Spirit in Action

Trauma-healing: Buffalo Star People, Rwanda, & Nigeria

A visit with 2 people, from opposite corners of the globe, trying to help with recovery and healing from severe trauma. Terry Hokenson & his interest in regenerative agriculture led him to a total shift in his worldview, guided by the insights and work of Francis and Barbara Bettelyoun, and the Indigenous American organization called Buffalo Star People. This interview took place before the members of Minneapolis Friends Meeting on Easter Sunday 2024.

Duration:: 54m
Broadcast on:: 28 Jun 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

(upbeat music) ♪ Let us sing this song for the healing of the world ♪ - Welcome to Spirit in Action. My name is Mark Helpsmeat and each week we bring you visits and conversations with people doing healing work for this world, hearing what they're doing and what inspires them and supports them in doing it. Welcome to Spirit in Action. Today for Spirit in Action, we'll be sharing two different interviews from very different places on the globe. Our second visit will be with a woman from Rwanda who traveled thousands of miles across Africa to Nigeria to help with trauma healing in areas deeply affected by the actions of Boko Haram. But before we head there, we'll start much more locally for me with a trip to Minneapolis, Minnesota. Earlier in the year, I was invited to help model deep listening by interviewing Terry Hochanson, a member of the Minneapolis Friends Meeting. As he talked about the insights and changes to his life, which have come above from his exposure to Native American ways of seeing connection to the earth and its inhabitants and from learning about the work of the Buffalo Star People, notably the need for restoration and healing as conveyed by Francis and Barbara Betelune. For this first interview, we'll be stepping back to Sunday, March 31st, 2024, Easter this year, as Terry and I sat down before Quakers gathered at Minneapolis Friends Meeting. I'm grateful for Production Assistance on today's program by Andrew Janssen. Please note that this program was edited to fit in our 55-minute broadcast, but there is a full uncut version with additional minutes of interview on the northernspiritradio.org website. Here we go to Minneapolis, Minnesota, back on Easter Sunday for my visit with Terry Hochanson. - We want to give a thank you to welcome and outreach for presenting our mid-morning program today. Many of you may know of Mark Helpsmeet from Northern Spirit Radio, or from Friends General Conference, gatherings, and some of you may know of the friendly folk dancers group he started. Today, he will present a lesson in deep listening. This will include an interview with Terry Hochanson. So, welcome to Mark Helpsmeet and Terry Hochanson. - Terry, so great to have you here with me for spirit in action. - Great to be with you. - I wanted to start off with a softball question, so I wanted to say what is the work of your life? - Communicating? (laughing) - Well, your work as a lawyer, paralegal work, your work construction, is that communication work, or is that just something that filled in the time until you found the real work? - Well, the law is 25 years behind me that was a communication thing, I think, but the carpentry is sort of a way of communicating, too, 'cause I'm talking with material, and I don't know. It is also a means of a living, which I enjoy, but the thing that really motivates me is communicating. - So, I think part of this epic that we're gonna talk about in your life was occasioned because you learned about regenerative agriculture, and that was important to you. You were doing the 350 Minnesota 350 podcast. Say what that was and where you were doing it. - I was attending a group in Minnesota 350 that was interested in regenerative agriculture. I'd never heard of it, and I was just really excited to find out what the potential was for alleviating greenhouse gases, so I got excited about that. I decided to have a radio show about it. - Why are you doing a radio show? I thought you were in the carpentry. I thought you were into loitering. - Well, like I say, the loitering part was 25 years ago. I ended that a long time ago. Activism is really what is central to my life, so you know the phrase tent making. In the New Testament, people were called tent makers that that's how they wanted to preach the word, but tent making was how they actually supported themselves. Well, to me, it's carpentry, and I wanted to spread the word about this regenerative agriculture thing, so I knew that fresh air, radio, local small radio station, allowed people from the community to have an hour worth of broadcasting time on Sunday mornings, and I thought that would be a perfect way to talk about regenerative agriculture, so I invited some people that knew something about it. I didn't much, and I had a conversation with them on the air, and the coordinator of the program, after we were done, came up to me and said, "That was really interesting, "would you like to do more on this subject?" And I thought, "Well, yeah, "I heard that all these principles of regenerative agriculture "came from the practices of indigenous people." So I thought, "Well, I'd like to find "some indigenous people to talk about this." And that's how I met Francis Petlion. - And evidently, Francis was caretaker of the Native American Medicine Garden at U of M. I've never heard of that before. - Yeah, I hadn't either. Actually, his wife Barbara, who is a clinical psychologist, was teaching. She had