Friday, November 15, 2013

Yoga in a refugee camp


My memories of yoga are not all that fond. It was pregnancy yoga, eight years ago, and I was the only person in the class required to use a chair. I simply could not do it, and the instructor was worried I would break myself. So, I got the "special" station, where I could use a chair for balance and support. It was not a pretty sight, and after about a month, I gave up. I decided to dance instead. 

This past week, Joel came back from South Sudan. And during his time in a land that has been devastated by interethnic violence and civil war, he worshiped in a refugee camp. They sang and danced and played drums. They praised God with joy and clapping. Many of these people had seen their family members murdered, their houses burned to the ground, watched their loved ones die. But they believe in a God who is more powerful than the violence they have endured. They believe that God’s love will win, that life will triumph, that there is reason for hope.


And at that refugee camp, they also have a yoga class. It is amazing to me to think about people who have lost everything, spending time stretching their bodies and paying attention to their breath. The woman who teaches the yoga class maintains that the refugees are incredibly strong; they can hold positions that most other women cannot. They are strong. They are breathing. They are holding onto hope.

Joel shared so many devastating realities; one of the stories that he heard over and over again has to do with dowries. A man has to provide hundreds of cattle for a dowery, which he does not have. And so he steals cattle from another tribe, killing the owners and often their families in the process. After awhile, the other tribe takes revenge, stealing the cattle back, while murdering the original thief and his family. This happens again and again, as cattle are stolen and re-stolen, as people are slaughtered in order to provide an unreasonable dowry. When I think about the joy, the love, the new life that is supposed to define a wedding, this horrifying practice of stealing, killing, and revenge makes me so deeply sad.

Joel also mentioned riding through South Sudan with his driver, who explained that one should never argue with a police officer. “They will just shoot you,” said the man. He went on to reassure Joel that he had his own guns hidden in the trunk. At the schools Joel visited, he saw teachers walking around with large sticks. The sticks were used to keep the children in line; beatings are all too common. Domestic violence, as well, is rampant. In a country that has only known war for twenty-two years, violence seems to lie just below the surface of most interactions, and is often considered the only way to solve a problem. 

What do we do with all this? We find our way to God. Our way to pray and worship and build. Our way to breathe. We join with other people of faith and we claim our power. We support ministries of reconciliation in places of violence and pain. The women in that refugee camp refuse to give up; so must we.

The stories from the typhoon in the Philippines, the Ethiopian adoptee abused and murdered in the US, the cuts to programs that feed the hungry. These things make me feel hopeless and sad. But then I picture the refugee woman in South Sudan, doing yoga and then getting up to dance her faith. And I know there is a God. I know there is something more powerful than all this pain, all this death, all this horror.

I believe that God works through the church, the body of Christ, to bring peace, to bring hope, to bring reconciliation. As Joel traveled, he saw people doing incredible work of transformation. RECONCILE, one of our partners in the Presbyterian Church, USA, brings together people from different ethnic groups, to work on peace-building, justice, and forgiveness. Theological colleges, also PCUSA partners, train new leaders to live out the love of the gospel. South Sudanese Christians and mission co-workers come together and declare there is hope, there is breath, there is a future. For they believe in a God of liberation, a God of reconciliation, a God of transformation.

There is yoga in a refugee camp. There is dancing in a refugee camp. There is worship in a refugee camp. There is breath. There is joy. There is God. 

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