Last month, in our newsletter which is linked to this blog, we mentioned we were helping with a weekly Trauma Healing group. (check link) Of course, anytime you facilitate such a group, you end up learning and receiving as much or more than you give. Yes, life is a learning experience. So this month we want to share an important, life-changing book with you. Maybe you have wondered why we work with Pioneer Bible Translators and why Bible translation is such a big deal. Did you know that more than 1600 languages presently have no portion of the Bible in their language?! Pray with us that God will help the partners in the ETEN Impact Alliance translate full Bibles in all the languages over 500,000 speakers by 2033. Such an audacious goal is unthinkable without God’s help and collaboration. If you ever wanted to understand more about what it might be like to be a part of a remote Bible translation team, this book will bring insight. If you wondered why we encourage parents of global workers, this will help. Don’t be frightened by the title, please just get the book and read it. (“I will fear no evil: A missionary’s faith journey through fear, anxiety, depression and trauma” by Karen Bettison) Be aware that if you read this to your mission-minded teens, you might very well become one of those parents of global workers we encourage.
We could tell when we met Karen and Jim Bettison during our first session with the group, our faith was going to be challenged. Writing his introduction to her book, Greg Pruett tells about memories of being helped through customs by Karen upon their arrival in West Africa for the first time. He remembers, “This book reveals the deeper thoughts of a great servant of God. She looked on the surface like the kind of person you only read about in missionary biographies. But now, she has taken the trouble to help us understand that God uses regular people to accomplish such feats.” It was the next section I highlighted. “She wasn’t a person of great courage. She was a person who let God give her great courage when she needed it.”
We hope you will be encouraged by Karen’s story. Through her transparent telling of what she, in the Introduction, calls “common stressful and traumatic experiences of international workers and the negative consequences these can have on mental health,” it is our prayer that your faith and calling will be challenged. As Karen prays for the reader, “I pray that in reading my story, they will know they are not alone.”
This is a book you will want to read more than once and keep handy as a reference in recognizing trauma in yourself and others. In admitting and dealing with her own diagnosis of PTSD, Karen recalls her own triggers, or “fragmented reminders of my own brokenness and my need to continually lean into God. The greatest gift God wants to give us is more of himself. He wants to be first in our lives.”(p221) You will want to read this book if for no other reason than to hear how Karen’s heart is restored. “And he has restored my passion for serving him. He has placed a fire inside of me that cannot be quenched. I can feel his presence with my now on this new path. Looking back, I can now see he was always walking with me.” (p.227)
Please let us know how you have been blessed by reading Karen’s book! We want to pass along your encouraging words!
