wfn.org | WCC NEWS: Healing invisible wounds

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World Council of Churches - News Release

Contact: +41 22 791 6153 +41 79 507 6363 media@wcc-coe.org
For immediate release - 01/09/2009 14:05:05

>HEALING INVISIBLE WOUNDS

>by Walt Wiltschek (*)

If someone has a headache, they usually take an aspirin or other
pain reliever. If someone has a cut, they might put a Band-Aid on
it, or get stitches.

Other types of pain and wounds, however, often are not so easily
cared for. How does one care for people who have lost their homes
or their families? What does one say to a fellow Christian who is
suffering? How is God’s love communicated amid violence?

An effective “medicine” in cases like this, some say, comes in
the simple gifts of accompaniment and listening. That belief
stands at the heart of the “Living Letters (
http://www.overcomingviolence.org/en/iepc/living-letters-visits.html
)” programme of the World Council of Churches’ Decade to Overcome
Violence ( http://www.overcomingviolence.org/ ), which has
sponsored nearly 20 visits around the world thus far.

Each visit includes four to six people who are engaged in
peacemaking and can journey with those facing challenging
situations. Teams have visited Latin America, the Middle East,
Africa, the United States and southern Asia to be a presence and
bear witness while strengthening ecumenical contacts.

“I find the Living Letters visits deeply meaningful,” said
Alison Preston, a youth member of the WCC central committee from
the Anglican Church of Australia. “In some way those visits are
visits in my name and in the name of my parish and my church in
Australia. It’s reaching out to people I simply couldn’t reach on
my own.”

The visits have been important to WCC general secretary Rev. Dr
Samuel Kobia, part of the “pastoral dimension” of his work. In
his 26 August address to central committee members, he called the
visits “expressions of the fellowship we share, of the commitment
and care we show to and for each other. They demonstrate that our
common hope in Christ empowers us to accompany each other in hard
times and challenging situations.”

Again during a central committee Church & Society plenary on 31
August Kobia identified “mutual learning through deep listening
to one another”, accompaniment and solidarity as “key elements”
for the ecumenical fellowship. He affirmed the Living Letters and
other methods of storytelling and “breaking bread together” as
ways to do this.

“By accompanying each other, we are also mutually inspiring one
another,” he said.

For Preston, hearing reports from a recent Living Letters team
visit to the Democratic Republic of Congo in Africa’s Great Lakes
region had special meaning, as she previously spent two years
there and in neighbouring Burundi and Rwanda as a
photojournalist. She had heard firsthand stories of suffering,
especially from women who were victims of sexual violence,
children who had lost parents and those with HIV/AIDS.
Encountering such trauma was sometimes difficult.

“There can be a deep cost in being willing to really listen to
the pain of others and walk with them,” Preston said. “From my
personal experience, I realized I was bearing some of that pain
myself. But that doesn’t mean we walk away from the call to
listen, the call to accompany others. That’s part of following
Christ.”

With growing maturity over the years, she adds, “I have learned
when to debrief those painful stories with others who can receive
them. It’s also part of a growing process of (understanding) who
God is, knowing that God is there in that context of suffering,
and that God is able to bear this pain rather than carrying it
all myself.”

Her experiences led her to the Institute for the Healing of
Memories ( http://www.healingofmemories.co.za/ ), based in South
Africa. The institute “seeks to contribute to the healing journey
of individuals, communities and nations”, according to its
website. While it’s not specifically Christian, it embodies many
Christian principles, Preston said, such as truth-telling and
reconciliation, and it draws on traditional pastoral skills.

“I realized the importance of group-based processes for healing,”
Preston said. “I saw people who were needing ways to face what
had happened to them, but the one-on-one therapist model of the
West or North was not viable or appropriate in that context.”

She has become part of an effort to sponsor such healing
workshops in Australia, bringing together indigenous people,
members of refugee communities and others from a variety of
experiences to work together in a “safe space” for sharing.

Preston said the key principles of that process could be
incorporated with the Living Letters visits, or into other
efforts of the churches. 

“The Living Letters can be the beginning of a listening process
and of witnessing to truth”, she said, “but they can also open up
opportunities to begin a conversation: ‘Would you like to embark
on a process of healing?’ It’s a great opportunity for the
churches to get involved.”

(*) Walt Wiltschekis an ordained minister in the Church of the
Brethren in the United States. He serves as editor of the
denomination’s magazine, Messenger.

Listen to an interview with Rev. Micheline Kasongo, Central
Committee member from the Democratic Republic of Congo:
http://www.oikoumene.org/en/events-sections/cc2009/audio.html#c27336

Stories and photos from the Living Letters visit to the
Democratic Republic of Congo:
http://www.overcomingviolence.org/en/iepc/living-letters-visits/democratic-republic-of-congo.html

More information on the Decade to Overcome Violence:
http://www.overcomingviolence.org/

More information on the 26 August - 2 September 2009 Central
Committee meeting:
http://www.oikoumene.org/cc2009

Additional information:Juan Michel,+41 22 791 6153 +41 79 507
6363media@wcc-coe.org

The World Council of Churches promotes Christian unity in faith,
witness and service for a just and peaceful world. An ecumenical
fellowship of churches founded in 1948, today the WCC brings
together 349 Protestant, Orthodox, Anglican and other churches
representing more than 560 million Christians in over 110
countries, and works cooperatively with the Roman Catholic
Church. The WCC general secretary is Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia, from
the Methodist Church in Kenya. Headquarters: Geneva, Switzerland.