Vicky with Women

FRMA & Rabuna Fi

As the ministry expands, so do the dangers that come with travel in Africa. In the regions of Southern Sudan and northern Uganda, there have been numerous documented attacks on ministry personnel and civilians because traveling by vehicle was the only means of transportation.  Through years of praying to purchase our own airplane, it came to fruition in 2004.  Thus, Far Reaching Ministries Aviation, a sister company of FRM, came to be.  The Lord provided us with a Cessna Grand Caravan Super Cargo Master enabling us to reach very difficult areas of Africa. Under FRMA, we were able to expand our ministry to reach out to the women and children in Africa. The heart of FRMA is to disciple women and children with the Word of God, and to help them in their struggle to survive. This project is called, “Rabuna Fi,” which in Arabic means, “God is here,” and is a common greeting among Christians in Africa.

FRMA’s first priority was to address the spiritual needs of the women by leading them to Jesus. We developed a discipleship program to teach women with little or no education about the Gospel message to lead others to the transforming work of the Cross. We began with the basics of the faith. Once they knew the foundational truths, we would lead them through a verse-by-verse study in the Gospel of Luke. (We chose Luke because many of the women have seen The Jesus Film, which is based on the Gospel of Luke). Since the Acts of the Apostles was also written by Luke, it is a perfect bridge to the rest of the New Testament.

It is both humbling and challenging to hear the testimonies of our ladies. We have witnessed women pass through the most devastating of tragedies most Westerners cannot begin to comprehend and emerge like purely refined gold. Their lives bear a divine joy, a holy boldness, a true hope, and a sweetness that comes only from the suffering Savior. They find comfort in the fellowship of His sufferings, and the resurrection power brings purity to all who are hungry.  The miracle is that His arm is not too short to save, it can reach to the uttermost, and where sin abounds, grace abounds much more!

Though the primary focus of Rabuna Fi is discipleship, we wanted to expand the program for the ladies. Rabuna Fi grew to be a collective effort of godly African women (trained within the program) and missionaries. Jesus is given preeminence in all things, as we help the ladies recognize that if Christ is not the center of all that we do, our labor is in vain.  While the spiritual needs of maturing in God’s Word were being met, we wanted to meet their physical needs as well. We developed training programs to teach the women to be self-reliant. This program has become our income generation projects, which encompasses literacy training and a tailoring school that is centered on the teaching of the Word.

Through these training programs the ladies have created a beautiful line of hand-crafted gifts to earn money to support their families. They learn to read and write English (or their own language), and to learn how to be a tailor to become completely self-sufficient. As the initial women’s program artisan skills continued to improve, FRMA expanded the scope of their income generation project to include Uganda and Kenya. Today, Rabuna Fi works to assist women in Sudan, Uganda, and Kenya to grow in their knowledge of Jesus Christ. Rabuna Fi is funded and operated under the umbrella of FRMA.