Lausanne World Pulse – Perspectives Articles – Hidden and Forgotten People

By Elba E. Somoza
March 2009

When Jesus introduced his ministry (Luke 4:18), he mentioned the passage in Isaiah 61 that speaks of bringing freedom to the imprisoned, to those in jail. I have always been struck by this double mention of prisoners or captives. The passage in Isaiah also speaks of broken hearts.

Evangelism is the task of bringing the good news of salvation to people and helping them to heal the wounds of the heart. In the words of John and Paula Sandford (founders of Elijah House), it is “the evangelization of the heart” because we bring the good news of Jesus to broken hearts. From a place that fully reflects the ministry of Jesus, I have felt his call to work with the brokenhearted in a very specific area: restoration and recovery of men and women who have suffered different kinds of abuse—physical, sexual, or emotional.

In 2000, Norberto Saracco, Lausanne International Deputy Director for Latin America, asked me to train women who were going to work in counseling at the church he pastors, Iglesia Buenas Nuevas, in Buenos Aires, Argentina. We started with the course, “Healing the Wounds of Life,” an inner-healing process through the different stages of life. During the course, I began to learn about the leaders and their stories, and I saw that some of the women had suffered different abuse. These problems required a specific treatment and could not be solved merely with prayer. Unless the Church were to generate a space for their restoration, these hidden and forgotten (repressed, rather) things would turn the women into “hidden and forgotten” people.

Healing in the Women
We decided we would begin restoring the women’s lives (and equip them to help others) the following year. We saw the process of bringing freedom, grace, love, and the healing power of God to broken lives. We saw the women stand up for their rights, leave the secrets, and put themselves in the place of victory Christ wanted to give them.

This work is oriented toward the recovery from abuse. History cannot be changed; however, the consequences can be transformed and new capacities can emerge from the place of the injury. In the words of Isaiah, the women can have “a crown of beauty instead of ashes.” When scripture says that God “chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things,” it can be seen as referring to the people who are “hidden” and “forgotten” in our churches. These are the silent and wounded soldiers carrying their burdens without hope of restoration and with the mistaken “conviction” of having to submit to that pain, as they submitted to abuse before.

One of the distortions that abuse generates in people who are victims is that instead of occupying the healthy place of victim, they put themselves in the place of protecting the abuser and keeping silent. These experiences quench the spirit in the life of the person.

Elba E. Somoza is a social worker and psychodrama therapist in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She belongs to Buenas Nuevas church, where she is leading a program for recovery from abuse situations.