Empower.

Women in Adventist Muslim Relations (WAMR)

Women's Ministries in West Kenya Union Conference defines its Mission and Vision for Muslim Relations.

East-Central Africa Division (ECD)

[Kenya] The Adventist Muslim Relations department (AMR) of West Kenya Union Conference is demonstrating successful principles for working with Muslim men. The model has also been marvelously successful for Adventist women of the East Kenya Union Conference who have been building bridges with Muslim women in Mombasa. Because of the success of these models, the Women's Ministries (WM) departments of both East Kenya Union Conference and West Kenya Union Conference held a joint WM evangelism summit in Mombasa, April 2017, to train Adventist women for working with Muslim women.

Although nearly one thousand women attended the evangelism summit, West Kenya Union Conference (WKUC) realized they had not fully achieved their goals. The WKUC departments of WM and AMR jointly conducted a ten-day training event, August 24-September 2, 2017, in which eighteen committed church members helped develop the Purpose, Mission, Vision, Goals, and Action Plans for Women in Adventist Muslim Relations (WAMR) and adopted the "Women in Islam" manual.

Purpose:
Building blocks, bridging gaps, one woman at a time

Mission:
The mission West Kenya Union Conference Women in Adventist Muslim Relations (WAMR) is to build blocks of nurture and retention to members as well as bridge gaps that exist between Adventist and Muslim women, one at a time, leading them to accept Jesus Christ as Lord, Savior, Friend, and soon coming King; thereby [leading them to] conduct their lives in readiness for His soon return.

Vision:
Women in marginalized communities are loved, honored, valued, respected, treated justly with equality that all God's children deserve and have embraced God's biblical will as their life's guiding principles.

Goals:

1. To build friendships with Muslim women.

2. To identify their felt need, then find ways and means of addressing them.

3. To offer care and support to empower our members who are vulnerable, less advantaged and poor to prevent them from being lured into Islam by the help they received from Muslims.

4. To establish social and economic support groups to link them to Youth and Women' enterprise fund program by the government of Kenya among other donors, so that they are economically empowered and socially supported to face life's issues as we wait for Christ's Second Coming.

5. To assist young women who converted from Islam and were discontinued in education in acquiring their different lines of training through Women's Ministries Scholarshipping Our Sisters program.

Action Plans:

1. During the training, participants raised Kshs 12,000 (Kenyan shillings) to register four women for National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF). It was resolved that,

• The woman must be in her first trimester of pregnancy so as to benefit fully from the fund.
• The woman must be non-Adventist, attending Kendu Adventist Hospital (KAH) which is predominantly near Muslim community. The administration of KAH will give full report once this is completed.

2. It was resolved to adopt WAMR TOT into the Women's Ministries councils at conference levels to represent the interests of WAMR and channel reports.

3. It was resolved that further training and involvement to be carried out by the AMR department throughout the five conferences of the West Kenya Union Conference (with its headquarters office in Kisumu, Kenya).

Contributed by Roselyn Ayayo, WM director, West Kenya Union Conference, East-Central Africa Division

Published in Mosaic newsletter, Spring 2018