Kwong women get the worst of everything. They are practically never able to attend school more than a year or two - hardly enough to learn their ABC's, much less learn a foreign language (French) and the 3 R's. Soon after being yanked from school to returned to their domestic slavery in the home, their minds metastasize and become closed to any new ideas - including the gospel. Diane's ministry is to try to pry open those minds, and let the glory of the gospel shine in again. She has been doing this through basic Bible teaching through a sewing class, and through the reading classes.
Bible Teaching Seminars
Some of the women participate in the teaching we give the men. In general, however, they are unable to read and are left groping in the darkness spiritually. They hear the preaching of the Word on Sunday morning and possibly Wednesday afternoon - and seldom do they show up to either one on time - but even for their own meeting or gatherings, there is nothing of a spiritual nature. The emphasis of those occasional gatherings is the collection of money - perhaps that is what they think is the emphasis of our church services too, since the offering is always the last thing on the program with much hype and dancing.
January
14, 2004 we held our first Women's seminar - a one-day event as a trial run. Over
80 women walked to the all-day meeting, some coming as far as 10 miles on foot.
Diane spoke on Love: this is our job with emphasis on the Lord's greatest
commandments. Lorraine Green, a fellow TEAM missionary from Lai came with two
"Big Women" of the Nangcere church to talk to them about the need to
meet together, since thus far none of the churches have regular women's
meetings. Everyone had a great time singing and fellowshipping together as well.
March 31 - April
3, 2004 . We hosted a four-day seminar,
inviting 100 women (Protestants, Catholics, and Pagans) to talk about health issues:
Nutrition, Hygiene, Sanitation, AIDS; and hear Sally Maclure (AIM missionary) and
Diane give 4 Bible studies following an overview of the Kingdom of God
materials: God, Creation, Fall, Redemption. The high point of this seminar was
seeing four women whom Diane had taught to read give devotionals -a first in
Kwong history. 
Reading and Sewing
Advanced reading classes Diane's teaches an advanced group of 6 ladies who passed the first primer. With at least 3 really faithful women she is writing primer 2 as she goes, printing off 4 pages of primer at a time, testing it as she teaches and making appropriate corrections back on the computer.
The
sewing class each Saturday morning, similarly, has been a hit or miss on who
might show up when. The goal is to teach ladies to sew
Bible/book covers that
can be sold to protect the Kingdom of God books, thus benefiting the buyer as
well as the seller. The profits would go into the pot for the Women's work,
hopefully abating the continual plea for women to give more money. Although most
women do not attend on any consistent basis, there are two women (interestingly,
they are also two of the faithful ones in the advanced reading class) who have
come faithfully and are now able to sew the whole book cover themselves with our
old Singer Treadle machine.