Women Empowerment is continuing to make huge impacts in the lives of women - impacts which overflow into families, children, and the community.
While each Women Empowerment group receives training on business skills and how to become more self-sustaining, oftentimes we witness the greater empowerment from teaching on faith and godly living. Mariana of the Yari Women Empowerment group testified on how the group's training on forgiveness has brought new life out of a decade-old feud.
In 2014, tensions grew between Mariana and her immediate neighbors. These tensions escalated into a fight involving the husbands of these two families and the unrest between them lingered on for 10 years.
Following the group's training on forgiveness, Mariana went home and shared the teaching with her family. Her husband agreed that it was a good teaching. Mariana insisted on putting this teaching into practice and forgiving their neighbors. Her husband went silent. Was the damage between them and their neighbors irreversible?
Mariana repeated to her husband that they all needed to forgive their neighbors. She invited her family into prayer to ask God to speak to them and help them find peace in their hearts to forgive their neighbors.
Jesus replied: "‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’" - Matthew 22:37-39, NIV
Towards the end of March, her husband called for a family meeting. Together they went and made peace with their neighbors, embraced each other, and ate a goat meal together. Following this reconciliation, the local pastor prayed over the two families that they would be examples in the Mundari community.
The chairperson of another Women Empowerment group also bore witness to the power of the training on forgiveness and how it has shaped her relationship with other people in the community. She shared that her children have become more obedient because of the change they see in her life and that this teaching is bringing an "irreversible transformation" to her family.
