A Dream 10 Years in the Making
If someone asked you where Angola was, could you find it on a map? Does knowing it is a Lusophone country help? “Luso” is Latin and corresponds to the region of Lusitania or what we know today as Portugal. This Portuguese-speaking country is on the west coast of Africa
and is our focus for expansion of ELP (our
Emerging Leader Program). The need for a women's leadership development program is one we’ve seen for 10 years so we are celebrating these next steps. Esme Bowers, Tirzah’s Director of Leadership Development, recently shared an Angola trip report from 2014.
Angola is a republic having emerged from
communism in 1975 and adopting its current constitution in 2010. Why does this matter to Tirzah? Society often shapes mindsets.
Esme Bowers shares, “The government is anti-Islam so there are very few Mosques. There
are many historical Catholic Churches and a growing number of Evangelical and Pentecostal Churches. All churches have to be registered by the government and the registration has to be displayed in a prominent place. I soon discovered that churches were not expected to involve their members in civic or community matters as this is the sole domain of the government.”
With the government playing such a major role in community matters, it is no wonder that church members, especially women, feel powerless to create change.
Esme and Madalene Gomes met with 27 women leaders from 21 different churches. These women half-heartedly showed up for what they thought would be a two-hour meeting. Esme had other plans. She extended the welcome of sisterhood including gifts from her church in South Africa, cookies, and tea. And most importantly, she provided a three-day training that by Saturday, 58 women showed up to participate.
The women identified two major social challenges: abuse of women and alcoholism. The group felt like these were problems for the government to fix. Esme jumped into conversations on being “light and salt” and looking at the example of the early church, yet many still felt that this was not the work of the church. At the end of the conference, the power of this time together is captured in the feedback where many shared, “their eyes had been opened, to moving beyond the church walls and reaching out to others.”
The 10-module Emerging Leader curriculum is fully translated into Portuguese. The accompanying “When Women Rise” devotional will be finished this month. That is just in time for Esme to travel back to Angola in April to conduct mentor training. We have seen how this curriculum changes the mindsets of the young women going through this two-year training. What previously seemed impossible because of cultural expectations and traditional gender roles is now achievable.