a contract to teach at the university. I don't remember all the details about what she was supposed to be. I knew that it had to do with indigenous culture, but in the course of doing that, she set up this garden, and then when her contract was finished and she was going to leave, she brought her husband in to continue the work with the garden 'cause it attracted a lot of people. And it was sort of a centerpiece for telling stories. - Is Barbara Lakota? - Yes. - You're not Lakota. You originate, I think, maybe from Texas, and what's your connection to Native folks? - Well, there was none before I heard, well, I had passing encounters and that sort of thing, but what has come about for me in the last couple of years was kicked off by the regenerative agriculture connection. For my second show, I asked Francis, who I hadn't met Barbara yet, and another woman who was the farm manager at Dream of Wild Health to, you know, if they would allow me to interview them, they were game to do it. So that's where I actually learned what the indigenous approach to raising food and dealing with food was. - Tell me a little bit about your history, Minnesota, Texas, and back. I'm interested in that because I don't know if you even have any Native connections. I don't know what your connection to the earth is. - To my knowledge, I don't have a drop of indigenous blood, but I am, you know, I grew up in the country and I love the outdoors and nature and everything. You know, I spent my whole adult life as a winter camper. So I'm really drawn to things indigenous because that's the image I have of them. After I got acquainted with Francis, you know, he talked more about what he was doing with the garden and also about the frustrations. They had some difficult relationships with the university administrators and he had a support group and I'd sort of started sitting in on that support group. We zoomed our meetings and I was sitting there one day when all of a sudden I'm hearing Francis talk about the Lakota grandmother who had lost her home and needed shelter. She was a member of the Rosebud Reservation tribal member and had the right to claim a small plot of land, but she had nothing but a car and a broken down pop up camper. And so she needed more shelter. Some of us in the support group decided to start, I wasn't involved in this part, but they started a GoFundMe site and got enough money together to buy a big tent and somebody took it out to the Rosebud site and the wind tore it up in about a week. It just didn't last. The wind out there is just fierce. So then someone recalled that there was a teepee available, a professor of forestry, a native person who is a professor of forestry at the university had custody of it. And this guy I had just met and I volunteered to bring it out to the Rosebud site. And that's how I got involved. I just happened to be standing around. So we hauled that teepee out there. It was a large one. Polls had been delivered and we got to sit there and watch these four or five young Lakota men set up the teepee. And it was really thing to behold. It seemed like a sacred ceremony almost. They were very quiet. You'd imagine a bunch of white guys setting up a big tent. They'd get a 12th pack and it'd be a raucous undertaking. Well, this was very principled and sedate. And I mean, they were very quiet. They consulted each other. They were kind of sharing information 'cause no one of them knew all the stuff that was involved in setting the teepee up. And so I was really impressed with the spiritual aspect of it. I mentioned that to Barbara. I was sitting next to Barbara watching this and she said, yes, they're sun dancers. Explain to our listeners what sun dancers are. Well, I don't have a very thorough knowledge of it, but it's a spiritual road that young indigenous Lakotas can decide to take that road. They get involved in it. And like I say, I can't really tell you too much about the details, but it was evident that they were undertaking a spiritual exercise. So this is a starting point for you. You've got considerably more engaged in the work and connection. And I guess maybe you went to college to learn because up until that point, you didn't have much sense of native ways. You needed to be educated. And so I think you started learning something about where real care for the earth comes from. Yes, well, Francis sort of unpacked a lot of that in the interview that we did. What did he say? You know, I wish I could remember verbatim what he said because I was very affected by it and very moved. But what it amounted to was pointing out that food is something that permeates the entirety of anybody's culture, their culture. And there's so many different things that are related to food. You can celebrate with food, you raise food, you share food, there are spiritual things about food. The impression I got was that, you know, people who take a few techniques that they see people implementing are not getting the whole story. There's so much more than regenerative agriculture what people who are practicing regenerative agriculture generally seem to be taking from the native tradition. It's just plucking a few practices out of the context that's really very integrally related to their culture. I think they were very skeptical about this regenerative agriculture. And they've mentioned cargill and general mills, you know, that have pledged to put millions of acres under regenerative agriculture. And they're just shaking their heads over that. We haven't really seen any results yet. It