Follow up on women in outreach areas

If you remember, in a recent report put together by Sesi regarding the church in Titirapok, Yongem and Langgane, he expressed concern about the women there. He's concerned that the women may not be understanding the truth about Jesus. They're not too sure about their trust in his work on the cross.

After hearing this, I encouraged Sesi to consider how big of a deal this is and how easy it might be to let this issue slide. Culturally here, it's very easy for the women to be forgotten, as it were; left kind of in the background.

So the other day we had a meeting about this issue specifically. Bapake (who is the main teacher in these three outreach areas) came to Mibu, along with a few others. We sat down together with several others in the church and brainstormed about how the women in these areas might be encouraged.

I pointed out that I remember when, not that long ago here there were times where the women didn't seem to be getting things quite at the level that the men were, but that now we see that lots of the women have grown tremendously and are strong in their faith. So we asked what may have helped the women here along. The idea being that maybe that help could be reproduced in the outreach areas to help the women there.

Here, we've seen the men interacting more with their families, intentionally leading and teaching. That certainly is having an effect. Here, the women have been involved together in regular prayer and times of discussion as well as review of points in the bible teaching. They've connected in Christ centered fellowship in this way. The women here have also had the care and influence of friendships with Brooke and Shannon over the years, who have focused specifically on encouraging them. All these together have definitely been a tool God has used to encourage the women of Mibu in huge ways in the certainty of God's love and provision for them.

So some ideas that were thrown out there had to do with ways that some of the more mature women here could be involved in the lives of the women in Titirapok, Yongem and Langgane. The major hurdle to overcome is mainly geographical. The women here do already have relationships with the women there. So the idea was presented that some of the Mibu women would pray regularly for one or two of the women there about whom they would choose to be specially concerned. Another idea was to have times here and there where a small delegation of women would go there to spend a few days with their friends and encourage them, having prayer meetings and discussions and review of lesson material. And vice versa, there could be times as the relationships develop further that some of the women from there could come here and spend time with their friends in Mibu. The importance of encouraging the men in the outreach areas that they need to focus on encouraging their wives in gentleness as well as talking together about what they're learning and struggling with was also stressed.

These and a number of other great ideas were talked about and will be pursued. The main idea though is that there be an ongoing godly influence not only in the lives of the men, but also in the lives of the women there. It was so encouraging to see the genuine excitement in the meeting as they sought to find ways to implement venues of godly influence in the lives of the women who are such a big and important part of the church community! Yet another sign of growth here! One thing that is an obvious next step is that they need to spend some time talking with the women of Mibu to get their input; to get their help in developing a realistic plan to implement.