Empower International Ministry News

Empower International Ministries recently completed a trip to the African countries of Uganda and Burundi.

Click for trip reports for 2008 from

Empower (Carrie Miles) Linda Ikeda Betsy Anderson

Frank Tweheyo's report on the family in Malawi

Empower International/Uganda update

Family Empower Project in Burundi is underway

The Anglican diocese of Matana, Burundi, has proposed that Empower partner with them in a multi-year Family Empowerment project. At the invitation of the archbishop of Burundi, Carrie Miles and Frank Tweheyo spent a week in June 2008 meeting with the team and conducting some preliminary programs and research. The following letter from project leader Ribakare Pontien highlights some of the issues with which they are dealing.

Family Empowerment team with Archbishop Ntohoturi Bernard

Need:

Dear Carrie,

Greetings in Jesus’ name. I hope you are well as we are here in Matana Diocese. All the family members are well, Eularie still remembers you well and longs to see you again.

Surely I was so happy to hear that you are about to come back to Matana, and since i have heard it I keep praying for you that God will use you as He did the other time.

I would therefore want to tell you about some of the Burundi cultural issues which need to be dealt with:

When a woman get married and fails to get either children or gives birth to only girls, in Burundi culture she is not seen well by her husband's family, sometimes she is threatened and sent away and her husband can marry another women. Normally, the Burundi culture doesn't treat equally boys and girls, rather boys seem to have high value and dignity than girls.

Again, when a girl fails to get married or her marriage fails to last and returns home, she now undergoes threats from both her parents and her brothers using the aggressive vernacular expression like:" IGISUBIRAMUHIRA" just meaning someone who hasn't any where to go. This is not supposed to inherit anything from her parents, but only boy have rights to inherit from their parents whereas girls are overlooked.

Another big issue that young people use to talk about concerns the lack of freedom in decision making. Parents require a big dowry that many boys cannot get, and as consequence there are girls who fail to get married although they are cherished by their fiancés simply because their parents are not pleased with the dowry, ethnicity or the economic condition of the guys...

To be short, I would like to inform you that there are a number of cultural issues to deal with and as I told you we have a lot of work as we seek to teach people to get out of their old beliefs and practices. However, thanks be to God because Christians are gradually overcoming such behavior because they have come to know that in Christ men and women are one and equal. Our task is to keep sowing such a spirit in people’s hearts.

When you come you will be told even other challenges like polygamy...but in between I shall send you a project proposal writing which will show you clearly the major problems to deal with.

Again thank you dear Carrie for your love and commitment to the work of God and specifically in Burundi-Matana diocese because God has sent you in the right time when many people need to hear, learn and know the value and dignity of anybody created in God's image.

God bless you richly and convey our greetings to all without forgetting Patti.

With love, Pontien RIBAKARE

Frank is traveling to Burundi in August 2008 to work with the core group. Carrie will return in June 2009.

Bright is in the US!

Bright Arinaitwe, Carrie's Ugandan research assistant and Empower's soon-to-be filmmaker, is currently in the USA. The guest of Empower missionary Linda Ikeda and her husband Russ, Bright spent the last year attending DeAnza College in Cupertino, California, in order to acquire the technical skills required for film production. These skills are not taught in Uganda, nor almost anywhere else in Africa. We are interested in developing films to teach our message of Biblical unity and equality. Film is a great media as many people in the villages cannot read. Please click here for more information on the FILM PROJECT.

Bright is presently interning in Los Angeles but is open to other projects before returning to Uganda in January 2009. Please contact us if you are interested in hosting Bright.

May 2007

Anne Mikkola and Carrie Miles were invited to present papers at a conference on gender and food security in Ghana. Carrie visited Kampala on the way and conducted a train-the-trainer there with the help of World Shine Ministries. It was very successful, with 30-37 people in attendance each day. (I had to fight hard to keep the numbers limited to under 50, as quite a few people wanted to attend.)

One of the highlights of the seminar was something shared with us by Hellen Akatukunda, assisted by her husband, Emmanuel. Hellen had read about mutual submission in Carrie's book, The Redemption of Love and spoke about it in a trip to Kenya. When she came home, she decided to greet Emmanuel in the traditional position of submission among her tribe, on her knees, to see what Emmanuel's response would be.

Hellen kneeling	Emmanuel's Response
A graphic illustration of mutual submission!

We had a fabulous trip to Africa in January and February 2007.

