by Empower Minister Sally Bryant
We are not cursed?!?
Woman is also made in the image of God?
We are set free to love one another?
We have never heard teaching like that before. We know it comes from the Holy Spirit!
These are a few of the comments I heard over and over again from the pastors attending Empower’s New Man, New Woman, New Life workshop on the border of Malawi and Mozambique. Walking long distances to attend the workshop, the men and women leaned forward during the teaching, eager to soak in all the new teaching on God’s intention for husbands and wives, and to learn how they can love and respect one another. Both husbands and wives were so happy to learn that they can support one another, learn from one another, share burdens with one another.
We are not cursed. As we looked at Genesis 3 where God describes the consequences of sin we still bear today, the participants realized that God had not cursed them. Pastors told me, “I had never realized this before. We had a bad understanding of scripture, but now, thanks to your teaching, we see the truth.”
We are created in the image of God! This was a new understanding for them, that both man and woman are created in the image of God. A powerful moment of our time together was when the participants told one another they were created in the image of God.
Husbands are to love their wives. I asked the wives, “What makes you feel loved by your husband?” Many replied, “I feel loved when my husband listens to me, and lets me share in family decisions.” Women repeatedly say they feel voiceless, because their husbands do not ask for their ideas, nor do they listen to them. At our workshop, husbands pledged to share family decision-making with their wives, and they felt like a burden had been lifted from them when they realized God had given them a ezer kenegdo, a help equal to them, to determine the best actions to take to prosper their families.
Wives are to respect their husbands. I asked the husbands, “What makes you feel respected by your wife?” The most common response from the husbands was experiencing intimacy with their wives in the bedroom. We had an unusually frank discussion about intimacy, and how for women intimacy begins in the kitchen, not the bedroom.
As we neared the end of our time together, a procession began from the back of the church to the front, with each person presenting an offering of thanksgiving. This was incredibly moving, that those so poor would give so generously. They brought sugar cane, nuts, fruit, vegetables, a veritable bounty of blessing.
Pastor Arnold, Empower’s Malawi Coordinator, reports that the attendees are already planning to teach New Man, New Woman, New Life in their churches and to their young people.
