Trauma Healing for Persecuted Central Asian Women

Zahra* bowed her head, gently gulped several times, and quietly left her seat in the circle of women gathered for their weekly Bible-based Trauma Healing group.

You’ve likely seen someone like Zahra struggling with a discussion topic in a small group you participate in. Perhaps you have been the one to step out, struggling.

The topic of the session was grief, and Zahra was clearly grieving.

She is one of 12 Muslim refugees who experienced the love and compassion of Jesus because of your generosity to this ministry.

The Trauma Healing facilitator found Zahra sitting alone on a stoop a few minutes later, her hands covering her face as she wept. The women talked together about Zahra’s source of grief. Eventually, they walked back into the small group.

Thank you for your compassion for women like Zahra, the compassion to send someone to sit with Zahra and help her process her grief. Thank you for offering hope and healing to persecuted women in Central Asia.

During their sessions, Zahra’s Trauma Healing group showed openness to the gospel, so leaders invited them to a Bible-storying and evangelism retreat.

Because of the foundation laid through Trauma Healing, these Muslim women were open to learning about Jesus and His compassionate love for them.

Please join us in prayer:

• Pray for Zahra and other Traum Healing participants to accept Jesus as Savior.
• Ask God to strengthen facilitators who repeatedly listen to devastating stories. Ask Him to continue watering gospel seeds planted through ongoing relationships.
• Pray specifically for a new group focused on Persian refugees meeting this year.

Your generosity enabled 146 Central Asian refugees to participate in Trauma Healing and trained 21 believers as facilitators so far this year. Your gifts and prayers matter!

*Name changed

Thank you so much for your generous support of our team and women in our Central Asian community impacted by trauma. Your prayers and gifts are mobilizing, equipping, and empowering them to follow Jesus by teaching them to walk alongside hurting people and share hope in Christ.

“Before this week I have never one time considered forgiving the people who have wronged me. Now I know that I was only hurting myself . . . I need to continually give my pain to Jesus – daily, weekly, monthly . . . This is the first time I have talked about this in 40 years; I have never told anyone before.”

L* has been a growing follower of Christ for two years. She is passionate about helping others find a relationship with Christ and grow in their walks with the Lord. She and her husband both participated in a trauma-healing seminar to learn how to support others who are hurting. As they worked through their journeys to healing, they shared things never previously discussed, realized how often their actions resulted from their trauma and allowed themselves to lament the many people and things they had lost. Two weeks later, L led a group of eight through the same steps toward healing, many of whom were not believers.

L is one of 12 believers we trained in November 2022 to lead trauma-healing groups. Eight of these worked together to host a trauma healing group for nonbelievers and new believers immediately following their week of training. They want to host two new groups per month during 2023! Many of the twelve are incorporating what they have learned into discipleship encounters they have both online and in-person.

M* has been attending ministry events for years. While her heart is open to the gospel, she has not yet chosen to follow Christ. Attending the trauma healing group for women from her culture, she began looking at Christ in a new way. Now, she says that her “faith has grown.” She sees God at work in her life even in her suffering and wants to continue to know more about Him!

Your partnership with us in these trauma healing groups helps believers and nonbelievers begin a path toward healing. The materials you help provide in the language of national partners enable this to happen in a culturally appropriate way. These materials multiply the efforts of workers and believers alike, and this year we translated trauma-healing materials into Turkish for use by our national partners.

Thank you for your generosity to this ministry. Teams worldwide utilize your gifts for trauma-healing seminars, translations, and trainings for Christian workers and national partners. Trauma care is vital to discipleship work among Central Asian women. As people seek healing from their pain by attending trauma healing seminars, they often find that healing in Christ, seeking the Word of God for answers and experiencing peace they cannot explain as they grow closer to the Lord.

Thank you so much for your kindness, generosity, and partnership! Your prayer and gifts are truly transforming lives through this project! Please prayerfully consider making another gift to support this ministry in 2023.

*Names changed.