At 2:30pm, beginning descent into Los Angeles International Airport, my fellow passengers from London, England, and I were gathering our personal items and ensuring our tray tables were up and our seats were in full upright positions. Of course, none of us imagined the terror occurring in Manchester at that same time. 

The first news I received, about 45min later, was when a colleagues simply posted "Manchester" on her Facebook feed. An ordinarily thoughtful and articulate woman, this one word signaled the truth: What words suffice in the aftermath of horror and devastation? ​

This post, written by AHyun Lee, originally was published on February 6, 2017, on the ICTG blog.

Life is full of stories.
There are many stories created by various people on the same day at the same time. Each story reveals our interconnectedness and these stories reflect our true self.  Also, God always relates to, and influences, our stories. My teaching experience in Haiti happened because of the interconnectedness of important people in my ministry.
 
The connection of the story of Mayville United Methodist Church’s mission and Haiti
In October 2016, I got a phone call from Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington DC, where I studied for my Master’s degree. They have a global program to teach theology courses for students around the world. During this phone call, I was asked to teach on pastoral care and counseling in Haiti.  At that time, Mayville UMC had already made special offerings to several organizations for Haitians who struggled with hurricanes and earthquake.  The congregation sent 300 dollars to the United Methodist Committee on Relief for Haiti from our rummage sale along with donating 700 dollars to Food Pantry in Mayville. I was so moved and inspired by their love and care for people in the community and the world. Mayville UMC’s mission story strongly influenced me to answer, “Yes” during the phone call from the Vice President, Kyung Lim Shin Lee of Wesley Theological Seminary. God’s call was delivered by my congregation’s mission story.
 
The connection of the story in a place, Cite Soleil in Haiti
On January 24 2016, I arrived in a place in the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince, called Cite Soleil. It means Sun City, and it is the poorest, most dangerous place to live in this hemisphere. It is hard for me to describe this place to anyone who has never been there. All you can see is the poverty. I can show pictures, but there are stories that I would need to tell to explain the trash, the dust, the smell, etc. It is a place where people experience death every day. It is a place where people don’t have any clean systems in place and where people have long burned garbage indiscriminately. It is a place where people seek food all the time. It is a place where you hardly see flowers. It seems the situation in Haiti is not good and for many it may be getting worse. It seems absolutely impossible to restore Haitians’ lives in several weeks, several months, or even several years because of the level of poverty and the reality of death.

I met a missionary, Simon Kim, at the airport of Port-au-Prince. He has been in Haiti since 2010 when 200,000 people died from an earthquake. He built the Love and Hope church, elementary, middle, and high school, a theological seminary, as well as 20 local churches. Jesus Medical Clinic has been recently opened under his leadership. He supplies 4500 loaves of bread to local orphanages each week at daily bible study times. On January 24, I met with 150 pastors and seminarian who have struggled to minister amidst the trauma in this place, in Love and Hope Theological School.

The connection of the story of pastors and seminarians at Love and Hope Theological School 
From January 25th to January  27th, I offered six lectures, from 9am to noon and from 1pm to 4pm. “What can I teach in three days?” “What can I offer them?” “What can they achieve in only three days of learning?” These questions were in my mind as I prepared to lecture about pastoral care and counseling for healing trauma and recovering the community.  The main goal of this course was to provide an introductory overview of the historical, practical, and theological foundations of pastoral care for pastors and seminarians in Haiti. I hoped to strengthen their identification as pastoral caregivers addressing people’s trauma and working toward healing the community. I designed experiences to develop each student’s capacity for empathic relationships with others. I focused on helping student’s ability to take the primary pastoral role for their congregations, to listen empathically to people’s suffering, to provide the space where people can express their emotions including anger, fear, despair, even joy and hope, and to share and receive God’s love and grace in their ministry.

I heard many stories about death, loss, and trauma from students. We talked about immediate financial needs due to poverty. We talked about their burdens of being a pastoral caregiver for the urgent needs of congregations. We also shared the powerful stories about how they have overcome their own trauma and found healing in their life. There were lots of stories of how they kept their lives together and of how God works through them. It was a very powerful time not only to connect with their pain and suffering, but also to engage with their hopes and dreams for their ministry.
 