made good some good press for them, I guess. Now you're engaging with these folks out of your Quaker background. How long have you been associated with Quakers? How much has that been your spiritual view? Did you start as something else? Yeah, I was raised Lutheran. But I think I've been attending Minneapolis Friends meeting for about 30 years now. I attended for a year and then I joined. As Francis or the other Lakota and other folks you've been learning from, learning with, have they talked at all about economic systems? I have a feeling that our capitalist system as it's engaged right now, it in fact will keep us from being part of this connection to nature. Do they actually talk about that kind of thing? Yes. I hesitate to formulate things and, you know, but I'm just gonna go out and I'm sure that anything I say is gonna have to be amended. But they elevate the welfare of the community above everything and any kind of private interests are below the welfare of the whole community. Now, this may suggest certain political orientations that people can attach their labels to and everything, but it's a big gulf. You know, when you think about Cargill and General Mills, you know where their bottom line is, what the nature of their bottom line is. But the bottom line of indigenous people is the welfare of the whole community. That's not so strange from even the culture's couple, centuries back. You know, a number of the states of the United States are not states, but they're commonwealths, which is exactly embedded in that idea. So this is not a completely new idea to people from Europe 'cause they were at one point indigenous people as well. So I have the sense that when you visited the Rosebud reservation that you actually felt changed in a way. So what has this meant in your life? You just do your same carpentry and go on or? - Well, I think what changed is that I felt like I could learn so much from these people. And they had a purpose. Francis and Barbara had a purpose. They call it the Buffalo Star People. Their purpose is to heal their people from the effects of historical trauma. Well, everything that I learned about them and their goals and undertakings, I thought, you know, we can do that too. We need that too, and they say that. They say we all have indigenous backgrounds, and we also all need to heal from historical trauma. I just think that the more I see what they're up to and what they're trying to do, the more I learn about what we need to do. And it's a lot more than planting cover crops and all these techniques that are used in regenerative agriculture. And I don't wanna put down people that actually get this. There are plenty of settler descendants that are trying to do regenerative agriculture that get that it's not just simply this technique and that technique. They'd like to integrate it into their whole culture as well. But I see that getting into relationship with these indigenous people is a way of learning and healing. We need to heal our relationship if you're at all familiar with the history of settler relations with indigenous people. It's not a pretty thing, you know, it's-- - Is that Quaker understatement? - Yeah, it's a gross understatement. But they're not interested in having us sit around morning and being guilty. They want us to join in healing, the healing thing. They want us to join in with them. They don't wanna feel like we wanna help them. They want us to be transformed too. So it's not just a matter of us helping them, it's us joining them and reclaiming our own indigeneity. - Which is one of the three principles, one of the things they're working at. If you go to the website for buffalestarpeople.org re-indigenizing, it's their first point. And the second one you already talked about was about trauma healing circles. It involves trauma healing circles, which we all need to engage in. So are you connected with the buffalestar people? What's your connection? Is that just something you've learned about? - This is pretty much at the core of what Francis and Barbara Metlion are about. The buffalestar people is about these healing circles. This is the on the ground way that they proceed, you know, they conduct these healing circles with their people. And they have done healing circles with other European seller types and even a friend that I met in the course of building the cabin for the grandmother, which came next. There was a Somali social worker from St. Paul who came out and sort of pitched in. She didn't know the first thing about the tools and stuff, but she was willing to try everything. And the way she met Francis and Barbara was by participating in a healing circle with Barbara. Barbara was conducting this healing circle. You know, I can't really say too much about the mechanics of the healing circles, but just to say that it's really at the core. They feel that anything that anybody has tried to do or tries to do to lift up the Lakota people, indigenous people helping with the housing or whatever, you know, health issues, whatever. All of these initiatives that have been tried in the past have eventually fallen flat. They don't go anywhere because no one has yet addressed the trauma. No one has undertaken to heal the people because the trauma has created social dysfunction to do a degree that is just hard to get. I mean, it's hard to wrap your mind around. And it's very, very sad. So it's also hard to escape the logic of what they're saying that the healing of the trauma needs to happen before any of the rest can really take root. - And