5/19 Update from Tannen - Trauma Program

Well, it's Saturday night now and we just finished our first week here in Mufulira. As usual, all of our teams are constantly adapting our programs and modifying things because the situations are different than what we expected ("TIA man -- This Is Africa").

Our time at Pamodzi has been good, but completely different than what we did there last year with the HIV Education program. The issues that we are dealing with are so personal that most of the kids shy away from them (and who can blame them since most adults do the same thing, myself included). I do think that it is a little sad, though, that there are so many people in this world dealing with things that are ripping them apart on the inside and filtering through so many areas of their lives, yet we continue to avoid them and try to live in this make-believe world where everything is happy. I think that this avoidance is a big reason why our group narrowed down from the couple hundred kids we had last year to the 40 or so kids who are taking part in our program this year. The ones that we have really seem to be listening and I'm happy to be working with a smaller, more personal group.

One of the most encouraging things that happened to me so far in regards to our program this year had to do with a local pastor who has been accompanying us to the school in the afternoons. Kristen and I had given a talk that day about how our condition changes after we go through trauma and how it wrecks our life and distorts our view of God... but also that His position never changes, and shared a few things that we had learned about God during our own journeys -- things that stay constant, despite where we are in our lives at any given moment. As usual, we followed the main talk with a small group time and on that day we handed out little slips of paper to the girls to stimulate discussion and get the wheels turning in everyone's brains. Well, afterwards the pastor went around and collected all of the little pieces of paper so that he could look at them more later and told us that "last year may have been for the girls, but this was for me." He told me later that he had woken up that morning and thought that all of the suffering that he was going through was "too much" (I'll skip the details on that) and that he couldn't do it anymore. But somehow that afternoon he was given hope. He told me the same thing the next day. So I was encouraged. I also had to take a step back and say thank you to God, because without him there is no hope.

We will only have our Trauma Program at Pamodzi High School until Wednesday of next week (school was cancelled on Thurs and Fri), so we have 3 more days there. We're in the middle of switching gears and moving from some of the softer issues (like the effect that trauma has on our life, God's love & acceptance, recognizing "safe" vs. "unsafe" people, developing a support system, etc) to the personal responsibility end of things.

On another note, Elizabeth did an AWESOME job with the dance workshop today - the girls loved it and we had a lot of fun. I am really, really enjoying working with everyone on our STS team this year. It is great to be around lots of compassionate, dedicated, honest, encouraging, fun people with different talents and backgrounds.

I keep thinking about the Murundu Orphan's Foundation and the option for us to take that and run with it. It seems like the epitome of an open door to me, but I know that we need to be careful to think it through and pray about it before committing to anything.

Chisuma mukwai!
Tannen