Since my last post, friends and family have been asking me if I am nervous for Training Camp, and honestly, not really. God keeps telling me that, despite traveling over 2000 miles to a state I’ve never seen full of people I’ve never met, it could feel like a homecoming. For more on what TC is, see my last entry! I say could because this potential is neither inevitable nor easy but He’s revealed to me that it may line up more closely with our God-created-human-nature than I imagined.
I have spent the last week searching for an article that was discussed in one of my Trauma-Informed care lectures about the reintegration of Nepalese child soldiers after their abduction and forced participation into a guerrilla-style civil war. (I have not been able to find it 
but the moment I do, I’ll post the link!) The article was describing a research effort to examine why some returned children were experiencing severe PTSD symptoms while others had blended seamlessly into their community. The horrific experiences, abuses suffered and witnessed, ages, genders and other demographics lined up equally but some children were suffering years later while others were indistinguishable from their school peers. The research showed that the key difference between these two outcomes did not actually have anything to do with the child and everything to do with the community they went home to.
The first sort of community was welcoming, warm and encouraged vulnerability. They recognized that these returning children had suffered unimaginable pain and respected that experience. In fact, some of the tribal community’s enacted rituals reserved for returning warriors that included drumming ceremonies, singing, dancing, and a revered time of storytelling by the children about their time away. On top of official ceremony, the community opened up and assimilated the kids, with full inclusion, into all aspects of normal life. When symptoms such as bed-wetting, nightmares or flashbacks occurred, it was witnessed and addressed by those closest to the child with understanding and guidance.
The second category of community also recognized the suffering inside the children, but instead of seeing the pain as a wound to be healed, they treated it as a contagious disease. The children were not granted the space or authorization to talk about their experiences. In some cases, they were blamed for the misery that results from war and shamed for the actions which kept them alive. They were walking reminders of loss, something to be ignored or scapegoated, cast out a different and damaged.
Can you guess which children were experiencing PTSD symptoms years later?
Now, I hope I don’t offend anyone with this metaphor. I recognize that child soldiers, rape, genocide and war are the extreme incarnations of evil and I don’t intend to minimize these experiences which occur every single day for millions of people around the world.
My thought is: On a spiritual level, haven’t we all been abducted by sin? Might we all be living as hostages to an evil presence that feeds us falsehoods and keeps us captive through lies, deceit and fear? Don’t we all experience pain and suffering on this earth as we wait for the Kingdom of Heaven to make itself fully known?
Once our bondage is revealed and our debt is cleared by God’s love with Jesus’ blood, we have the opportunity to live in freedom! We run gladly into the arms of Christ and then head toward his followers. Bruised, limping, raw and scarred, we attempt to enter His family community. A community made up of people who have also transitioned from slavery to freedom, servants to princes, pig slop to the royal feast. People whose scabs may have healed, whose scars may have faded, whose nightmares and flashbacks may have subsided. People with the opportunity to see our pain and either pull us closer with love, facilitating healing with listening and guidance, or to cast us out as dangerously different with potential for nothing but a damaging influence on the group.
Fellow World Racers (and larger Christian Community), this training camp, let’s be the first tribe. The tribe who acknowledges the sorrowful, broken experiences that caused our pain – pain which we may have lashed out in. The tribe that reaches out towards each other in humility, pulls us in tighter, holds us in patience and love. Let’s welcome each other home with singing and dancing and praising for our Father and Savior. Let’s listen to each others stories about battles survived, tender experiences, witnessed pain and ongoing healing.
At the end of the parable of the lost (prodigal) son in Luke 15, the Father is overwhelmed with joy at the return of his absent child. We can all identify with this son, overwhelmed by our Father’s loving grace and joyful reunion. Sometimes we can identify more with the older brother who has always tried hard to do what is right and feels overshadowed by his brother’s unforeseeable return.
“For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate.” Luke 15:24
At Training Camp, let’s be the nameless household of people who live continuously and eternally with the Father, know His heart, hear His words and welcome home brothers and sisters with immediate, heartfelt celebration!! Can’t wait.
Xo Hannah
