Mission and healing : Witnessing in the aftermath of trauma

[Extract] The chapter unfolds in four parts. First, we contextualize our discussion of trauma within missiological practice and reflection on healing and reconciliation. Second, historical examples of women’s healing mission practice show the capacity for trauma healing embedded in the Christian tradition and afford resources for developing a trauma- centered account of healing mission for the twenty- first century. Third, rereading the story of the hemorrhaging woman (Mark 5:25–34) from a trauma- centered perspective reveals healing as an ongoing, multidimensional process known through embodied experience, in which those who suffer and those who encounter sufferers mutually witness to wounds experienced and the process of coming to “live on.” Fourth, we conclude with a constructive perspective on the aesthetics of healing and poetic witnessing, illustrated through case studies from Indonesia.