The following is George’s testimony for Resonate Global Mission on how he has been personally impacted by the Healing Hearts, Transforming Nation’s ministry.
In February 2014, Ukraine successfully removed a corrupt, dictatorial, pro-Russian regime through what has become known as the “revolution of dignity”. Our rejoicing in this change was soon overcome with pain as just two short weeks later Russia began its invasion of Ukraine. First, they took over the Crimean Peninsula, eventually annexing it. Then they launched a ground invasion of the two easternmost provinces of Ukraine – Donetsk and Luhansk. The war continues in those regions. Over 13,000 have lost their lives in the conflict. Over 1.5 million have been internally displaced. The war between Russia and Ukraine has already dragged on longer than World War II.
As we worked with local churches to address the issues that were springing up due to the conflict, reconciliation between Ukrainians and Russians in the churches quickly took center stage. And through this God changed my life.
In 2015 I became acquainted with a ministry in Rwanda called “Healing Hearts, Transforming Nations” (HHTN). It was born out of the horrific 1994 genocide of the Tutsi population at the hands of the Hutus. While in Rwanda attending the “International School of Reconciliation”, I quickly realized that reconciliation needed to begin with me.
Through the HHTN process I had to face the unhealed wounds that I was still carrying. After identifying my personal wounds and the wounds of my people, I was able to bring them to the cross and give them to Jesus.
One of the revelations HHTN taught me was that before we can be reconciled, we need to address our pain. The church has often overlooked the question of what to do about the pain we experience as a result of sin – those committed against us as well as those that we ourselves commit. As Isaiah 53:4a says, “Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering” (NIV). We speak a lot about sin and how we need to confess our sin and bring it to Jesus, who paid for it on the cross. But we don’t talk about our pain, or we fall into the patterns of our culture. I have learned that identifying our pain and bringing to Jesus, the pain bearer, is the key to reconciliation. Bringing our pain to the cross and letting Jesus take it frees us to see both victim and perpetrator through new eyes. We receive the power to forgive and to truly repent. We begin a path of reconciliation that changes lives, congregations, communities, and nations.
This process changed my life and put my ministry on a new path. Not only have I witnessed the transformation that has taken place in individuals and communities in Rwanda, Ukraine, Hungary, Wales, and Lithuania, where I have been privileged to shepherd groups through the process, but I have witnessed the transformation in my own life and the healing of my own wounds. My prayer is that the power of healing centered on the cross would also lead to lasting reconciliation and a new, deep formation of community not only in places of conflict around the world, but in North America as well.