When I met Joyce, she was a 19-year-old single mother of a 4-year-old who had been living in an under-resourced township in Zambia. As she was finishing a two-year agriculture and entrepreneurship certificate, Joyce confidently shared with me about her studies and her dreams. But her journey up to this point was anything but straightforward.
“Before I started studying, I was just sitting at home doing nothing,” Joyce told me. “After I gave birth to my daughter, life was very hard to endure, even to the extent of giving up on life and trying to commit suicide.”
Joyce’s words struck me not only because of their vulnerability, but also because of what she shared next: Her turning point was not education or economic opportunity. She needed a chance to heal.
Before Joyce enrolled in college, she participated in a trauma healing program implemented by volunteers at a local church in partnership with World Renew, the disaster response, community development, and justice ministry of the Christian Reformed Church in North America. Those sessions gave Joyce space to speak her pain aloud and to be seen not as a failure or a burden, but as a young woman created and loved by God. They helped her name the shame she carried and begin to let go of it by bringing it to the cross of Jesus. Only then was she ready to imagine something more for her life.
This pattern of “healing first, growth next” runs through World Renew’s work across the globe. In places shaped by conflict, displacement, abuse, and deep poverty, trauma often lives just beneath the surface. Even when violence has ended or immediate needs have been met, fear often remains lodged in the body, grief clouds the mind, and shame might isolate people from their communities. These unseen wounds reverberate through families and generations, undermining hope and making lasting change difficult to sustain.
“We have learned that healing the heart is not optional; it is foundational,” explains Ruairidh Waddell, chief program and impact officer at World Renew. “Food security, education, livelihoods, and peacebuilding all matter deeply, but without attention to mental and emotional health, progress can unravel. Through trauma healing work grounded in Scripture, relationship, and community, World Renew walks alongside people whose lives have been shaped by profound loss, helping them rediscover dignity, resilience, and hope.”
Overwhelmed by Grief
In a different context, Daniella’s story echoes Joyce’s.
Daniella grew up in Nicaragua, raised by her grandparents after her father left before she was born. While her mother worked long hours, her grandfather became her constant source of safety and wisdom. “My grandfather was a guiding light in my life,” Daniella said. “He taught me many things about life and being an honest person with strong values.”
When Daniella was 15, her grandfather died. The loss shattered her sense of belonging. “I locked myself in my room for hours, refusing to talk to anyone,” she recalled. “I felt so much pain and loneliness that I began to wonder if life was worth living at all.”
At school, classmates mocked her. Her grief expressed itself as anger and, one day after being teased, Daniella struck a classmate with a wooden chair. She was suspended and required to attend the Living in Peace counseling program facilitated by World Renew’s local partner, the Nehemiah Center.
“At first, I didn’t want to talk,” Daniella said. “I just sat there, staring at the floor.” But her counselor stayed. “Week after week, she listened to me and asked me to pray with her. She told me that even in the middle of my pain, God still loved me.”
That steady, compassionate presence began to soften the hard heart that grief had created in Daniella. Slowly, she rebuilt relationships at home and at school. Scripture became a source of comfort. “For the first time,” she said, “I started to believe that maybe God hadn’t forgotten me.”
Like Joyce, Daniella did not just need discipline or opportunity. She needed someone to help tend the wounds beneath the surface. Today Daniella is nearing high school graduation, volunteering in her school’s computer lab, and planning for college. “God didn’t just heal my heart,” she reflected. “He gave me a new purpose. I used to think my story was over at 15. But God was just beginning to write it.”
When Trauma is Allowed to Speak
The consequences of trauma not being addressed ripple outward. World Renew’s trauma healing work is therefore closely tied to peacebuilding: helping people process pain so it does not harden into despair or violence.
David, a 40‑year‑old father of three, learned this through devastating loss. After repeated militia attacks, David was forced to relocate within his home country of Nigeria. Within two years, his wife and son were killed in separate attacks. He was never able to recover his wife’s body for burial. Grief froze him in denial.
When David joined a trauma healing group facilitated by World Renew’s partner, Beacon of Hope Initiative, he spoke little at first. On the third day, during a session on forgiveness, he began to share and collapsed into tears. Facilitators gently reassured him that it was safe to show emotion and that God was present in his sorrow.
“I have now found courage in letting go of my pain and moving on with my life,” David later said. “It has made me a better person and father.” Since then, David has become a source of encouragement to others in his community. Again, the pattern holds: secure places for processing come first, transformation follows.
Dignity Restored, Thread by Thread
This pattern is visible in the story of Nyandom, mother of four and the women’s representative for South Sudan’s Ruweng Administrative Area.
After years of poverty, domestic violence, and displacement, Nyandom joined gender‑based violence support sessions facilitated by Coalition for Humanity, a World Renew partner. Through counseling and supportive spaces, she began to stand tall again.
After that foundation was built, Nyandom was offered skills training. Learning embroidery built something resilient in her. “I stitched my pain into beauty,” she said. Her work now supports her family. Her children are in school. Her husband publicly acknowledges her strength. Community members trust her to lead.
Nyandom’s words of encouragement are poignant: “Don’t give up. There is always a way forward, even if you have to sew it together one thread at a time.”
A Call to the Church
When the church makes space for lament, truth‑telling, and compassion, lives begin to change from the inside out. The Trauma Healing Institute describes how this work “incorporates proven mental health practices and a time-tested library of resources. But all of that is built on one foundation: the wisdom of the Bible. Our resources reach hurting people through Scripture, helping them to find healing from their trauma and to reconnect with the God who loves them.”
Joyce said, “You can do it, no matter what people say! But you can’t work alone. You need people to help, and you need guidance from your elders.”
World Renew’s trauma healing work reflects the heart of the gospel itself. Christ did not rush past pain on his way to resurrection. He lingered with the brokenhearted, restored dignity to the shamed, and called his followers to do the same.
This is an invitation for us to see mental health not as secondary, but as sacred ground where God is already at work. As he fled for his life, King David wrote words that still speak into stories like those of Daniella, David, Nyandom, Joyce, and so many others: “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit” (Ps. 34:18).
After completing her trauma healing, Joyce pursued her studies through a scholarship made possible by World Renew. “I was downgraded by the community,” she told me. “But now I’m aiming higher so that I can become a farm manager or an extension officer (a trainer of farmers). ... For me, my life has been very hard. But we have to pray to God.” With this foundation of healing, the pursuit of justice and human flourishing are possible.
About the Author
Naomi Bula, World Renew