so again, what's your connection with Buffalo Star people? - Well, I'm just doing whatever I can do. I'm trying to communicate what they're up to to people that I'm connected to. And this meeting has been very supportive in that way. - And you're referring to Minneapolis Friends meeting where we're doing this interview with Terry Wilkinson and Mark helps me. - Yeah. And you represent the first, well, not the very first, but I mean, I can see things spilling out beyond our borders to other Quaker meetings and other Quaker individuals. And this is a wonderful thing to be happening right now 'cause the potential to get the story out. That's mainly what I think my best use is in this situation is to tell this story. And I have to understand it. I know that they need a lot of help raising money to finance what they're trying to do. But the main thing is that they just want people to understand and be able to tell the story and understand the story. I think that's my first commitment is to understand, to learn. And it, you know, learning too quickly is a danger. It's a relationship. You have to enter into a relationship that's gonna take time. And they say the Buffalo Star people campaign is going to take place over generations. They're looking way ahead. It's not just a project that's gonna happen over 10 years or something. This is something they're trying to get started that's gonna go on for generations. - Thank you, Terry. We are present here at Minneapolis Friends Meeting and Meeting Force was gonna happen shortly, but right now we're gonna have room for a couple of questions if people would like. I grew up in a farming community and had a lot of relatives and ancestors who were farmers and mostly they had small mixed farms. And I have watched the agricultural system of rural Minnesota turn into large row crop farms. And partly that's because farming is a risky business. And row crop farms is what the government supports in terms of subsidizing crop insurance in terms of guaranteeing a market for biofuels. How do we change and what would it look like to have a widespread regenerative farming system? - In 25 words or less, Terry. (audience laughs) - I don't know, but-- - Some people give honest answers. It's one of the things that's really important if we're gonna advance in our world is to recognize when we don't have the answers and when we can just say, "I don't know," because that means that then we're ready to learn. - Yeah, I think I've become reoriented towards, back before I learned very much about Francis and Barbara and the Buffalo Star people, I might have had an answer or made an answer in terms of regenerative agriculture, but now I think we're really looking at changing our whole way of life. It's a lot bigger than it was before. Are there other questions? - Hi, Terry. So glad that you spoke to the meeting about all the different aspects. I think both regenerative agriculture and community are tied here and that's because, and pardon me, I've got a jibway ancestors, we cannot see the world through the same glasses once you've seen indigenous agriculture and indigenous healing processes happen and you do that, friends, one relationship at a time and placing yourself in a place where you can have that kind of relationship or be exposed to considering community as the highest, the highest level of spirituality that allows us to be on this planet. That's not a question. I hope I summed up some of that. - One of the things that I suspect that makes it really difficult in our country is the US in particular has this really strong sense of individualism where we don't have to consider the common wealth importance, how it affects the wide community, we just say, what's in it for me? That phrase, what's in it for me is so much a part of our culture, the way we think of everything from the moment we get up in the morning that shifting to this other way of seeing us as whole. It's not just me, it's we constantly and we is much bigger than just people. I think that that's an immense change and I have no idea how to help the US do that. We have one more person here who has a question. - When trying to start community change, what would you say was the most helpful in getting people to be with you in that mission? - Well, I think there's probably a hundred answers to that and if not a thousand, you know, but I think if a group of people got together to read a book and discuss, that's a beginning. There are so many starting points and I guess all we need to have is kind of an aim or an intention, maybe that's too simple. I suspect it all starts from love and that's not necessarily love in terms of a hug or a sweet and talk, but it's love in terms of real connecting. When someone knows that they've been seen by you and that you are valued, we take one step away from the oneness that separates us. - I wanna, we have to end, we have another group coming in. I wanna thank you for coming and presenting with us and Terry, thank you. And I wanna thank you, Terry, so much for joining me, continuing the work being faithful to it and finding your next job on this Earth. - Thank you, Mark. - So folks, that was my interview with Terry Hockenson and Minneapolis friends meeting as I tried to model deep listening as I interviewed Terry before the Quakers there on Easter Sunday, March 31st this year. I've got links to the buffalostarpeople.org on northernspiritradio.org and in just a moment, we'll head on to my interview with another healer and transformer, this time over in Rwanda and Nigeria. But