Women's and girl's lives are turned around in a rural farming community following workshops with local pastors and their wives.

Dawaki and Amper are rural areas with subsistence farming and widespread poverty as well as many smaller churches spread across the area.

Grace & Light’s Jos team were invited back to Dawak by the local COCIN Regional Church Council following our Sexual and Gender-based Violence workshop for pastors and wives in 2024.

Working in small groups they explored the root causes of sexual and gender-based violence in their communities and how to safeguard women and children from harm.

This time 71 people joined our follow-up one day workshop evaluating their progress in the subsequent 12 months. What a difference a year makes.

“Last year they knew they were failing both women and girls in their congregations. Now they are focussed on putting their people before farming,” said international coordinator Tassie Ghata.

“They are making space for time with their children and encouraging other farmers in their congregations to do the same. They are focussed on gospel-based ministry and rooting out corruption.”

Amper is a very remote area and the 99 pastors and wives attending their first workshop had not heard of Grace & Light until recently. Leaders from the Pankshin COCIN Regional Church Council recommended our workshop to a church leader in Amper and the outcome was an invitation to run the workshop locally.

“We covered all four social righteousness topics – sexual and gender-based violence, poverty and wealth, work and corruption, politics of righteousness,” said Tassie Ghata.

Now these churches are partnering fully with Grace & Light and asking us to visit on Sundays to share the gospel, counsel and test for HIV.

“We need to develop a new team to serve Dawak and Amper and will run a new volunteer training programme as soon as we have the funds to do so,” said Tassie.

Prayer Requests

Please pray for:

• Church leaders in Dawak and Amper balancing subsistence farming with leading their congregations
• Their poor congregations having open hearts and spirits to being challenged to live gospel-centred lives
• Funding to deliver new volunteer training and set up a new team to support church leaders and congregations in this area.

More Nigerian churches have advocates for gender equality following our latest Gender Champions training

Twenty-six people from 13 churches in Pankshin, Plateau State attended Grace & Light’s three day Sexual and Gender-based Violence training programme. Each church sent one woman and one man to be trained.

“Gender Champion training includes many different interactive activities to help participants understand, open up and share with each other,” said Tassie Ghata, international coordinator.

“The majority confessed they had been in gender boxes before the training. If issues were brought to them they looked the other way. Now if they see something untoward, they will say something and do something.”

Champions are now leading small groups of people in their churches, up to eight of the same sex, helping them to see gender equality from the perspective of scripture and to change their own behaviours so they are respectful of themselves and others.

They are using Grace & Light’s six-week Transforming Masculinities programme with their groups. The programme looks at gender and creation, Jesus as a role model for masculinity, root causes and consequences of sexual abuse, and sexual and gender-based violence in scripture.

Prayer Requests

Please pray for:

• Wisdom for Gender Champions as they support their group members in managing sexual and gender abuse issues
• Church leaders as they support their gender champions, ensuring the respect of congregation members not involved in the programme.

Colourful heathers from deep pinks to strong whites, birds hovering over water and sitting on flat rocky outcrop close to a dramatic waterfall are the highlights of our fundraising walk in Wensleydale.

This Yorkshire Dales walk blended natural beauty and cultural heritage with waterfalls, woodland, historic sites and rural landscapes.

We met at Bolton Castle, a fortress built between 1378-1399 and still lived in as a family home as well as being a scheduled ancient monument and open to the public.

In the morning we  followed peaceful country lanes and moorland footpaths with beautiful views over Wensleydale and the chance to see local wildlife and flora.

Mark Hopkins was particularly pleased to see birds including curlews, lapwings, oystercatchers and common sandpipers by the river.

We stopped for lunch at Aysgarth Falls, three spectacular flights of waterfalls that inspired artists including JMW Turner and Ruskin and also featured in the film Robin Prince of Thieves with Kevin Costner, Morgan Freeman and Alan Rickman.

In the afternoon we walked back through woodland paths and open fields to Bolton Castle.

The walk raised £870 to fund international coordinator Tassie Ghata’s expenses attending the Lausanne Movement strategic forum in Ghana that was due to happen in October. The forum has been postponed until 2026 with no date confirmed at the moment.

Prayer Requests

Please pray for:

• The Lausanne Movement forum 2026 date will work with Tassie’s commitments next year and she will be able to attend and contribute.

Teachers are changing their mindsets and behaviours towards students following the most recent conference for teachers.

