{"id":4008,"date":"2015-04-20T11:43:03","date_gmt":"2015-04-20T16:43:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.brethren.org\/?p=4008"},"modified":"2015-04-20T11:43:03","modified_gmt":"2015-04-20T16:43:03","slug":"circle-of-hands-circle-of-hope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/blogtest\/2015\/04\/20\/circle-of-hands-circle-of-hope\/","title":{"rendered":"Circle of Hands – Circle of Hope"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\tPeggy Gish, 19 April, 2015<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I came home after escaping the attack, our home had been bombed, and everything was destroyed,\u201d one woman said, expressing a lot of pain.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was away when Boko Haram attacked my village,\u201d a man voiced with regret. \u00a0\u201dI still feel horrible that my wife had to face it and flee alone.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone else in my village fled when Boko Haram came. I was the only one who stayed, and miraculously, I was not found and killed,\u201d a third said, expressing his gratefulness.<\/p>\n

\u201cI ran home when our church was attacked,\u201d another shared. \u201cMy husband was at home and was able to go in the car to the next village. When he called me, I told him to go ahead and escape. He answered, \u2018I will wait for you to find me. We will stay together, and if we die, we will die together.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\"circle<\/a>Heartbreaking stories flowed out from the group gathered at a trauma healing workshop in Yola, in early April 2015, sponsored by the crisis team of EYN (Nigerian Brethren Church) for members now living in displacement camps or crowded in relatives\u2019 homes. This was one of many such workshops to help members support each other in the process of healing from the violence of Boko Haram in northeastern Nigeria. And more trainers are being trained so that more of the estimated two hundred to six hundred thousand (200,000 \u2013 600,000) EYN members who have been impacted by trauma, can be included.<\/p>\n

There was no expectation that these three days of meeting together and sharing would bring any quick fix, or that it would take care of more intense traumas that called for more intensive pastoral or psychological counseling. The sessions give a framework for understanding how trauma affects them and others, and helps them choose positive ways of dealing with the emotions connected with trauma and open themselves to healing. This program is carried out with the hope of preventing the cycle of violence and trauma from continuing, knowing that when trauma is not dealt with, those who have been traumatized, in turn, can perpetrate violence and traumatize another group of people.<\/p>\n

Exercises such as the \u201cempty chair,\u201d gave participants space in which to \u201cspeak\u201d to someone they lost.\u00a0 Remembering that the person, they lost, loved them, offered them grounding for dealing with their loss. Understanding the different stages of grief and allowing themselves and others patience as they navigate these at their own pace and order, provided some guidance for the process. Guessing what was in a small purse, and having its surprising contents dumped out, helped the group to see that what is inside a person who is grieving may not be what you would expect or \u201creasonable,\u201d and that getting the grief out, frees the heart.<\/p>\n

Especially moving, was and exercise called, \u201ccircle of hands.\u201d One by one, in the circle, each person said, \u201cI love this family; I wish this family____\u201d and filled in the blank with something, such as, \u201dhope,\u201d \u201chealing,\u201d or \u201cstrength.\u201d After his or her statement, the person put her closed hand in the circle and around the prior person\u2019s thumb, holding out her thumb for the next one to take. The result was a circle of hands joined together, symbolic of the strength and beauty they and others who have just experienced great trauma from violence, can be given as they walk together through this difficult time, within a community of love and support.\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Peggy Gish, 19 April, 2015 \u201cWhen I came home after escaping the attack, our home had been bombed, and everything was destroyed,\u201d one woman said, expressing a lot of pain. \u201cI was away when Boko Haram attacked my village,\u201d a man voiced with regret. \u00a0\u201dI still feel horrible that my wife had to face it<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[139,370,813,882,921,1161],"class_list":["post-4008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nigeria","tag-boko-haram","tag-ekklesiyar-yanuwa-a-nigeria","tag-nigeria","tag-peace","tag-prayer","tag-trauma-healing"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/blogtest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/blogtest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/blogtest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/blogtest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/blogtest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4008"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/blogtest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4008\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/blogtest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/blogtest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/blogtest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}