first, I'll remind you that you're listening to Spirit in Action website, northernspiritradio.org where you can listen to all 19 years of our guests from both Spirit in Action and Song of the Soul, find links and further information and feedback, your reactions, thoughts and suggestions to us via comments on our site. Please do connect with us and help us serve you well. We do this program for different reasons than many programs are created and we specifically try to serve you rather than the corporate or governmental funders who steer most media. About 90% of radio and TV media in the United States are in the hands of just five or six conglomerates. You can help us keep us strong and viable by donating either online via our northernspiritradio.org website or via the mailing address there. And while you're at it, consider supporting the 35 or so community radio stations across the U.S. that carry our northern spirit radio programs, providing media that really does serve the community. But now let's hurry back to Christine Nirumva, today's second guest for Spirit in Action. I met Christine in Kenya back in 2016, though she's from Rwanda. And since that time, she spent twice to Nigeria, drawing on her experience with the alternatives to violence programs, trauma healing workshops and workshops in healing and rebuilding our communities, abbreviated as HIROC. Clearly, where Rwanda's need for healing and reconnection after the genocide there has some valuable lessons to share with the peoples of Nigeria, badly scarred by the depredations of Boko Haram. We'll travel via Zoom to Rwanda right now to talk with Christine Nirumva. Christine, how wonderful to have you here today for Spirit in Action. - Thank you, I'm happy to. - I saw your post on Facebook about your travels to Nigeria. I hadn't known about it ahead of time. Which months was it that you were there? - I just lived Rwanda on first of all. And so you were there in February and March? - Yeah, two months, April and March. - The information you posted on Facebook did not tell me a lot about how this came about. Have you been part of trauma healing workshops and AVP and all of that work in Rwanda as well? - Yeah, I was part of a workshop here, everything, I tell, I think, to be on these projects. - Yeah, in Rwanda, and also in Iraq, healing and rebuilding our community. So in this workshop is where I got a chance to meet pastors from such a brethren, Nigeria. So from that time, we keep talking and become friends. - So when did you get involved in trauma healing heroic type workshops? Because this is all background that made you available to go to Nigeria and do the work there. - I joined the team of AVP. I attended a experience project for my first time to attend the workshop. I was among the people who was being trained. So it was in 2015. - 2015, so that point you would have been 24 years old, I think. - Yeah. - So tell me about your trip to Nigeria. And you went to Nigeria because there are many people there who need trauma healing because of Boko Haram. Please describe what happened there and why you went there. - First of all, I didn't mention that I was there before in 2019, but at that time, my trip purpose was for visit. I spent there only two weeks. I've heard that they have already started that project of trauma healing in their community, but they needed support from our team from Rwanda. So they invited me before so that I can visit their community just for two weeks. And to get familiar with that place, while they are still continuing to develop their project because it was already for the first time to implement that in alternative prevalence project. This trip for this year, it was my second trip to there. - Were you at all in charge of designing any of the work that went there? Because you've had the extensive training. In Rwanda. - No, at that time, I just visited and we visited different churches to give a little testimony about how our country is developing from our history and up to now how we are. We also visited schools. At that time for Christian children to go in museum schools or museum children to go in Christian schools. It wasn't there. So we had to visit Christian school and you had to visit museum school. And for those two schools, I give testimony and how even though in our country there was that genocide and the country was upside down, we are building ourselves again with unity. So it was a brief experience and they were happy to hear what I was talking because in their area, to hear that people felt and killed each other and yet they're sitting together, they didn't understand that. So I had to go in different places, giving some few testimony for just bleafy. So after that, they told me that they are planning to invite me for somehow long visitation and long program so that I can share more and I can join the team in villages so that I can continue giving testimony for them to hear. - I'm not sure that all of our listeners in the US know exactly what has happened over the years with Boko Haram. Could you describe what's happened, how frequently it's happened and who it has affected? - According to what I have had, you know, when you reach the place, you hear different news, you hear different testimony. But for me, as the person who was new there, I tried to ask different people to get different view of that Boko Haram attack. But first of all, Boko Haram means Western education is forbidden. That is what Boko Haram means. - Oh, really? Okay. - So they were specifically trying to get rid of