Seventy-four teachers from secondary schools in Jalingo joined our one-day Teachers Conference in early May to discuss teaching as a profession and social righteousness issues.

Jos operations manager Pofi Josiah led the conference with its many interactive workshops. He challenged the teachers to take their profession seriously, to speak out for vulnerable students, and treat all students equally, rich or poor, male and female.

“At the end these teachers said they very much enjoyed our day together and begged Grace & Light to return every year,” Pofi said.

In feedback, one teacher said they now realised teaching is not just about knowledge from books. It is second parenting. Seeing where a child is struggling, seeking counselling for them and helping them develop as people.

Another teacher said they now understood that Christian teachers should see their work is beyond earning a salary to impacting the lives of young ones, including ensuring no corruption in their schools and exams.

Prayer Requests

Please pray for:

• One teacher who tested HIV positive and is now receiving antiretroviral drugs and counselling support
• Christian teachers in Jalingo remaining faithful to living and working according to gospel values
• Funding for three teacher conferences in 2026 – in Jalingo, Jos and Yola.

Churches are inviting our Grace & Light volunteer teams back for annual visits as leaders see the impact our message is making in the lives of their congregations.

Just over half the churches we visited in the first six months of 2025 were repeat visits. Their leaders say we are bringing revival through our preaching that challenges people to live righteously.

They add their members are bringing friends who also want to be part of Grace & Light’s activities, swelling their congregations.

“They believe that if they are in a church partnering with us they will continue to be challenged and learn new things.

“The people we counsel are grateful and say they have remained in their marriages, no longer practice corruption at work and are continuing in the God-honouring lives they committed to at our last visit,” explained international coordinator Tassie Ghata.

Five volunteer teams were active between January and June visiting 53 churches in total, sharing the gospel of righteousness with 12,944 people and testing 1,410 for HIV/AIDS. Of those who tested, just two were positive.

The majority (98%) chose to be open about their status; many joined voluntary savings and accountability groups when these are available in their churches. Significant numbers rededicated their lives to Christ (2,027 people) or made a first commitment (173 people).

The active teams in the first half of 2025 were Jalingo, Jos, Mangu, Yola and Zing.

Grace & Light now has a team of experienced speakers in each of the volunteer teams, as well as James Gisum, Joseph Masoyi, Pofi Josiah, Jacob Dawuleng and Tassie in our Jos and Yola offices.

Prayer Requests

Please pray for:

• Church leaders in our partner churches will remain resolute in allowing us to challenge their congregations to live lives according to gospel values
• People who tested positive will continue to have access to antiretroviral drugs, in spite of USAID funding withdrawal from Africa
• Volunteer teams able to visit churches in their area at least monthly, with the Jos and Yola teams able to visit churches each week.

Teachers who loved our challenging messages in last year’s Teacher’s Conference are now inviting Grace & Light into their secondary schools, many for the first time.

They were using teaching as a stepping stone into another better-paid job. There was no commitment to their schools or students. Following changes of heart at the conference, they have remained in teaching and are keen to help their students.

As well, they have persuaded  their head teachers to invite the Jalingo, Jos and Yola volunteer teams into their schools to share the gospel with students and test for HIV.

“During the conference we exposed the teachers to child protection issues and they were shocked,” said Tassie Ghata, international coordinator. “They hadn’t realized how much children are exploited.

“Students share openly with our teams, telling us things they have never told anyone else. Things they are ashamed of and believed were their fault.”

Things like physical, sexual and emotional abuse by guardians who are supposed to be protecting them while they attend schools far from their villages. Usually the parents trust the guardians and don’t know what is going on.

Or children who are vulnerable to being exploited because they are on their own at home as parents are working long hours in multiple jobs to provide for their families.

“Parents are grateful when we call them after talking with their children. They care and ask for advice about to handle the issues that arise,” said Tassie.

In the first six months of 2025 the Jalingo, Jos and Yola teams visited 17 secondary schools, sharing the gospel of social righteousness with 4,567 students and testing 811 for HIV. Two students discovered they were HIV positive and are now being supported via their schools.

In total, 847 students rededicated their lives to God and another 155 made first commitments to him.

Prayer Requests

Please pray for:

• God will continue to encourage the teachers who attended last year’s conference; they will remain committed to their schools, students and vocation
• Students facing abuse, exploitation and hardship will have the courage to speak with their parents and teachers and ask for help
• Wisdom for parents as they balance the many stresses in their work and home lives; showing their children deep love and affection.