The connection with the general resource of Institute of Congregational Trauma and Growth
While researching healing trauma and recovering the community, I contacted Rev. Dr. Kate Wiebe who had studied with me at Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary in the Doctoral program. She is a pastoral psychotherapist, congregational care consultant, and serves as the Executive Director of ICTG. I asked for some helpful resources. She recommended the General Ministry Guide. This guide book introduces three core relational components for healing trauma and congregational growth; calming, community, and communication. For each of these core relational components, there was discussion about how to practice being calm in the middle of the storm and hunger. We demonstrated how to listen to and communicate with each other. Also, we built up personal lists of supportive community in their ministry and in their life. We explored how to form the ritual of healing and lament. It was a very meaningful and spiritual journey as we built our relationship with each other and God. We learned how to listen to and grow with people and the community and to seek their hope, values, and dreams for the future. Then, we all gathered the stories together and connected with each story. Their collective story was one that will lead toward healing the trauma and recovering their community in God.
 
The connection of the story of God’s ministry 
It was about our relation to God. It was about our connection with the story of God’s ministry in our daily life. On the first day all I could see was the poverty. It didn’t take long to realize it was a place where we loved and cared for one another.  Over and over again, students and pastors told me how much it meant that they were able to learn about theology, to spend time with me, to get support in their ongoing ministry, and for the future of their communities. Over and over again, my friends, colleagues, ICTG, Mayville UMC church members, and my family sent emails with prayers and support. The love and gratitude was, and is, overwhelming and humbling. Although it was only for a few days, I was with the people of Haiti who were eager to work for God. I see the incredible bravery and patience of the people, and the countless ways God is at work. I pray it becomes a small step to connect the story of God’s ministry in all our lives toward healing and reconciliation.

To access the resource guide and other online training materials, visit the ICTG training manuals menu or browse our services. 

On behalf of the ICTG Board of Directors and Staff, thank you to financial contributors who provide funding for the creation of the ICTG resource guides and advisory support our staff offers to ministers like AHyun and the students she teaches with our materials. To provide resourcing for more ministers, make a contribution today.

As a nation of immigrants, our lives in the U.S. are increasingly becoming interconnected with people who are different than us. It now is commonplace to encounter in our neighborhoods, workplaces, and schools people of diverse ethnicities, cultures, and religions. Many family members dress in traditional outfits and speak in their own dialects as they live “at home away from home.” In addition, we get to enjoy sampling a variety of traditional cuisines and use globally-made products. This is what living in multicultural society looks like.    
 
According to the Pew Research Center, by 2055 the U.S. will not have a single racial or ethnic majority, much of this change driven by immigration.[1] Furthermore, at a time when traditional white protestant Christianity is on the decline, a number of immigrant churches continue to show growth.[2] And while many a small immigrant congregation shares worship space with larger white mainline church, there often is little meaningful interactions between the two. Although these diverse congregations share communities, worship and congregational life remain separate.
 
With global neighbors at our door step, congregations can become the “cultural bridge” to connect diverse communities.  However, rather than focusing on what we can do for them, why not ask what can they do for us?  What is it that they bring to inter-cultural relationships? 
 
Having worked in immigrant churches for two decades, I would highlight several strengths immigrant congregations and families bring to intercultural relationships:

• People who live in multiple cultures often have cultivated empathy for those who are different.  Awareness of pain, suffering, discrimination, and alienation can escape those who live in the dominant cultures, where common values and privilege are often taken for granted. However, immigrant persons, living outside of the dominant systems, can have unique insights into the cultural ways of the majority as well as those living in the margins of society. The empathy that is needed to connect and form relationships with people who are different is nurtured in a diverse mileu.

 

• People who live in multiple cultures often have more creative resources for problem-solving.  Having been exposed to diverse beliefs and worldviews enables people to consider different perspectives, form new ways to solve problems and respond to complex situations.  Having been in varied social locations and often marginalized, these people are able to consider positions from many angles and make balanced and fair decisions.

 

• Immigrant families already have developed the skills to navigate multicultural contexts. Multicultural families live with two or more cultural mores, values, and languages, and often these clashes cause conflict. Living in such a diverse familial context makes it necessary to navigate daily through particular and nuanced ways of thinking, doing, and being in different cultural contexts. Skills of accommodating and negotiating become a lifestyle that are used in family relationships, friendships, work relationships, and through other encounters in communities.

