Applying Scripture to trauma for healing

From Africa

A Trauma Healing Workshop was held near Nairobi, Kenya, in the spring of 2003. There were 26 participants from 6 countries, representing 10 languages. Four of these were major trade languages spoken by millions of people: Sango, Munukutuba, Congo Swahili, and Hausa. The other six were vernacular languages.

Participants were present from two of the groups from the Democratic Republic of Congo which have been at the heart of a violent ethnic conflict. The whole workshop was bilingual, with everything being discussed in both English and French. The workshop was staffed by six Wycliffe members plus a missionary translator.

The Trauma Healing Workshops have produced a manual to be used by church leaders to minister to trauma survivors in their home communities. This will be published in Nairobi. About this manual, one participant said: "I believe that the idea of producing a manual about how to heal wounds of the heart is an idea that came to my brothers and sisters from God. This manual speaks about real problems that our people know about."

Workshop activities included

• times of sharing;
• considering the role of the church in the AIDS epidemic;
• a study of Biblical laments;
• composing a personal lament and putting it to music;
• translation of Psalm 62.

One lament was composed by a woman who had lost all ten of her children in war.

Incredibly, one participant reported, "We laughed until our sides ached!" at skits the participants prepared to teach the workshop lessons.

The participants in the workshop plan to take these materials and principles back to their home communities and teach them there.

A Nigerian pastor prayed that God would use these lessons to start revival in Africa, as hatred is replaced with forgiveness and wounds of the heart are supernaturally healed. He said, "I promise not to fail my God: I will teach this material all over Izere-land."

Note: Izere-land is an area in Nigeria near Jos where where Izere is spoken.

Training for Congolese

For some years Eastern Congo Group (ECG) has considered starting a translation training program at the theological school in Bunia, Democratic Republic of Congo. ECG is now moving this initiative forward with the appointment of Rob McKee to help develop curriculum plans. Pray for guidance. A major question is the security situation—ethnic militias and armed bandits roam the surrounding countryside. A multinational force is working to restore peace, but is relatively small in number, and is facing huge challenges. "Only God can bring peace in a situation where there is so much hate, fear, revenge and evil. Pray!"

Note: ECG is a group devoted to furthering literacy, language study and Bible translation in the Eastern Congo. This from October, 2003.

A news report from the Web (edited) on the situation in one war-torn African country. From April 2003.

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has effectively been at war since 1996, as seven nations, three main rebel groups, and numerous militias fight over a complex mix of economic, ethnic, state and factional interests, plunging the DRC into a humanitarian crisis.

A mortality survey conducted in 2002 by a non-sectarian humanitarian agency in the DRC found that between August 1998 and August 2002, approximately 3.3 million people died from the ongoing conflict. That makes approximately 2,000 war-related deaths every day for four years. In some areas in the east, more than half the children die before the age of 2. Its findings showed that 30,000 "excess deaths" occurred every month in the ongoing conflict. Most of these deaths were attributed to easily treatable diseases and malnutrition, and were often linked to displacement and the collapse of the country's health services and economy.

The rate of death from violence in the east has decreased dramatically in 2002 compared to past years, indicating an improvement of conditions in the eastern provinces.

The current conflict and its concomitant violence and insecurity have displaced over 2.7 million people, most of whom find shelter in communities that are themselves only marginally financially solvent and often rendered destitute by this host role. The DRC has been left with extremely limited infrastructure and means to support basic health, food, water, sanitation and education needs. This is the most deadly war ever documented in Africa. Indeed, this is the highest war death toll documented in the world since World War II.

Despite a power-sharing agreement signed in December 2002 and the withdrawal of many of the foreign armies, fighting remains constant in the east; population displacements are ongoing; the country's natural mineral wealth continues to be pillaged; and basic health facilities, potable water and schooling remain limited. Many families have been terrorized by armed groups, and continue to see their economic, social and political coping mechanisms being severely weakened or wiped out.

Today, the country is effectively divided in three, between the two main rebel factions in the north and east and government-controlled territory in the west. Economic and political solutions remain to be implemented and as peace talks continue, so too does the devastating conflict.

Source: Website of The International Rescue Committee

AIDS:

Trauma: jolts to the soul; wounds to the heart

"In Africa trauma has settled in as an unwanted, uninvited occupant, tenaciously assuming center stage in the lives of many people."

"In Africa, 5,500 AIDS related funerals happen every day. Whole communities are left with only the very young and the very old....

"When we stop to think that 20 years ago the disease was unknown, and that now one percent of the world's total population has been infected by the disease, that's a very frightening picture. Of the 60 million infected, about 20 million have died; 40 million are still living, but the numbers are still going up even in the United States."
(Heartbeat, Mission Society for United Methodists, Fall 2002)

According to one estimate, AIDS has left 13 million orphans in sub-Saharan Africa. Southern Africa accounts for 42 percent of the cumulative total of Africa's orphans. Up to one quarter of all children in the region may be orphans by 2010, according to one agency of the United Nations.

"Even under assumptions of a mild epidemic, experts predict there will be 66 million new cases of HIV in China, India and Russia in the next 25 years." (Newsweek)