda and Mzuzu, Malawi from mid-August through early September for Empower, where he and Empower Africa Director Frank Tweheyo led several trainings together. In Kigali, they presented a New Man, New Woman, New Life seminar, and then returned again as presenters at the EFOGE (Ecclesia Foundation for Gender Education) conference.
In Mzuzu, they facilitated two Master Classes (with the same groups who did NMNW last year), which involves participants reporting their experiences applying the teachings during the past year. A wide variety of people from several different independent churches attended the training. Pastor Blackson, a local pastor, has been teaching the material all around the area, and brought several people for the Master Class. (Learn more here.)
Frank reported that after a past seminar, a group of pastors went back to their homes and started challenging men in their community meetings to stop mistreating their wives in the name of culture. This was a huge contribution toward community transformation!
And here at Empower, that is an important goal: to transform families so that entire communities can be changed for the better!
From there, Frank and Wayne went on to the EFOGE Conference.
Wayne presented a paper at on “Women’s Role in Church: Considering ‘The Whole Counsel Of God.’” (Read it here.) It was very well received and Wayne distributed copies of the paper to each participant for further study.
At EFOGE, Frank led one of the four workshops, on “Patriarchy, Bride Price and Social Injustice in Africa.” Workshop participants found it to be very helpful and he was asked to present it to the whole plenary the next day. Indeed, it touched many people and many men decided to change the way they have been dealing with bride price in their cultural dynamics.
We’re incredibly thankful for God’s provision in 2019, and looking forward to 2020. We hope that you’ll help us to say yes to the many churches and leaders who are eager to be set free by the truth of the Bible.