Tackling Trauma

JOHN STEWARD has post-graduate degrees in agriculture and divinity. His PhD is in soil science. He lectured in theology and rural development in Java, Indonesia for nine years, and then over 14 years he trained aid workers from 50 countries. From 1997 he mentored Rwandan peacemakers, before writing stories of some Rwandans who have found hope and change through truth-telling and healing. These testimonies are the Rwandans way of saying: ‘You can recover from terrible times, with courage and the help of God’s grace’.

SAMUEL THIELMAN (PhD) is a clinical and organizational consultant and faculty scholar at Duke University’s Centre for Spirituality, Theology and Health. He currently serves as a consultant to Samaritan’s Purse, Open Doors, and the Christian Medical and Dental Association. Dr Thielman is a former Director of the Mental Health Service Program of the US Department of State. He has extensive behavioral health experience in East and Central Africa, working for five years as the State Department’s regional psychiatrist at the US Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya. He also served as the Senior Advisor for Resilience at the State Department’s Foreign Service Institute. Through working with Americans and others affected by trauma in the Majority World, he has written widely on the psychological effects of terrorism, and has appeared in professional publications such as the American Journal of Psychiatry, Psychiatry, the British Journal of Psychiatry, and the New England Journal of Medicine.

SHIRLEY S. HO (PhD, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School) is Filipino-Chinese, and has lived in Taiwan for the past eleven years. She is currently Assistant Professor of the Old Testament at China Evangelical Seminary, Taipei, Taiwan, and teaches courses on Biblical Hebrew, the Old Testament, and Research and Writing. Shirley is currently writing her post-doctoral project on Proverbs, and has presented her article, The Journey of a Son: Narrative Reading of Proverbs 1–9, at the 2017 SBL International Meeting, at Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany.

Ida Glaser is the International Academic Coordinator and Founding Fellow at the Oxford Centre for Muslim Christian Studies, where she oversees a number of international projects. She previously taught in the areas of Qur’an and Bible, and the history of Muslim-Christian dialogue at the University of Edinburgh, and her personal research interests focus on reading the Bible in the context of Islam. She is an associate staff member at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford. Ida has taught physics in Islamic contexts and done church-based outreach in multi-racial, inner-city Britain. She has worked among people of other faiths for Crosslinks, the Anglican Mission Agency, and is a past director of Faith to Faith, a Christian consultancy about other faiths. Her doctorate examined Genesis 1–11 in the context of parallel qur’anic material. She has taught Muslim-Christian relations at the post-graduate level in Jamaica, Nigeria, the Philippines and the UK.

ISAAC K. MBABAZI (PhD, University of Manchester) is Professor of New Testament Studies at Université Shalom de Bunia, Democratic Republic of Congo, and also currently serves as the university’s director of the PhD program. He formerly served as Dean of the School of Theology and was previously the President of a seminary in Burundi. Mbabazi has written several works including The Significance of Interpersonal Forgiveness in the Gospel of Matthew (Wipf & Stock, 2013). He is married to Jeanette, and together are blessed with three daughters.

ROLEX M. CAILING (PhD) is the founding and senior pastor of LifeReach Ministries in the Philippines, and has planted and pastored churches in the Philippines and Korea. Having taught at multiple Bible colleges and seminaries across Africa and Asia, he is now teaching New Testament studies at Alliance Graduate School, Quezon City, Philippines, and has particular interest in Pauline theology, the use of the Old Testament in the New, the background of early Christianity and Second Temple Judaism. Rev Cailing has written several works on Paul’s use of the Old Testament.

KETHOSER (ANIU) KEVICHUSA is a speaker and trainer with Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in India. He earned his PhD from the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies, UK. He has also pursued theological education first in India, then in the UK, following his undergraduate degree in English Literature. Aniu lives with his wife, Ono, and their three young sons in Nagaland, India. His primary ministry gifts are expository preaching, Christian apologetics and evangelism.

A writer and a social anthropologist, Melba Padilla Maggay holds a doctorate in Philippine studies, a Master’s degree in English literature, and a first degree in mass communication. A specialist in intercultural communication, she was research fellow on the subject at the University of Cambridge under the auspices of Tyndale House, applying it to the question of culture and theology. She has lectured on this and other cross-cultural issues worldwide, including a stint as Northrup Visiting Professor at Hope College, Michigan, and Visiting Lecturer at All Nations Christian College in England. As founder and longtime director of the Institute for Studies in Asian Church and Culture, she was cited for her outstanding leadership in organizing the evangelical Protestant presence at the EDSA barricades during the February People Power Uprising in 1986. As a social anthropologist, Dr Maggay is resource speaker and consultant on culture, social change, and development issues. A frequent speaker and participant-expert in international conferences, Dr Maggay travels widely and has had cross-cultural experience in over forty countries on all five continents.

RACHEL C. MUTAI (MDiv, Africa International University) is currently completing her studies for a graduate certificate in Peacebuilding Leadership from the Eastern Mennonite University, Harrisonburg, Virginia, USA, while also serving as the Coordinator of Curriculum Development at African Leadership and Reconciliation Ministries (ALARM). Through her work with ALARM, Rachel has been involved in developing curricula and training materials for programs in the areas of servant leadership, conflict resolution, peace building, and interfaith dialogues. She has actively participated in the training of church and community leaders in multiple different countries in which ALARM serves. Her passion is to spur and develop people to fulfil their divine purpose and selfless service to humanity.