Multicultural persons have the internal resources to live among many cultures and can bring those skills to connecting and building relationships.  Here are some suggestions of what your church community can do, individually and collectively, to form relationships and build cultural bridges.   

• Accept persons in all their authenticity. In my counseling practice, when new clients present or respond in odd and unnatural ways, I listen more deeply. What I have learned is that the more I hear about their life stories, the more their “eccentric” ways of being make sense. This can be said about clients who have had unconventional upbringings or who have been brought up in cultural contexts other than my own. Each person becomes a unique individual within the constraints and freedoms of the interactions between the biological and the cultural, social and familial environment. Accepting persons in all their authenticity is to respect the cultural influences on their formation and to value them in all aspects of their personhood.

 

• Connect on the human level through universally shared experiences. We are much more alike than we are different. Our bio-psycho-spiritual processes are similar, with many common experiences and shared responses binding us together. In spite of sharply contrasting cultural norms, customs, and mores, people from different cultures may have more in common with each other - between cultures – than with some in one’s own group. For example, parenting, as a global experience, with various aspects (immense joy at child’s birth, brokenness within our families, deep grief of losing a child) can help create empathy and connect people across cultures.

     

• Build relationships through sharing of cultural traditions such as food. Food is more than a source of nourishment and represents important ways of being in the world. Traditional food and eating habits embody the landscape, climate, and tradition of one’s cultural group, symbolically representing a people and their culture. Sharing food creates a new dynamic cultural space, generates conversations, and builds relationships by inviting others to participate in the emotional, psychological, and social life-source of a people.

 
Multicultural society displays the creative and diverse nature of God.  As a country founded on immigration, God is here in our midst.  We encounter God as we engage in relationships with our global neighbors. Through our familial and congregational intercultural relationships, we become skilled in creating a “new cultural space” where all people are welcomed to interact with one another.
 
Together we can transcend the binary tensions of majority-minority positions—and instead co-create mutual relationships.

School was supposed to start today in Texas. 

Of course, for many students, it's not. If they are not huddled with their families on the second floors of their house, some had to spend last night on the roof, praying for a rescue. Those who have been rescued are transported to one of the shelters available through the Red Cross, various churches and houses of worship throughout the area, and other facilities. 

No one can say for sure how long people will need to stay in shelters. Many must now make plans to connect with family, friends, or find a place to live for the next few months, if not years. 

Today is devastatingly far from what they planned. ​

​How is your congregation generating goodness in the world today?

A lot of people in the world, and particularly in the United States, feel distraught. They worry about having a job, having a home or shelter, getting a good education, having health care, and being safe – let alone being happy, feeling free, or having wealth to share.
 
We witnessed this weekend how millions of people voted for the current administration and how millions of people marched against the current administration. Interestingly, many congregations today have members from both of these groups. They are struggling to bring reconciliation within their own walls, as well as in their communities. 
 
Loving a neighbor as yourself is a primary commandment. Perhaps what's most striking about the command to love one's neighbor is how it requires crossing so many arbitrary human-made lines . . . lines of faith, economic status, ethnicity, politics, and education. Learning how to love the person most different from you – to provide for them – stretches our capacities greatly. How is your congregation doing that now, in light of so much division? What's working best for you? 
 
As a Christian pastor, I also see how the story of the Good Samaritan inherently is about responding to trauma as well. Being a good neighbor means responding to the wounds my neighbor has with effective care.
 
This weekend, as a country, we were presented with a lot of wounds in front of us. People who voted for the current administration, who have long felt forgotten and ignored. People who voted against the current administration, who have long felt forgotten and ignored and now fear it even more. And people who feel a wide range of other experiences, much of which is based on pain from the past.
 
There are many people hurting. Many who have been hurting for a long time. The State of the Union is beleaguered, at best, and there is a tremendous amount of work to be done to stabilize it.

And, through all the pain expressed this weekend, millions of people witnessed glimmers of hope. Hope in joining together with people of like-mindedness. Hope in hearing a neighbor's story and thinking about their perspective in new light. Hope in deciding to fight for the rights and benefits of a neighbor, more than just one's own. Story after story keeps emerging across the country of a people who seek out liberty and justice for all. 
 
What is your congregation doing to participate in building up your community and the nation? It what ways are you making a difference for greater health and well-being?
 
