Opening eyes, minds and hearts to marriage

John Hatcher is pastor of Outreach International Center, 1091 South Jeff Davis Drive, Fayetteville, Georgia 30215. 770-719-0303

By John Hatcher
Contributing Writer

I wrote the following column three days before leaving Uganda in East Africa for good old U.S.A., completing three weeks packed full of opportunities to teach Christian perspectives and principles concerning marriage. I fully assure you I will be thrilled to get home.

My hosts were Pastors Bethuel Dongo and Solomon Kato. Bethuel leads the Kabalagala Church and Solomon is associate pastor of Kampala Pentecostal Church. Although their days are full of responsibilities from early morning until late in the night, they cut out blocks of time to take me into the bush (the countryside). Christians who live in the bush are mostly neglected by guest ministers for three reasons: no promise of a healthy honorarium; roads and traffic that make a 30 minute trip into 90 minutes; and only speaking to 35 to 75 people. But by the grace of God, there I go.

Near the end of each of these conferences, I ask participants to give me their feedback, providing some sort of evaluation for future conferences. Of course, any conference on marriage must include instruction on sex. What has amazed me more than anything else is that the Ugandan participants can ask a never-ending list of questions about sex.

Not unlike America, most young Ungandans receive sex education from peers, the public bathrooms, and magazines. Before she speaks her vows, the bride is taken aside by aunties and instructed to be submissive to her husband, how she should never question his decisions, and always serve as a willing sex partner. Interestingly, the groom never receives similar instruction from his uncles. The reason: the culture has already taught him well that he is to be the chief, the boss, and absolute ruler in his home.

For each conference, I try to start by laying down a Biblical foundation that clearly shows the equality for husband and wife, that in the Genesis account, both man and woman were created in the image of God. I point out that within the first two chapters of Genesis, there is no hint of the superiority of man, nor that there are rules set down that defined each of their roles. Not until the Fall (man and women sinned by eating fruit from the tree of knowledge — a tree which had been banned) did things change.

Consequently, before the fall, there were no separate roles for man and woman. There was no hint of rulership (except over the animals and that rulership was given to man and woman). The Garden of Eden was the most wonderful place to live and grow a family. But the sin of the human couple changed everything for them and you and me. When man works sweat will be popping out, and his work would be hindered by thorns and briars. The woman was told that one consequence of her sin would be that the pain of childbirth would be greatly multiplied.

As we continue the conference they begin to realize that this one is far different from any one they had ever attended. We discussed a survey that shows that the most important need that a man has is for sexual fulfillment and the uppermost need of most women is for emotional intimacy (the kind that does not lead to sex).

Many men participants, armed with that bit of survey information, begin asking why their wives were always telling them they were too tired to have sex. Here’s my response to that strata of questioning.

First, every man must realize that he is not just one giant sex machine. There’s more to a man than his sex glands. If allowed, sex can become an idol, more important than the marriage relationship and sometimes more important than God.

Second, I advise men to consider the top five needs of most women and seek to meet those needs in an attempt to communicate genuine love, but also take some of the physical load off their wives (most women spend two to three hours cooking supper every night — with no nights off).

A wife’s top needs (according to Willard F. Harley, Jr., in his book, His Needs, Her Needs — Building An Affair Proof Marriage, are affection, conversation, financial support, honesty and openness, and family commitment. If husbands would die to their own needs, they would receive serendipitous blessings from their wives — perhaps in the bed.

Ninety-nine percent of the Ugandans who are receiving these teachings are thrilled. In several two-day conferences, I could tell a difference in how husbands and wives were treating one another overnight.

I am truly thankful to my church here in Fayetteville for making it possible for me to go to a remote country in Africa and conduct foreign missions.

Outreach International Center will always receive a fraction of the action as these African marriages are saved and strengthened.