Western education in Nigeria. - Yeah, buzzing of that, misery wanted to eliminate at all Christians. By the time I was there in 2019, one of the charts of brethren was gunned down. We went there and I saw they have already started building another church. And another thing I have noticed in my first trip, many people didn't sleep in their house. Many Christians didn't sleep in their house because they were afraid of being attacked during night. Another thing I have heard of a lot of ladies who have taken to India in Boko Haram's camp to stay there. Until now, there are some girls who haven't yet come back. They're still there. Their families didn't know about them at all. Another incident that happened in the church of brethren, one of their pastor, they took him after two months. They bring his corpse. It was a terrifying situation. As the person who was there, they kept informing me what is happening in their church. Because of church of brethren, they dominate that place. It is a northern west part of Nigeria. It is a big place near Cameroon. - What I've heard in the news, what I've read in the news here in the United States, is there have been several times in particular where this Muslim sect, not all Muslims, but a very limited number of Muslims, that they would come in and they would kidnap women and children and take them and force them to live as Muslims or abuse them. What is the accusation of what they did? - In the community, it was like Christian started hitting Muslims because of that act. According to the testimony, people shared in training, there are many, a lot of family who has lost their people. And yet they don't know if they have died or they are still alive. They just come and kidnap them. So the accusation is still there because they say that to Muslims, they don't want Christians and the Christians, part of Christian, they don't like, they don't want to accept that or they don't want to make peace with the number of Muslim who don't support that Boko Haram act. That hatred is still between them because they have lost their families, relatives. They have lived their villages. I remember there is one place we went for training. We went for an hour in a village where there is no person there, no one lived there. They have moved there because of Boko Haram and they didn't want to come back. They just moved in the camp. So there's still that conflict in between them, even though they are trying to heal or they are trying to make peace, but those wounds are still there. And it's keep remembering like I had one family. When a lady stays alone, they come, they kidnap her husband and her four sons and he stays with one little girl, the last one. And now they are very poor, but before they were sitting on the market, they were rich. But because they took her husband and her sons, that helped affect his life totally. So by keeping remembering that, they're still accusing them for their life, which is bad now. Boko Haram is still active in Nigeria, right? - Yeah. - And so does this mean that you're doing these workshops, these AVP, Alternative to Violence program, the heroic, healing, rebuilding our communities? Are you doing these workshops in areas where it could be that next month, Boko Haram would come and attack people in that city, that village? Is that a possibility? - Yeah, it was possible. But the government, the army of government was there. There were many making in the road for the security of the people, but where I was, it was in the three kilometers where Boko Haram has come. But for the army, government army, they just blocked that road so that they didn't come. But there is another very engineer coming along, where Boko Haram was still going, they are killing people, stealing food. It was still happening, but not in the place where I was. I remember for the last week I was in Nigeria, there is one last workshop I was supposed to attend. But my pastor, like when I say my pastor, the one who was first thing me there told me, you don't have to go there because we are not sure of your security. This and this, if they find that you are a foreigner, not Nigerian, you are from outside of the country, they may come and kidnap you for ransom. So I had to stay at home for other team to go for training. So you understand that it was not fair, it was near. - I visited Rwanda in 2008, and that's 14 years after the genocide in Rwanda. And when I was there, I did not observe the animosity, the hatred between Hutu and Tutsi, which just 14 years ago led to three quarters of a million deaths there. It would have been easy for me to believe that things were very peaceful between all of the people in Rwanda at that point. I believe there's still some troubles, but not major. I think one of the important things is that your legislature, your parliament, I'm not sure what you call it. Isn't it mostly women, all women? - 50%. - 50% of your legislature parliament, what do you call it? - Yeah, it is parliament. - 50% of your parliament is women. But I thought at one point, wasn't it all women? I thought there was something like that for a while. - It could be more, even more, because we have seen that women can rule well. - So in the training, the AVP and the Herok training that you were doing in Nigeria now, again, in an area where there's still active threat from Boko Haram, who was doing the instruction? Who was leading these workshops? Women and men, Christians and Muslims? Who was doing the workshops? - For AVP, we were doing in churches, church of brethren. So it wasn't