A dream fulfilled
by Laurie Lind, Entrust staff writer
“May He grant you your heart’s desire and fulfill your whole plan!” (Psalm 20:4)
Women digging into Scripture together, listening well to each other and the Lord, learning how to plan and facilitate small group Bible studies — all in Portuguese — is the evidence of God fulfilling some heart’s desires.
Mulheres Equipando Mulheres (Women Equipping Women) launched its first all-Portuguese women’s ministry training module in March. Eight women from three Brazilian states and one U.S. state meet online every Tuesday to interact with the material known as Treinamento Transformador do Facilitador in Portuguese (Facilitating Relational Learning in English). The module began March 15 and, Lord-willing, will conclude June 21, 2022.
It’s a dream come true for Coleen Templeton and Marilyn Whittaker — a dream born in 2013. That was the year the two women, serving with Ethnos360 in Brazil, took Entrust’s first training module, FRL, in English, and realized how valuable this approach to small group leadership could be for women in local Brazilian churches.
“My dream,” Coleen says, “was to be able to have the whole Entrust curriculum in Portuguese” (Brazilian Portuguese) and to make the trainings available to people serving God or preparing to serve full-time in Brazil, as well as to lay workers in local churches.
The dream continued as Coleen, along with Debbie Lamp of Equipping Women International, introduced FRL in Brazil in 2015, in English. Course participants were ex-pats and Brazilian women who spoke English fluently.
Six years later, six women had completed all four of Entrust Equipping Women’s core modules: four expatriates serving in Brazil and two Brazilians.
“The dream continued to take shape,” Coleen says, when, with the two manuals for the FRL module translated [into Brazilian Portuguese], “we stepped out in faith to offer a virtual training opportunity for FRL in Portuguese. To our delight within two weeks, we had our cohort filled.
“We are very excited to see how God is moving this forward.”
Coleen says this intensive leadership training module is of interest because “it is conversational and interactive. It seems rare in Bible schools and seminaries for the facilitator-type of presentation to be taught or encouraged.
Plus, she adds, “it emphasizes reaching the participants in their particular learning styles.”
Mulheres Equipando Mulheres is “a separate entity from Entrust, but working with Entrust and using Entrust curriculum,” Coleen says. “The translation of the materials is ours and all of our financial business will be done here in Brazil and not through Entrust. We hope that one day it will indeed be Brazil-wide.”
The women hope to see their dream progress with the translation of the remaining three core modules, each designed to build on the skills learned in the previous modules, and then the continued offering of each module in Portuguese for women across Brazil. To build and equip women to serve well in their local churches.