YUZO IMAMURA (MD, Dermatology; PhD, Cell Biology) currently serves with his wife, Hitomi, in the Stung Treng province, one of the least reached areas in Cambodia. Having previously gained a medical degree, he felt God call him to be a cross-cultural worker in Cambodia, and so joined OMF International in 2003. Yuzo was involved with medical teaching and training, as well as university student ministry in Phnom Penh, and later he and his wife spent time serving in Kratie province, before arriving in Stung Treng. He has a passion to reach the unreached in villages and train preachers in rural provinces, particularly in the area of expository preaching.

AMOS WINARTO OEI holds a PhD in Moral Theology from Calvin Theological Seminary, Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA, and has sixteen years’ teaching experience at higher education institutions in his home country of Indonesia. Currently he is Dean of Students at Aletheia Theological Seminary, Lawang, East Java, Indonesia. He also has experience in church ministry, serving as youth minister and then senior pastor at The Church of Christ the Lord in Surabaya, Indonesia.

NAJI ABI-HASHEM (MA and PhD in Clinical Psychology, Biola University, California; MDiv in Pastoral and Ethnic Studies, Golden Gate Theological Seminary) currently serves as an associate with Member Care International, dividing his time between the US and Lebanon. Alongside this work, he is involved in editing, speaking, and writing on a range of issues for a variety of international organizations, contributing to over ninety published works. Dr Abi-Hashem worked for twelve years (1992–2004) as a staff psychologist with the Minirth-Meier New Life Clinics and affiliated hospital program, and was the featured therapist in Working with Arab Americans, a professional training DVD produced by the American Psychological Association in 2008 for multicultural counselling. He has also served on the Board of Directors for multiple national and international agencies.

ANNABEL MANAZILLA-MANALO (PhD), a licensed psychologist in clinical, counselling and assessment psychology, serves as the Associate Professor and Chair of the Counselling Department at the Asian Theological Seminary (ATS), Quezon City, Philippines. She also currently serves as the Director of the ATS Counselling Centre and heads the Disaster Response and Psychological Training Program. For the past twenty years Annabel has been involved with various NGOs providing psychological services to many different communities, including those displaced by armed conflicts and natural disasters, survivors of torture and enforced disappearance, families of victims of extrajudicial killings, and street children and youth at risk.

VACHESLAV KHALANSKY works at REALIS Christian Center and is a lecturer in the Department of Psychology at the National Pedagogical University, Ukraine.

SVETLANA KRAVCHUK is candidate of Psychological Sciences, Senior scientific researcher, Institute of Social and Political Psychology, Kiev, Ukraine.

MUNHINDO ISESOMO has been bishop of North Kivu since 2010, and is also currently National Coordinator for Langham Preaching in the Democratic Republic of Congo. He was the parish vicar at Butembo Anglican parish from 1984–1992, and in 1993 he went to Kinshasa for specialization training in Evangelism. Isesomo worked as the National Coordinator of Evangelism for the Anglican Church from 1995–2010, which enabled him to visit many different countries, and transform the lives of many people with the gospel.

GLADYS MWITI (PhD, Clinical Psychology) is the founder and CEO of Oasis Africa – Centre for Transformational Psychology and Trauma. Mwiti also currently serves as the Chairperson of both the Kenya Psychological Association and the Kenya Society for Traumatic Stress Studies. She was previously a Member of the Board of Directors for the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies and Co-chair of the Lausanne Congress for World Evangelization Mental Health and Trauma Advisory Group. She has received several awards for her work including the Scholar-Leader of the Year 2010 (Scholar-Leaders International, USA), Pure and Natural Woman Award 2011 (James R. Jordan Foundation) and the Alumni of the Year Award 2014 (Fuller Seminary’s Graduate School of Psychology 50th Anniversary). She is married to Dr Gerhson Mwiti.

LORRAINE FOUTE (MSc, Fresno Pacific University) served with SIM in Nigeria for thirty-four years. In Nigeria, she learned the Hausa language and taught Nigerian pastors and missionaries at a Bible school and gave counsel to many Nigerian and missionary women. Lorraine began a special education program at a school for missionary children that lasted for twenty years and also taught special education at Jos ECWA Theological Seminary for ten years. Having returned to the USA with her husband Bill in 2016, she continues to equip others in trauma healing and is a master facilitator in adult, children’s and story-based trauma healing under the American Bible Society Trauma Healing Institute. Lorraine and her husband continue to facilitate trauma healing workshops in various countries.

BILL FOUTE (MDiv in Missions, Talbot School of Theology) served in Nigeria with SIM for thirty-four years (1982–2016) ministering in the Hausa language to equip Nigerian leaders, missionaries and pastors. His ministry while in Nigeria included teaching, field leadership, pastoral counselling, providing libraries for pastors, and trauma healing. Bill and his wife Lorraine returned to the USA in 2016 and currently work worldwide in equipping in trauma healing and pastoral counselling. They have three adult children and three grandchildren.