12.07.2024

“Breaking Barriers!”

From left to right: Rev Julie Kandema, Rev Dr Oinike Harefa and Thea Hummel, during the Question and Answer after the lectures (top) and with UEM coworkers (bottom).

Photos by: Naomi Simanjuntak, UEM

“There are women out there who are rebels!” Rev Julie Kandema gets excited when talking feminism. At the beginning of this July, three lecturers traveled the UEM Region Germany for the annual Mission Lectures of the United Evangelical Mission (UEM). Its title was “Breaking Barriers: The Role of Women in the Process of Decolonization.” The three come from all three regions of UEM, from Asia, Africa and Germany. After coming to the cities of Münster, Hermannsburg and Mettmann, they visited the Mission House of UEM in Wuppertal for their final lecture. They were welcomed by about 40 participants.

Rev Julie Kandema is Vice President of UEM member church EPR*. She is responsible for representing and leading her church together with the church president, taking special responsibility in church growth and church life. Historically, EPR is the first protestant church in Rwanda.

In her lecture, she talked about women as heroines who are not seen for what they do. This, she explained, happened to life saving heroines during the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda, and still happens to many women in Rwanda and worldwide to this day. Nevertheless, these women are contributing enormously to their communities, for example in supporting marginalized people during their stay in hospital.

Rev Dr Oinike Harefa is a teacher in UEM member church BNKP*. She is head of the theological programme at BNKP Sunderman University in Gunungsitoli, Indonesia, teaching missiology, contextual theology and other subjects. Her church employs 700 pastors, the majority of which are women. But: “at the eadership level, we still need to represent this ratio”, she says.

Harefa gave her lecture about the paradigm shift in the role of women in mission and church history. Her focus was on the postcolonial era and on her home island of Nias, where she found different examples of influential and groundbreaking women in mission work. The women she pointed to come from Germany and Indonesia, and while all of them shaped the church and its structure in one way or another, all of them also learned from the people they were working with.

Thea Hummel is UEM Diversity and Inclusion Coordinator, based in Wuppertal, Germany. In this position she supports UEM member churches in processes of enhancing diversity. Her lecture gave an overview over the postcolonial era in Germany which started in 1918 with the Versailles treaty ending German colonial rule. Since that time, German society officially recognized many women’s rights like the right to vote in 1918 or the right to open a bank account without her husband’s permission in 1958.

For her, this is important to remember: “Forgetting our past can make us vulnerable to becoming arrogant, especially in ecumenical relations.” Because, women are not equal members of the German society today: They earn on average 18% less than men, are less likely to gain positions of power, but more likely to get them, if such positions are risky for one reason or another. All of this means that women’s struggels are far from over, in Germany and worldwide.

After the lectures, participants had the opportunity to talk to the lecturers and come together for dinner. One of the topics discussed there is what it needs in 2024 from a feminist point of view. Julie Kandema says: “We need more women and men together, whose mindset is changed, to raise awareness for women’s empowerment. We need a proper understanding of women’s rights in society, and joint leadership of women and men.”

And Oinike Harefa adds: “What we need now, is not just positive masculinity. We also need positive femininity, and we need it to be appreciated in leadership positions! We need sustainability to guard what we have achieved in the past, to keep open the possibilities of Gender Justice in the future. We don’t just need one woman in one leadership position, but many, continuously over time: That is sustainability!”

*EPR = Eglise Presbyterienne au Rwanda (Presbyterian Church of Rwanda)

*BNKP = Banua Niha Keriso Protestan (Christian-Protestant Church on Nias Island)