At ICTG, we’ve found, in part, the work health and well-being gets done most often through individual or small group efforts that add up to great collective movements. They include:

• Being a trustworthy reliable adult for the children and youth in your home, congregation, and community
• Listening to survivors and valuing their accounts
• Upholding and encouraging the use of adequate safety measures and effective resources for healing
• Practicing habits and rituals proven for growth (including healthy diet, exercise, sleep, prayer and meditation, contributing consistently to community, strong work ethic, and being a life-long learner)
• Celebrating with friends, family, and colleagues regularly

When these things are developed, crises, trauma, and disasters are far less likely to occur. When they do occur, groups practicing these things are far more resilient.
 
In the days ahead, may we all work toward building more healthy, vibrant communities. We all know the world could use a lot more them. 

This past weekend I was at a large youth gathering where I prayed with a young guy whose father was likely headed to prison and whose mom had abandoned the kids. Imagine how he feels about all the time at home this Christmas season.

For others the holidays are grim reminders of past events or divorces or deaths. Others are just flat out stressed. Purchasing presents, expensive travel/hassles, shorter days and less sunshine can bring on depression or seasonal affective disorder.

In 2008, the American Psychological association did a poll revealing eight out of ten Americans anticipated stress during the holiday season.

For those who are already experiencing depression, sleep disorders, anxiety, feelings, memories and more the expectations connected with the Christmas holiday bring even more anxiety. The songs, the pictures, the movies and stories all paint idyllic scenes of warmth and love. One writer in the Washington Post said, “Norman Rockwell images of large, smiling families gathered around a Christmas tree are deeply ingrained into our holiday mythology, which holds that every Dec. 25, parents and grandparents and siblings put differences aside and band together like the closing scene of 'It’s a Wonderful Life.'" Living up to this in the midst of trauma can feel overwhelming.

What is the role of the youth leader in helping teenagers to safely navigate the “holiday ocean” which sometimes is calm and other times very turbulent?

Here is a short - and likely incomplete - synthesis of the best ideas I have seen or researched for how a youth leaders can create a climate of healthy response and safety:

1) Provide a space where the challenge of the holidays is acknowledged – Don’t solely talk about the excitement of the days off and the celebration of the holidays. Let your youth know you are aware for some this will be a difficult time. Invite them to let you know how to pray for them in their circumstance. Be available to pray with them and/or point them to leaders who could be available at different times during the holidays so students can reach out.

2) “Bring it down a notch” – Don’t be a part of the problem with over-programming during an already busy holiday season. Church communities sometimes contribute to the stress of youth and families in failing to consider the larger schedule going on around them. Show your youth community the importance of play and rest so they don’t barrel into the Christmas break sick and tired.

3) Challenge your youth, leaders and families to create different memories – Youth leaders can come alongside youth and families by encouraging them to create different experiences over the season. People love to have traditions but some of those traditions are tied to traumatic events or create undue stress. Diplomatically and strategically offer alternatives. One of the best gifts youth and families can give to each other is creating new memories together.

4) Give youth the opportunity to make a list of what they might like to do during a holiday season – Through this exercise you can see what they value and perhaps help them walk toward realizing some of their dreams and desires.

5) Work alongside youth to create an exit strategy – Give tools to youth who may need a “way out” of the stress or trauma they experience. Thinking through options in advance gives them hope and lessens the anxiety of what might be coming.

6) Encourage living in the present – Jesus reminds us “Today’s trouble is enough for today.” (Matthew 5:34b, NRSV). Your youth have legitimate worries about what may be coming given their history but you can be a “cheerleader” for helping them live one day at a time making it be the best it can be.

7) Direct people to www.psychcentral.com/holidays  or the National Child Traumatic Stress Network for more resources – These links offer more thoughts and insights.

Congregational care and ministry can be exhausting. In addition to the demands of care and ministry, faith leaders must also keep up with personal responsibilities. Caring for so many people at the same time requires a lot of emotional energy and attention. Quickly, individuals can become tired, stressed out, and exhausted. In a tired state, individuals may begin to cut corners, especially related to self-care. These shortcuts can become unhealthy habits that facilitate fatigue and emotional exhaustion that can compromise one’s ability to care.

