Kakamega and Women

The two day conference with women in Kakamega took a huge turn and was undoubtedly Holy Spirit inspired. Much of our time together was to speak into these female church planting leaders their worth, importance and value in the discipleship movements in Uganda and Kenya. Although receptive and willing, there is the ongoing belief that “women are the weaker vessel,” so therefore can only do so much or go so far. I’m shocked by this belief as clearly women (rural and in the cities)—typically—are the ones who have the determination, the strength, the tenacity to constantly move forward if for no other reason than to feed and school their children.

We had barely gotten into our material when it became clear that every single woman in that room (8 Ugandans and 35 Kenyans) was discipling at least one if not many other women, gathering them into simple house churches teaching and sharing with them the word of God. One woman, Eunice, has TWENTY house churches right now! BUT, not one of these women had ever baptized even one person.

We use the scripture in Matthew 28… ¹⁸ Jesus came and told his disciples, 'I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. ¹⁹ Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.'

These women are going and they are making disciples, but they all felt that they needed to wait for a man to come and baptize the new disciples. Many times, there is no man around who is willing or able to do this job, so the new disciple goes without being baptized. It wasn’t five minutes before Roger (and two of the other church planting men there) launched into all the ways Jesus used and interacted with women to accomplish his purposes. Not forgetting, of course, Mary, who Jesus specifically told to go and tell the others. The women clearly embraced a “Why not us?” mentality, especially because men were the ones inviting them into a new mindset. Roger asked them, “Who has a disciple nearby who can come tomorrow to be baptized?” (The women were from as far away as northern Uganda—12 hours away and also Kenyan villages very far away within Kakamega County). Even so, many of them raised their hands.

So, the next morning…we all trekked down from our meeting place about 20 minutes away to a nearby stream…in the rain…and this is what happened:

I still don’t know exactly how many were baptized, but I do know that on the trek back while stuffed into a one room, red brick mud house with 20 other women and babies during a huge downpour, one woman told me this:

“I am so encouraged on this day. I have never known I could do these things. We, as Kenyan women, believe that we must always stay behind, always work hard, but do what the man says and we are not allowed certain things. I have two house churches. None of those people have been baptized. I am going back and with those 25 people I will teach them that to obey Jesus they must be baptized and I am the one.”

Just some of the very inspiring women in the discipleship making movement in East Africa:

I also had the opportunity to teach about hygiene, female issues and to distribute 26 washable sanitary pad kits to the women. Wherever we go, whenever I have the great privilege to be the one to bring these from the ladies in the US who are making them, the gratitude and appreciation is really overwhelming. Their smiles and thank you’s are so genuine and so heartfelt. To experience love on such a personal, practical level speaks volumes to them about how much God loves them.