easy for Muslims to come in the church, to attend all to facilitate. But for Herok, Muslims joined us. We started going in different villages, in schools, the place for training when mostly in schools. So the Muslim joiners in training team and in the facilitated stream, Muslims was there, we were missed. And were they also part of the instructors? That's what I was also wondering. When I took basic AVP course, there were three instructors, three teachers. I was just wondering how many instructors you have, and if it was mixed Christian and Muslim instructors? - Yeah, normally for AVP, as I told you, we were all Christians, but for Herok, for the one place, facilitators were three, three facilitators, two Christians as one, one Muslim. It was like that always, two Christians and one Muslim. - And the participants likewise, was there a mixture of Christian and Muslim? - Yeah, mixed, always, mixed. - I'm pretty sure our listeners may have very little idea of what AVP, again, alternative to violence program, which is a project that started with working with people in prisons in the United States. It spread and was adapted to many different people's, including gangs, to bring peace to gangs, here in the United States and many other places, schools. At a certain point, it was taken to East Africa and was modified and enhanced to Herok, the healing and rebuilding our communities. That is a particular manifestation coming out of AVP, which adds a lot of trauma healing, which is a very different work you do. So what do you see as the difference between AVP and Herok? What do you actually do differently in those workshops? - For AVP, it just shows that you have peaceful ways to solve conflict, always according to a person, you can choose a way of solving conflict, but there was always a peaceful way of solving a conflict. - Always an option? - Yeah, always it is there. And for Herok, it is hearing hard so that they can build themselves again. And if I build myself again as a person, it goes to my family, it goes to my community, and it goes to the country, as the world as well. When things happened in Rwanda back in 1994, the initial attack was mostly against the Tutsi by the Hutu. Then there was acts of revenge also that happened in the other direction. But I think that in 1994, at first, it was Tutsi people who were mostly hurt. In Nigeria, it has been Christian people attacked by some Muslim people, not all Muslim by any means. So in terms of doing Herok, the healing and building our communities, is there trauma healing that has to happen also for the Muslims who are there? Or is it only Christians who need to heal from trauma? - I think for trauma, as you have said, it is part of Muslims who attack Christians. I don't know why they choose that thing to be that heroic and be mixed Christian and Muslim, but I had that even Muslim has the system to give, even though there were not many, but they also have the system to give how the situation was. And for MVP, I don't know if I haven't mixed something. I don't know, but for MVP, alternative to Varian's project, for Christian they had to make peace with misery at all costs so that life can continue. - To rebuild the community, you need everyone in the community to work together. Could you tell me, Christine, about some kind of activity that you do as part of the Herok work? I believe from what I learned from Cecilia Romana and others that frequently people who had before had to be enemies become close friends. What kind of activities do you do that leads people to make those big changes? Can you give me example of one activity you led or worked on in Nigeria? - As a new person in a new country, it wasn't easy for me to go as me alone to do something, but for my neighbors, they were eager to know how we get a reconciliation after genocide. So I get some visit from my neighbors, where I was living, some neighbors come, and I tried to share how we have been reconciled after genocide, and also I visited them, some even if it wasn't all, but I visited some families. So I think through testimony. - So you weren't actually facilitating the groups. You were there to provide your testimony of your experience that happened in Rwanda. Two people in Nigeria. - For training, I was facilitating. I was among three facilitators. As we taking turn according to the lesson, I got a chance to facilitate some lessons, but my testimony was taking big part in that training. - So did you lead exercises? I think our listeners have no idea what kind of exercise you do for ADP or for hero. Can you give us an example? Tell us something that happened there. - There was one lesson, for example, in Iraq, hearing and reading our community. There is one lesson called for windows, like you see a window with four parts, and we demonstrate things that I know and other people don't know about me. And another part of things I know and other people knows about me. And other part of things, people knows about me and I don't know about me. And the first square is for things I don't know and other people don't know through. So by demonstrating that window, we see that everyone can have a good part and bad part. Things that can help the society can found in each person. And it also shows that you may know yourself, but you need other people to hear what they know about you. Things like that. For example, another lesson is trust work, where we make a demonstration of making two lines with pairs, one line, blind, another line, not blind. So we work for a long way, like going