Aristotle once said, “We are what we repeatedly do.”  What Aristotle did not say is, “We are what we do once or twice. . .”  Wishful thinking may lead some to hope that habits can be created overnight, or that doing something once or twice will be sufficient to achieve a goal or outcome, like rejuvenation and renewal. Unfortunately, self-care cannot be packaged into a pill to be taken once or twice bi-weekly. Instead, self-care is a habit that must be done repeatedly. 

Self-care is like exercise. The more you do it the better you feel, and the more likely you are to keep doing it. However, it is easy to get out of shape. Taking one day off can turn into two; two to three; and then an entire week has lapsed. Self-care, like exercise, can also become a burden – something else to do on the checklist. Whether you’re struggling to get back into the swing of self-care habits or looking to begin self-care habits, here are a few points that can help get you started.

1. Discover what self-care activities help you to feel rejuvenated.
    Create rules for your self-care activities that can help you be more intentional and focused  
    on the quality of your self-care.  For example, watching TV may seem like a self-care 
    activity, but you may be unintentionally wasting this time by flipping through channels for 
    thirty minutes, never finding a show you really want to watch, and getting frustrated in the 
    process.  A simple fix for this might be to only watch recorded TV shows during this time, 
    rather than spending your valuable self-care time channel surfing.

2. Mark it down in your calendar.
    Intentionally plan for a self-care habit.

3. Say “no” to one thing this week.
    The flip side to saying “no” to requests or activities may also require you to begin to ask for
    help.  Asking for help builds relationships and strengthens relational bonds – most people
    want to help!

4. Determine if you are an introvert or an extrovert.
    If you are an introvert, schedule alone time for personal enrichment.  If you are an 
    extrovert, be intentional in surrounding yourself with people who will energize you.

5. Set realistic goals that can quickly become habits.
    Do not set a goal too high too soon.  This can quickly lead to discouragement and leave 
    you feeling more exhausted and depleted.  Start small and remember that habits happen   
    one small step at a time.

“The American Psychological Association’s (APA) study on stress found that nearly half of America’s kids are stressed.  This is bad news because it means unhealthy amounts of stress hormones are coursing through the developing brains of these children and that causes learning and behavior problems.”

How is that for an opening few lines in a blog I recently read?

According to this blog, the human brain does not fully develop until about age 25 so there is plenty of room for vulnerability in the adolescent years. The area of the brain most vulnerable to stress hormones is the prefrontal cortex. Here is where intelligence, learning and impulse control are located. When stress hormones enter the picture, struggle ensues.

Further, the same blog cited a study that found “91 percent of kids say what stresses them most is how stressed their parents have become, and 69 percent of parents were oblivious to the impact their level of stress is having on the kids.” Ouch!

This lines up with the findings from a study by the Families and Work Institute which found that what kids want most is “stress-free parents”. Kids are quite adept at picking up on a parent’s stress level. Kids look for non-verbal cues, like sad expressions, heavy footsteps and/or consistent fatigue.

What shall we do then? I submit a few ideas as logical solutions, flowing from the findings above:

• Appreciate the vulnerability of the teenage brain – This cannot be over-emphasized. The adolescent brain is constantly shuffling and its doors hang wide open for emotional and cognitive “guests” to enter. Teenagers are finely tuned to see events, words and emotions larger than we imagine. Our response may be: “No big deal.” Their response may be: “Biggest deal ever.”

 

• Understand the traumatic effects of stress – Even the mildest form of prolonged stress can have long lasting effects on our psychological state. Youth who experience stress at school and then come home to stress find little to no solace anywhere in their known world. The enduring struggle to rise above the stress has traumatic consequences.

 

• Lower your stress level – Our best practice, as parents of adolescents, is to work on lowering our levels of stress. As we take care of our physical, emotional, mental, social and spiritual health, we operate more efficiently in providing safety and care for our children. This is especially true with managing our stress. It is an illusion to believe we can mask or hide our stress from our teenagers, a group for whom which almost everything is magnified. Care for yourself and you will be caring for your teenager.

 

• Spread the word and care as a community – Lowering stress in one’s own life is not easily accomplished in a vacuum. We need to educate those around us about the traumatic effects of stress on youth. By involving our community in the conversation about stress and youth, we can begin creating a more caring and accountable community. The results could be widespread, with parents hanging out with low-stressed parents who together are rearing low-stress kids.​