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Twice-displaced refugees, Eritrean Kunama people are desperate for healing from physical and emotional trauma. The comfort of mother-tongue Scripture is key to spiritual survival and hope.
Thank you! This project has been fully funded for the year!
Funds to meet this year's goals
the Need
Around 200,000 Kunama people lived historically as farmers and cattle herders in western Eritrea and northern Ethiopia. Decades of border conflict, suspicion, and a war during 1998 to 2000 caused the Kunama people to flee their homeland. This left 50,000 Eritrean Kunama people living in refugee camps in northern Ethiopia.
Then, in November 2020, conflict erupted between the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) and the Ethiopian government’s forces. The Eritrean Army was implicated in the war. The conflict has severely affected the lives of Eritrean refugees in Tigray, forcing some to return to Eritrea. Other refugees undertook arduous journeys to more central regions in Ethiopia and Sudan. These refugees, now twice displaced, are suffering renewed emotional trauma and even physical injuries and violations.
The Project
To meet the needs of their people, Kunama project team members, who are being trained by our national partner in Ethiopia, have made the commitment to:
Develop and distribute the Kunama New Testament in audio and visual format.
Publish literacy materials in the Kunama language.
Conduct discipleship training and trauma healing sessions for children, women, men, and church leaders and train others.
Provide literacy classes for Kunama refugees.
BIble Translation Progress
Drafted
100
Community-Checked
100
Quality-Checked
100
New! (2024-2025)
Healing Together
Aisha’s pencil scratched across the page as she worked to capture the expression of guilt and sadness on the face of the girl she was drawing. No, not just a girl—her. Her at 11 years old. Would drawing these pictures and talking about what happened really help her? She hoped so. For three years she had been haunted by what happened. Holding the old man’s hand. Helping him across the street. And the terrible crack of the gunshot. He had crumpled to the ground. The faces of the crown surrounding her. What if she hadn’t left the compound? What if she hadn’t helped the man across the street—would he still be alive?
After looking at her drawing, the facilitator asked Aisha to share her story. In the trauma healing workshop with other children her age who had similar stories, she finally felt like she could. Aisha held up her drawing and started to talk about what happened. The other children nodded in understanding. For the first time in a long time, Aisha realized she was not alone. “During our sessions, the children shared amazing stories with us,” explains the workshop facilitator. “If they have someone to share their trauma with, they can find many ways to reveal what they have experienced.”
Important to God
A three-day trauma healing training took place for 15 children living in a refugee camp in Ethiopia. This camp is home to 22,000 Eritrean refugees and asylum seekers, and for these children, is the second refugee camp they have fled to due to erupting conflict.
At such a young age these children have faced shocking violence, heavy loss and even persecution for their Christian faith. In the sessions, they learned how important they were to God, why bad things happened, and how to share how we feel, made through Scripture, art, and discussion.
At one point the facilitators read a story from one of the stories that had been prepared for the session. The story was about two siblings living in a village surrounded by conflict who were separated in the conflict. As the facilitators were going over this story, they noticed that one of the children in the group seemed uncharacteristically quiet and withdrawn. After the session one of them asked him what was wrong, and he told them he had gone through what Sami from the story had experienced. Several children related to the story and were able to talk about their own experiences with each other, knowing they had gone through similar things.
“We witnessed the healing process already starting in their lives,” said one of the facilitators.
Healed Through Helping
When Emeru first arrived at the training for Trauma Healing Facilitators, she approached it like any other event. “I thought I was there to learn to help others,” she explains. “Little did I know that this experience would profoundly touch my own heart.” As the group engaged in discussion and activities, Emeru found herself looking inward. “I discovered wounds I had long covered up, pain I hadn’t acknowledged.” Emeru balked, however, when the training moved on to writing their own lamentation based on Psalm 13. “I did not do the exercise because I questioned why we needed to write our sorrows to God—after all, doesn’t He already know everything? But then, back at home that evening, I reconsidered.” Emeru’s pen scratched on the page pouring her heart out to God. Then, she read the words aloud as a prayer back to God. “As I read my heartfelt words aloud, something shifted. God touched my wounded soul. His healing presence covered me, and I experienced the transformative power of His love.” Emeru was finally able to leave her pain at the foot of the cross. “Though I initially attended the training for the healing of others, I realized that God had a plan for my life. He healed me first, and now I can extend that healing to others.”
"Though I initially attended the training for the healing of others, I realized that God had a plan for my life. He healed me first, and now I can extend that healing to others. I am grateful for this ministry and for God’s touch that changed my life."
- Kunama healing training participant
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