outside, turning in the ground and coming back. That also demonstrate that we need to trust each other. Even though our heart have been broken, we need to find someone to trust so that he can take our hand and we go forward. - A trust walk like that can be very powerful. - Yeah, trust walk. - I'm assuming that you probably did this all in English. Are these workshops, AVP and Herock, are they done in English or in local languages there? - In some places, in English, but because we were in deep village, other times they use their local language. So for that time, I had to step aside and they give me a translator so that I can hear what they're talking. In time of testimony, they had to translate, but it wasn't all time. There was time for local language and the other time for English. - Just as I had to act as a translator for Ceci Niaramana when she came to the United States and spoke to the yearly meeting, my regional group of Quakers, because she could speak in French, I could translate that into English. How many languages do you speak? - Because I have spoken in English before French, for speaking French can be hard for me, but I have taken my secondary school in French. I can hear French and I can respond by, but make a conversation in French can be somehow hard for me. - So French and English and? - Qui Niaramana. - Qui Niaramana, Swahili. - A little bit Swahili, and I know local language in Uganda because I have been there for two years, start taking my studies. - So maybe five languages or at least parts of five languages? - Yeah, sure. - So many people in the United States only know one language. What are your feelings after having done this two months of work mostly carrying your testimony, your experience of healing that can happen between people who had been embittered, who had been enemies before? What's your feeling after having presented that in Nigeria? - I was happy for myself to participate in healing people's hearts. It was my first time to participate in big community like that for them to heal their hearts. And I learned a lot. I learned that the people who get chance to be in peaceful community, they have more to give for those people who are still in the community, which are not secured. Before, I will think that I don't have anything to give, but for our country, which is peaceful, I knew that even my presence in those people who are struggling, talking with them, showing them that I'm there with them, can help them. So I have learned that I have something to give. And another thing, I tried to think that though my country has not security issue at all, I asked myself, do I have any other area I can help people to heal hearts? Like to get out of trauma? I thought about that and I found that I can help too, because there is a lot of situation that can cause people to get trauma and they need to heal their hearts so that they can continue to pursue their dreams and to help their families. I ended up going back in my history and I called my life when I was in my first year as a single mother. How I was struggling with the little baby, don't know what to do with him. I was young, still in the school. And yet I have to be someone's mother and I need my mother too. So by went in back in my history, I realized that at that time, I was traumatized by life. I was traumatized by my situation. So I asked myself, what can I help other people who are passing where I was, who are passing that situation now? At that time, I found that I can do something in my country to help people to heal their hearts. - Sounds like your life is dedicated in that direction. So fortunately, not only the people of Nigeria where you recently traveled, but in Rwanda, we'll have Christine Irumva there to help heal. Thank you so much, Christine, for doing that work at home and abroad. And I do hope to dance with you and the friendly folk dancers soon. - Yeah, thanks, you're welcome. - I will have contacts for Christine Irumva. If you come to northernspiritradio.org, you will find a link to Christine's Facebook page. You will find a link to Friends Peace House, which is a peace organization there in Rwanda, which she has been active with. And I'll link you to the Church of the Brother and Work taking place in Nigeria and their ministry there. So you can find all of that on northernspiritradio.org. - Thanks so much, Christine. - Thank you. - I've got some links on northernspiritradio.org to some of the places Christine Irumva was talking about, like Friends Peace House in Rwanda, the trauma healing programs and workshops of East African friends, and to some of the programs of the Church of the Brother in Nigeria. There are also links to what my first guest, Terry Hoekinson was referring to, like the buffalostarpeople.org. Maybe what you heard today from Terry and Christine will help you find the way you can best be part of world healing. Keep in mind that there is a full uncut version of this interview on northernspiritradio.org. Check it out. We'll see you all next week for Spirit in Action. The theme music for this program is Turning of the World performed by Sarah Thompson. Check out all things Spirit in Action on northernspiritradio.org. Guests, links, stations, and a place for your feedback, suggestions, and support. Thanks for listening, I'm Mark Helpsmeet, and I hope you find deep roots to support you to grow steadily toward the light. This is Spirit in Action. ♪ With every voice, every song ♪ ♪ We will move this world along ♪ ♪ And our lives will feel the echo of our healing. ♪ [MUSIC PLAYING]