How Open Doors training for seven women transformed a whole church

Auristine and six other women from her church in Cameroon attended self-help group training – and now their whole church family has been transformed.

When Auristine attended a self-help group training organised by Open Doors partners in Cameroon, she could not have imagined the impact it would have on her and her community. She and the six women from her church who attended are seeing enormous change – thanks to your support and prayers.

Vulnerability of women

Auristine’s husband leads a church in Garoua, in the north of Cameroon. She explains that many Christians in Garoua and the surrounding villages are either not aware of Christian persecution or don’t give much weight to it.

Elsewhere in Cameroon, particularly the Far North, persecution is impossible to ignore: the region faces incessant, violent attacks from Islamist militant groups like Boko Haram. In Auristine’s region, the persecution is more pernicious: believers face marginalisation in business and the marketplace, particularly if they have converted from Islam. Some are pressured with economic enticements to return to Islam.

“During the seminar, we learned that women are vulnerable when there is persecution,” she explains. The additional vulnerability of women is something that her church wasn’t yet fully aware of, or properly equipped to face.

Capable women

Determined to help her church understand the reality of persecution, Auristine and the other six women attended the Open Doors partners’ self-help group. After the training, they felt much more equipped to speak to their church – and decided to start their first small group, called Femmes Capable (‘capable women’).

Since then, Femmes Capable has led to the creation of groups in all 12 communities where their local church is present. They’ve seen how supporting the women in a church leads to transformation throughout the whole congregation.

“At first, I had a hard time getting the women in my congregation together. Even for simple meetings, it was complicated,” says Auristine. “Now, we teach women how to evangelise, then we do Bible studies. We teach the Word of God to women so that they can stand firm in times of adversity.”

Equipped to support their families

There are also practical elements to the groups, which help the women of the church support their families in the face of financial discrimination. “They must be able to do things with their hands because God blesses the work of our hands,” Auristine explains. “Finally, we teach women how to save.”

The main group manufactures products like soap and neem oil, which is made from the fruit and seeds of Cameroon’s neem trees. “Neem grains cost us nothing,” says Auristine. “These seeds fall from the trees, and we go to the villages. We pay the women in these villages and they collect 50kg bags at 3,000 francs per bag. When we receive it, we soak the seeds, dry them and then we can extract the oil. The litre sells for 6,000 francs. That’s a lot of profit!”

She adds: “In the group, there are women who make soap from carrots, carrot oil, neem soap, liquid soap, kinkeliba tea. The women also have their products, and I can say that all these women are now financially autonomous and participate in the financial growth of their households and the church.”

“Today, the women are thriving”

Besides group projects, each woman also has her own, individual income-generating activity. “Today, the women are thriving in the church, in their homes and even where they serve on a daily basis,” Auristine shares proudly. “Today, we are a women’s association that can subsidise projects in its entirety. We have money in our accounts that allows everyone to take loans for projects. We make savings that are used to help families at the end of each year for their projects.”

The group’s dream is to grow these productions nationally and internationally. “There is a company in Yaoundé [Cameroon’s capital city] that buys our soaps in large quantities every month. It’s a good start. I dream of seeing these products go further.”

Thank you!

Your ongoing support has given new hope to these women and their communities – thank you.

Auristine is deeply thankful to God and to the people who made this transformative training possible: “I am grateful to the Lord for this seminar. I am able to see the women fulfilled and ready to face persecution if it arises here in Garoua.

“I thank you very much for the training, the follow-ups, the support and I pray that the Lord will repay you a hundredfold.”