Misty's (Sort of) End of 2021 Newsletter

Psalms 34:18 (New Living Translation): "The Lord is close to the brokenhearted; he rescues those whose spirits are crushed."

For my family, 2022 did not start off quite as planned. We lost my Aunt Sherri on January 8th, 2022. My cousin (her son), Chad, and I were there with her when she passed and I am thankful to report it was very peaceful. In my facebook memories, just a few days after her passing, I was reminded of baptizing both aunts and my niece at Unity Christian Church in 2012. A gentle nudge from the Lord of His faithfulness. The primary cause of death was COPD exacerbated by Covid. This is two aunts in a little over two years-we lost my Aunt Tammy toward the end of 2019. I am not sure we have fully worked through our grief over her loss to now begin the process over again. We are a family whose spirits are crushed, especially as I consider my 80+ grandmother, now burying two daughters, or my mom losing both sisters. But we do know that we can both grieve and have hope at the same time, though sometimes that is an awkward tension to hold.

My aunt was a very generous woman, surprising my family one year with a quick trip home for Christmas when I was living in Zimbabwe. I am grateful that she and my mom had a chance to meet Simba, though sad neither aunt met Rumbi. As long as I can remember, it was her desire to go to Australia and in 2018, she made it possible for not only her to go but for me to travel with her. By then, she was on continuous oxygen but she was not going to let that stop her lifelong dream to visit there and hold a koala. I hope you enjoy some of my favorite memories below. Embrace your dreams and go for it is what she would say!

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As you can imagine, I had my end of 2021 newsletter ready to go telling you about some exciting plans in January, including a trip back to Le Rucher in France, and in the end, it was all canceled. As the content of the newsletter changed, I had a hard time trying to find words to explain how tough this year (all 6 weeks of it) has been and what a disappointment some of those cancellations were. Not only did my aunt die, but then a dear and precious friend (for 20+ years) mom unexpectedly died a few weeks later. As a close group of us came together for the second time in just under a month, I also realized we are now entering into new phases in our lives where some of us are now becoming caregivers to aging family members. There have been other stressors as well but I will lament those elsewhere.

2021 did have some great highlights though that included:

• A baptism after a Trauma Healing training in Ethiopia from Muslim faith to Christian
• Participating in the Le Rucher debriefing and critical incident debriefing training and beginning to work on becoming a certified debriefer
• We now have Master Facilitator and Master Facilitator in Training's in Ethiopia after our July training and they have been diligently working on an Amharic translation 
• The Healing the Wounds of Trauma Revision was released at the beginning of 2021
• Growth and development of domestic trauma healing, especially as our online healing groups and training flourished-seeing it develop in areas like the Twin Cities and Atlanta this past year has been a blessing
• Being able to hold a Teen Healing the Wounds of Trauma Training in Ethiopia and becoming a certified Master Facilitator in the Teen program
• There is now a growing and thriving Community of Practice of those facilitating healing groups in Ethiopia; very exciting to see the Lord grow the program the past 3 years 
• Assisting with the development and publishing of an online tool kit to help with facilitating healing groups via zoom that is now accessible to a worldwide community of facilitators
• Continuing to have great partners like each of you who are an encouragement to this ministry

5 year anniversary with Ministry Care occurred in September 2021!!!

a reunion with Ali who I had not seen since 2017

Sharon and I with Etsagenet after a great training

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In the meantime, here is an idea of what Ministry Care is planning for 2022. We appreciate your continued partnership and prayer support as there are many obstacles to navigate to see these things occur but we serve a mighty God, who can make it happen!

Tentative plans for 2022:

• continued training in the Le Rucher debriefing model and certification process (including a debrief in February)
• continued training and development of Ethiopian facilitators in the Teen Healing the Wounds of Trauma curriculum; returning to Uganda in the fall to start the teen training with ministries we have already partnered with
• a Teen training in Florida in June, where the facilitators would be able to work with incarcerated teens moving forward
• Training at the end of March with the GO Missionary Care Team
• continued involvement with the Healing the Wounds of Trauma adult curriculum, including an in-person training in Corydon, Indiana at the end of February
• helping organizations develop crisis response protocols and teams
• for trauma healing to be most effective, it needs to be translated into the heart languages of the people using it so one hope is to help with translation projects, like trauma healing in Shona (Zimbabwe) and other Ethiopian languages (Amharic adult is almost complete but still need teens and children)
• helping to develop a trauma healing ministry in Doma, Zimbabwe, and other areas; as we have seen in Ethiopia, it takes about 3 years to really grow and sustain trauma healing so this would be a long term commitment
• a trauma healing initiative that will start online February 20th and lead to 3 weeks in the Philippines in March leading Trauma Healing Training in areas impacted by December's typhoon 

Given that 2022 did not start off as planned though and I watched several plans for January immediately get canceled, all of this I hold loosely before the Lord, asking for Him to show the way for the year. ​

Aunt Sherri at Opera House, Sydney, Australia in 2018

Prayer Requests:

• Pray for an upcoming Initial Trauma Healing Equipping Session occurring at Lincoln Hills Christian Church February 24-26, 2022
• Pray for the launch of a Trauma Healing initiative in the Philippines, starting February 20 (online training is February 20-24) and occurring through September
• Pray for those who are broken-hearted over the loss of loved ones. Please remember my family and my friend, Amanda's family during this time

Would you prayerfully consider becoming a partner of Misty Bodkins in 2022? There are 2 ways you may donate to Misty at Ministry Care. You can make checks payable to “Ministry Care” and send them to:
 
Ministry Care
14934 Pacer Ct.
Carmel, IN 46032
 
Or you can also make an online donation, using Givelify, on our website at www.ministrycareinternational.org
 
Ministry Care is a 501c3 therefore your donation will be tax-deductible.
 
If you have any questions feel free to email us at [email protected]!

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