What Refugees in Your Neighborhood Need from You
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What Refugees in Your Neighborhood Need from You

Dr. Heather Evans shared with Christianity Today her experience from visiting a Congolese refugee camp in 2014 to meeting and welcoming refugees in America in 2015. She sees the influx of refugees as “a mission field arriving in the United States.”  A short excerpt is below: “In 2014, I traveled to Rwanda with a team…

Lessons Learned in Quarantine during a Global Pandemic
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Lessons Learned in Quarantine during a Global Pandemic

Quarantine. When it seems all has been stripped away, what remains? Comfort traded for uncertainty. Ease becomes disruption. Anticipation leads to loss. Shared spaces become divided souls. Joyful moments to forced boundaries. Sense of time is disordered (how do weeks feel more like months, yet how have we lost two months already?!). What has this…

Gracious Hospitality: Welcoming My New Neighbor Webinar
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Gracious Hospitality: Welcoming My New Neighbor Webinar

Dr. Heather Evans joined Rev. Valerie Andrews, Dr. Krayer and Katherine Obenschain on a live-stream webinar to discuss how we can best greet and care for refugees coming to the States. Together they layout the history, culture, and current context that surrounds the Afghan refugees, and Dr. Evans gives us understanding to grasp the trauma…

Coping with COVID-19: Anxiety in Our Children
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Coping with COVID-19: Anxiety in Our Children

Dr. Heather Evans speaks with Rob Vaughn of 69 News WFMZ-TV on the second installment of a three-part series “Coping with COVID-19 Anxiety and Fears.” In this second part, Dr. Heather Evans answers how we can best help children process, cope and understand children’s experiences with the world of COVID-19. “Children absolutely need space to…

Refugees: Their Experience & Our Perception
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Refugees: Their Experience & Our Perception

I am preparing to attend a Community of Practice this week organized by the American Bible Society.  This annual gathering includes an opportunity to network and learn from those committed to domestic and global trauma healing. This year’s theme is “We are Sojourners:  Refugees & Trauma.”  It is an appropriate theme in a glaring, growing…

Justice
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Justice

  Today I attended the sentencing hearing for a local human trafficker.  Over the last 2 years since his arrest, VAST (Valley Against Sex Trafficking) Coalition, has sought to work alongside law enforcement and prosecutors by providing stabilizing support for 7 of the victims. The room was glaringly empty. A newspaper reporter, and a couple…