Many of you know us because we met during our ministry travels, or you have connected via youtube or our online academy. But few know what we are up to when we don’t travel. When we decided to make Hermanus a home-base from which to minister, Mary-Anne began working with children in a local community.
Aphiwe is an 11-year old boy with the most delightful face and gentle personality. During our last workshop I dealt with emotions and the role they play in our lives. I often use drama during my workshops because the children LOVE to act and it helps draw them out while we deal with tough subjects. As you may have heard on the news, their community has been in unrest recently, violent riots have prevented children from attending school (and parents work) and held a community captive in fear.
After our warm up, I asked the children what makes them sad and Aphiwe said, “What has been making me sad is that I saw a man being stabbed to death the other day.” I had to swallow hard as I looked into his large, frightened eyes. This should not be something an 11-year old should have to witness. Healing tears flowed as more of the children opened up and shared their stories of abuse, hunger andfear.
One of the definitions of trauma is the unspoken. What we cannot consciously express becomes repressed, but eventually finds a way out … and often with devastating results. Giving these kids an opportunity to speak, to connect with others, and to heal makes a difference at an age that will affect the rest of their lives.
Evil is exposed for the life-sucking parasite it is, while Love covers our nakedness, our vulnerability, our wounds and holds us while we are able to heal. Love fills a moment and immediately forges real connection.
“In him we believe that God himself has come into the midst of our human agony and our abominable wickedness and violence in order to take all our guilt and our just judgement on himself. That is for us the meaning of the cross. If I did not believe in the cross, I could not believe in God. The cross means that, while there is no explanation of evil, God himself has come into the midst of it in order to take it upon himself, to triumph over it and deliver us.” TF Torrance
God’s goodness is not to be found in ‘his’ ability to prevent evil, but in His ability to create new possibilities to love and laugh despite evil. What a privilege it is to help create an atmosphere for Love to expose evil and to heal, restore and renew…there is always an opportunity for us to love.
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Brought tears to my eye to know that this world is full of children who have see thing they will live with the rest of the their lives. We wonder why religion has not understood their plight that is unspoken. This is running ramping in our community which is resulting in many taking their lives at an early age. Religion has grown death to the midnight cry’s of our children world wide. In fact they have only heard about hell fire and damnation. Doesn’t deal with those mid hours of pure fright that children tell no one of. Pa Pa MO 79 years old.
Thank you Maurice