Work among women or women ministry has been part of the work that ELCK has been doing for a long time. It has had its ups and downs. During the last ten years some parishes, especially in the Sondu-Katito area of the diocese, have had active work among the women. It has made the parishes to be active and to flourish.
Since the end of 2021, there has been a program of regularly visiting the parishes in Lake Diocese to encourage women to participate in church activities. The program started in Western Region and is now ongoing in Kisumu Region.
The main aim of women’s ministry is to encourage women to take an active role in church work. That means arranging fellowship meetings, choirs participating in the Sunday service, do mercy work together with the deaconess among others. But it also means arranging and attending workshops where the women are enlightened and educated on different topics like Catechism, bible studies, Christian family life, and health-related matters among others. Our identity as Christian women is important and unity among women in the parish is of high priority, which means that we are visiting each other and taking sisterly care of one another. The most important thing is spiritual growth among the women and emphasis is put on personal time for devotion and prayers.
By the end of 2022 we had visited all the parishes in Western Region and the program ended with an evaluation workshop for the women leaders in the region. The region elected a steering committee that will plan, implement, and oversees the work in the region. They are free to involve the deaconesses, pastors, and evangelists in the teachings and for advice. The same kind of visits are now ongoing in Kisumu region and we are remaining with a few parishes to visit before we do an evaluation.
We pray that God will give wisdom and also that He will guide us in the work among women!