January 2007 saw a flood of Empower visitors to Uganda: Patti Ricotta, accompanied by Marilyn, Holger, and Johannes Raatz, visited Kampala and the site of a proposed school in Rwentobo, Uganda; Anne Mikkola came with three Finnish colleagues; and Carrie Miles arrived with attachment specialist Linda Ikeda (click here to read Linda's report!).

Patti and the Raatzes put on a youth conference attended by over 300 young (and not-so-young, as a “youth” in Uganda is apparently any single person under the age of 30) people; Anne coordinated the Healing of the Nations Conference at Kyambogo University; Carrie, Linda and Patti put on conferences on the Christian Family, marital unity, and workshops on dealing with orphans, abused and neglected children in Kampala and Rukungiri. Linda’s instruction for caregivers of orphaned children was very eagerly received. With so many orphans in Uganda and Burundi, there are adopted children in a great many families.

Carrie, Patti and Medad went on to a week in Burundi. Pierre Kwizera, a physician from Burundi, has translated Carrie and Linda’s Bible study guide on Biblical equality into Kirundi, the language spoken in Burundi, Rwanda, and parts of Uganda. Patti, Medad and Carrie spent their week in the beautiful mountain town of Matana, where they taught unity in marriage and conducted evangelism.

Beautiful Burundi

There were many highlights of the trip to Matana. One of the most eye-opening for me came on the day we taught on “the Curse” in Genesis 3. We pointed out that in this passage, after man and woman sin, God put a curse on the serpent and on the ground – not on the man and the woman. To be cursed is Africa is a terrible thing. It means the thing cursed is blighted and cast off – and Africans customarily think that women in particular are under that kind of curse. There was a lot of buzzing in the room when we said that God did not curse the woman. We didn’t appreciate the impact of our message until later that day, when a choir popped up and started singing a song in Kirundi. There was no choir scheduled for that time, but I didn’t think anything of it, until Frank started translating for me. The song was about when Balaam was sent out to curse the Israelites – but couldn’t do it, because “you can’t curse what God has blessed!”

At the Cathedral in Matana

We were amazed by the warmth with which our message was received in this very rural area. One of the pastors in Matana, Yvette Ndayirukiye, had even written her bachelor's thesis on the role of women in the Anglican church! The Archbishop of the Church of Burundi (Anglican), as well as most of the population of Matana, has urged us to return next year.

Thanks to all of you who gave so generously to make this trip a success!

Film

Fifteen participants from this seminar are meeting to plan a series of film Christian marriage family relations. In some African countries, Campus Crusade for Christ (called Life Ministries in Uganda) is preaching Christ by employing trucks that visit the villages with the "Jesus Film", which chronicles the life and ministry of Jesus. This film has been very effective in bringing people to Christ. We hope to follow their example by creating films that weave our message of biblical unity and equality with the basic Christian message. The Film Committee, currently meeting under the direction of Bright Arinaitwe, is working hard at creating a story board. We really need a professional script writer for the next step, however. The ones Bright has located in Uganda are pretty expensive. Please pray for a volunteer script writer or the funds to hire a Ugandan professional.

Linda Ikeda and her husband Russ have invited Bright to live with them in Cupertino, California for the 2007-8 school year and attend De Anza College for further training in film. He has also been invited to spend the month between orientation at the end of August and the beginning of classes as an intern at a Christian movie studio in Los Angeles. Bright’s pending visit to the US is coming together in a way that shows that God is really at work here. Linda and Russ’ generosity in taking a stranger into their home for a year was the first amazing event; that Bright, a young, single Uganda man, got his student visa on his first application is another; this internship is a third. We do need money for his tuition and travel, however. Any little bit helps!

Male and Female in Christ

Carrie Miles has complete work on an African edition of the Bible study guide, Male and Female in Christ. The shortened version, New Man, New Woman, New Life, focuses on biblical treatment of marriage and family.

There is demand for this Bible study guide, as a tool for the local instructors and also as a “leave-behind” piece. Many of the Africans are interested in examining the Bible verses referred to for themselves. Working with Arinaitwe Bright, WSM’s filmmaker, Carrie had the book reprinted in Kampala. Emmanuel Akatukunda, from LEADIA, an organization that provides training for Ugandan ministers who do not have formal theological background, immediately requested fifty copies.

Second organization is created

Empower International Ministries is happy to announce the creation of a new organization, LifeTogether International. Life Together is dedicated to the development of a school in Kampala, Uganda, to teach that men and woman were created by God to live together in unity and equality. They will serve children from low- or no-income families, and will also provide post-university training for teachers. LifeTogether was created by former EIM board members Patti Ricotta, Marilyn Raatz, and Leslie McKinney. Please click on Patti Ricotta to contact her for more information.