Many of you have been praying over, financially supporting, and even serving in the MWP Faith, Hope, and Love Medical Network. Today, I want to share with you what I believe to be the single most important factor of this growing ministry: our partnership with Natural Lifemanship.
As a survivor of three personal attacks during the height of the Darfur genocide, I struggled against the oppression of undiagnosed PTSD for several years. Once properly diagnosed, I sought a number of treatments, including traditional talk-therapy, story-sharing, and even EMDR—a special form of rapid-eye movement therapy originally developed for soldiers suffering from violence and trauma.
Looking back, while I can say that each of these experiences all played varying levels of support in my recovery process, it wasn’t until I found Rusty the True—a wounded, broken horse which had been severely tortured that my deeper healing journey set afire.
I immediately felt pity for the poor creature, but powerlessness and ignorance of how to help left us both scared and frustrated. Originally, it was for “Rusty’s” benefit that I set out to learn more about horses and healing. Through vast amounts of research and finding many programs certified to “use” horses to help people through everything from Cerebral Palsy, to PTSD, to Dementia, only one stood out as a rich and solid source drawing deeply from Scripture, Science, and Art: Natural Lifemanship. There, it became clear that the healing journey had to start with me—an inside job—before I could focus on ANY other relationship. Internal before the external.
My first glimmer of hope blazed for both Rusty the True and myself during my initial conversation with Natural Lifemanship co-founders, Tim Jobe and Bettina Shultz-Jobe. I signed up for their Fundamentals Course and was hooked from day one.
Utilizing the most current brain and trauma science available, Tim and Bettina help us to break this data down to artfully apply it in our everyday relationships from child-rearing, to married life, to co-workers, as well as professional clinical relationships.
All of Natural Lifemanship is principle based. Along this model, all principles must be true in all relationships or they are not solid principles, similarly to how Randy Alcorn says something to the effect of, “Nothing can be true of Christianity in the safety of the USA if it is not equally true in the darkest martyr’s prison cell in China or Africa.”
Practicing these healing, freeing, and empowering principles is most easily done through relationships with Horses. They are excellent teachers for authentic relationships and building trust. Plus, YOU DO NOT HAVE TO RIDE and YOU DO NOT HAVE TO OWN A HORSE.
Once learning, studying, and practicing the principles with both feet firmly planted on the ground in relationship with a horse—under professional, certified NL therapists and Equine Professionals—you will hone the skills and abilities to transfer this healing model to all relationships—starting from the INSIDE of you—then spreading from personal, to professional, to clinical relationships.
Whether you’d like to explore more healing and freedom for yourself, in relationships with others, or are a direct-caregiver to traumatized people, the best way to begin is to sign up today for one of more than 40 COURSES being offered this year.
You can choose from rustic accommodations to top-of-the-line venues like this unique training at Rancho Las Cascadas, a horse ranch and retreat center nestled amidst more than 500,000 acres of countryside in the high mountain plains of San Agustin Buenavista.
Make Way Partners recently hosted its first Fundamentals training, and only one or two participants had any prior horse knowledge or experience, yet all walked away with an understanding— and more importantly, a personal experience—of how life-transforming this aspect of our Faith, Hope, and Love Medical Network is. MWP is already utilizing the principles in our Uganda Safe House, and we’re glowing with amazing healing in all who participate. This fundamentals training is now a requirement for all Make Way Partners’ short and long-term missionaries, both as a form of self-care and insight into the traumatized people with whom you will serve.
Go straight to https://naturallifemanship.com/trainings/ for a list of upcoming trainings around the US, Mexico, and Europe—and sign up today.
Love, your sister along
the healing journey,