Interview with Roger Foster

This interview is about Playback Theatre, the intersection of art, social interaction and ritual. Roger shares with us the potential of this practice and how challenges issues related with trauma, identity and the debriefing of inter-cultural processes. Roger also shares about the challenges faced by peace builders. He says: “Some members of the helping professions, including many in the ‘peace building industrial complex,’ have surprisingly little experience or skill in the process of revising one’s personal narrative, particularly narratives that are rooted in intergenerational suffering or trauma. Some of these people are amazingly arrogant in their expectation that individuals and communities with whom they work can revise their self-referencing, self-reinforcing and unhelpful narratives quickly, efficiently, and without anguish.” 

This interview open our eyes to another emerging tool for our Justice and Peace commitment.  

Interview with David Evans (Part 1)

Dr. Evans  describes himself as growing up in fragmented settings that led to attending Baptist, Roman Catholic, and Lutheran churches. As a teenager lost in various destructive circumstances, he drew strength from biblical teaching he remembered hearing as a boy in a revivalist camp. He then moved into new life as he cried out to Jesus, “Help me.”. He has worked in various ministry contexts. While living in Washington, DC, David was the Junior/Senior High Director of an out-of-school time program on Capitol Hill. Later he served as Community Development Resource coordinator with MCC East Coast. Most recently he was co-pastor of Boonton United Methodist Church in New Jersey. Professor Evans is a Post-Doctoral Fellow in the History of Christianity at The Drew Theological School. He has academic degrees from Spring Arbor College in Michigan, Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, D.C., and Drew University in New Jersey. Professor Evans is interested in how white Protestant American forms of Christianity have been perceived through the eyes/experiences of people who live in the national, religious, and racial margins of the United States. He is currently working on a project exploring Methodist missionaries’ perception of Italian immigrants in early twentieth-century America as racial others. He currently is a faculty in Mission, Intercultural and Interfaith Studies at Eastern Mennonite Seminary.

Interview with Ray Motsi

Ray Motsi, Ph.D. was born in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. He left Zimbabwe at the age of 19 and attended college in England. After he graduated, he learned that there had been a massacre in Zimbabwe. This massacre was part of Robert Mugabe’s Gukurahundi Conflict. He knew it was time to take a stand and make a change. He has dedicated his life to combatting the conflict in Zimbabwe through peace-building and non-violence. President of the Theological College of Zimbabwe (TCZ) since January 1991. Dr. Motsi previously has served as a Baptist pastor in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe for more than 20 years and, in 2002, he founded Grace to Heal, a faith-based organization focusing on community peacemaking and conflict transformation. He graduated from TCZ with a B.A. in Practical Theology in 1990 and then later from the University of Pretoria in South Africa where he earned his M.A. in Old Testament and Hebrew in 2001, and his Ph.D. in Peacebuidling, Conflict Resolution, and Trauma Healing in 2009. 

MINHER: Counselling sessions and healing retreats

“Come to me, all you who work hard and who carry heavy burdens and I will refresh you” (Matthew 11: 28).

The Ministry of Inner Healing and Reconciliation (MINHER) offers Counselling Sessions and Healing Retreats. These two services are offered in order to bring inner healing and reconciliation to a person experiencing the following problems:

1. Suicide and thoughts of death: Haunted by feelings of wanting to commit suicide or thinking of committing suicide.  2.  Trauma: Being very much disturbed by a very powerful shocking and sad event that has happened in your life. Experiencing being haunted (troubled, disturbed, or chased) by the bad experience that happened to you in the past. 3. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD): Experiencing intense fear, shock and helplessness as a result of remembering a very sad event that happened to you in the past. 4. Bereavement: Intense, shock, sadness and sorrow after the death of somebody you love very much. Recurrent and disturbing dreams especially after the death of your beloved person (parent, spouse, child, brother/sister). 5. Depression & Anxiety: Persistent feelings of hopelessness and pessimism. Feelings of worthlessness, guilt and helplessness. Loneliness, sleeping too much, not wanting to socialise or come out of bed or house. Difficulties and fear in making decisions (especially important ones). Restlessness, anxiety and experiencing intense fear, worries or empty mood. Insomnia (lack of sleep). Not feeling yourself, especially after a shocking event. Lack of confidence and enthusiasm in your life. 6.  Healing and Renewal Retreats for Christians: for those who want to be healed from the wounds of the past, who want to have more personal relationship with God, who want to grow in freedom and peace with God and with each other. 7. Bipolar Disorders: Having two extremes when acting: either happy or very sad. Lack of balance in your life; either very excited or very depressed. Sudden changes of mood (mood swings).

 All the services are offered in strictly confidential and non-judgemental environment!

Counselling Sessions. First option: Individual Counselling Sessions in a package of 4 to 7 sessions offered once a week between Tuesdays to Thursdays on agreed time. Second option: three days individually guided Healing Retreat with a session once a day on agreed date and time.

Fees. First option: Counselling Sessions: Negotiable. Second option of three days residential (including full board) and Healing Retreat: KR 750.

Where to find MINHER. MINHER is located at St. Peter’s Catholic Church in SERENJE at about 7 kilometres from the first “T” junction on the Great North Road, coming from Lusaka.

Who to Contact? Fr. Oswald Mallya, M.Afr  (Psychotherapist/Counsellor).

St. Peter’s Catholic Church, Box 850018, SERENJE, Zambia. Telephone: 097-856-7684/095-585-2771. E-mail: oswaldmallya@yahoo.com