Creating A Place To Heal
The person we are highlighting this month has spent the last 25 years working in communities where there are often extremely few Jesus-followers. The climate is harsh, electricity sporadic, and water can sometimes be challenging to access. Life is not easy for anyone, and rising levels of persecution make it especially difficult for many Christians.
What Believers Are Facing
*Sira calmly seeks to describe the situation. She explains that churches are regularly targeted and burned to the ground. People are killed. Others are abducted and trafficked. Many are raped, sexually assaulted, or beaten and left to die. Fathers and mothers are killed in front of their family members, and vice versa.
A quiet day can quickly end in tragedy and suffering that forever changes a person’s life, family and community. Most who survive are traumatized and live with internal memories and scars that might be deeper than the noticeable ones remaining on their bodies that were made by machetes or other instruments of torture.
An Unlikely Beginning
Sira never expected to spend 25+ years in these contexts. As a successful professional woman in Atlanta, Georgia she spent her nights working in a local hospital and much of her free time attending church services and taking seminary courses as time permitted. She recalls the day when her journey took the unexpected, significant twist. While working out at a gym, she was thinking about grocery shopping that needed to be finished and the long night ahead. That is when God spoke to her. She said it was so audible, she got off the gym equipment she was using to see if someone in the room had said something to her, but there was no one else in the room.
At that time God told her that she would go to a specific nation, and work with a specific people group making the Gospel accessible to people who did not yet know Jesus. She laughed as she conveyed the story. She knew nothing about that nation or that ethnic group. It was later as she began to learn more about them that she realized it was in the Sahel Region of Africa, and it was a group that was known to be quite resistant to Christianity.
Support From Many People
Usually it can take quite a while to raise support to go overseas. Sira explained that as an African American, she had no experience with this type of work. She was the first generation in her family to follow Jesus. Yet God provided church friends who understood that region of the world, and in six months the financial support she needed was fully raised. Detailed preparations were made, language learning began, and Sira launched out on the new adventure that would define years of overseas service.
A Clear Calling Emerging
Before going overseas Sira had started getting certified as a Biblical Counselor. She deeply enjoyed her studies because she wanted to know how to live according to the truths of Scripture. Over time she added to this background skills in trauma healing as an avenue to help so many who were suffering.
She also discovered that many women and girls from the community were also abused. In their case it was not because of religious persecution; but rather, harmful actions of people from their own faith. Many people surrounding her were experiencing deep, profound hurt and Sira wanted them to experience God’s healing so they could move forward in their lives. She sensed God was calling her to bring trauma informed care in places that need it.
The Healing Center
Sira now works in a different part of the Sahel, in Northeastern Nigeria, where similar challenges and traumatic events happen regularly. She moved there to build a healing center for those experiencing religious persecution, as well as for others from the community who were suffering from many additional acts of violence, especially towards women and girls.
Half of the funding has come in so far, and she is praying that the remaining $50,000 will be donated by the end of the year so the center can begin serving people. The land has been purchased and walls have been built. Now it is time to finish the windows, flooring, tiling, electrical work, solar panels, plumbing, etc.
When asked how the community was responding to the new center, she said often people seem to think it is a school that is being built. But when she has the chance to talk with people, she explains that it is being built to help people heal from hurts, and that everyone has hurt. She said every time she mentions this everyone nods in agreement.
Sira explained that the work truly is for the community because about half of the people she serves are persecuted Jesus-followers and half are from the majority culture. She said, “When you live in a society where being a Jesus-follower is in the minority, women are often not valued, or fully able to express themselves. But Jesus brings healing and wholeness of mind, body, spirit, and soul.”
Suffering And Resilience
She thought it would be good to provide an example of a situation where she was recently asked to help. Militant jihadists had come into a community and killed over 30 people and tortured many others. A pastor was nearly killed, and he had to watch as they killed his wife. Many in the church were raped, and the church building was set on fire and destroyed. Humanitarian aid was shared with the congregation, but the community was still paralyzed with fear.
Sira was asked if she could provide trauma healing services to those who were impacted by this horrific event. She took along a few team members and they visited the community. People who had suffered the loss of so much were able to tell their stories and find ways to integrate their faith with what they had experienced. God worked to bring healing and resilience.
Sira explained, “Something happened that day that has happened many times since. These people who had suffered so deeply were intent on returning, rebuilding their church and being a witness of Jesus’ love to the very people who had tortured them and killed their loved ones. They wanted their abusers to know Jesus too. As she pondered their response Sira said, “God desires His children to be salt and light in this world. It’s so important for individuals to see Jesus in us – the hope of glory. Without Him, there is no true peace or life transformation.”
* Her nickname has been used for security reasons. If you would like to give towards this important healing center, you can make a donation through this link.
Written by Mary Lederleitner (Author of Women in God’s Mission) from the Women’s Institute at William Carey International University.