Belinda Bauman - Brave Souls: Experiencing the Audacious Power of Empathy

Christine Caine

Many people enjoy sitting snugly in a warm lodge with a fire burning, sipping hot chocolate while gazing upward at the mountains, and imagining what the view must be like from the top. They love to hear stories about climbers who reached the highest peaks against staggering odds. But few people decide to pay the required price in order to climb to the top and see the sunrise for themselves. Being a spectator often becomes a mediocre substitute for experiencing the real thing.

There is a side of God that can only be known from the top of a mountain, in the middle of a long, hard journey. Standing on this mountaintop, you realize you had more strength, courage, tenacity, determination, resilience, faith, and hope than you ever imagined.

This is the kind of journey that Brave Souls is inviting us to join.

Its in this processthe challenge of the climbthat we learn to depend on God for strength to take our next step, even when all we feel is fatigue, frustration, isolation, and hunger. He is faithful to reveal new insights, even when our perspective has become distorted from distraction and exhaustion. When weariness sets in and our vision is clouded, when there seems to be no end to this climb and our minds whisper taunts that our efforts are futile, his Spirit gently leads us onward and upward.

But when you reach the summit and you see the sunrise on a new and glorious morn, its then you realize that every stepevery painful experience, every moment of hardshipis worth the view.

Through making a new journey, the journey has also made a new you. And in this process, Gods greatness and goodness in all things is undeniable.

But these mountaintop moments cant last forever. You want to stay here and enjoy the view, the intimacy, but now it is time to go back down. You have had just a glimpse of glory, and now you must go and tell the world what you have seen. It is the mountaintops that give us the visiona new sightthat we bring with us back down into the valley. This is what we need to see the world differently. And this kind of new sight is what is required to lift the eyes of others and move us all to action.

The pages of this book not only contain my friend Belindas story of her experience but a challenge for us all to see the world differently. I must warn you: this kind of visionthis new sightwill change how you see others and the world around you, and it will change how you see yourself. But thats the beauty of it, because this is the kind of transformation our world is desperate for. I highly commend it to you.

Shhh! Youll wake up Mom.

It was Mothers Daymy day. I woke to the sound of our smoke alarm nearly drowning out the clanking of pans in the kitchen. The pleasant scent of coffee wafted up the stairs, promising all would be well.

Minutes later, my husband, Stephan, and our two sons, Joshua and Caleb, trundled into the bedroom with my breakfast. I sat up to take in the refrains of Happy Mothers Day! amid laughter and claims about who made what. Alongside scrambled eggs and sliced avocado, Stephan had slipped in the days newspaper with this headline: Congo: The Worst Place in the World to Be a Mother. Im always up for being the activist, I thought. But this was Mothers Day. While most of my girlfriends were experiencing Hallmark moments, I was crying into my coffee.

Maybe I had it coming. After all, I had too often reminded Stephan of these words of British abolitionist William Wilberforce: You may choose to look the other way but you can never again say you didnt know.

God knows my life needed disrupting. That newspaper article explained how mothers in the Democratic Republic of Congo were facing overwhelming odds against raising children in a raging, protracted, unforgiving war. And it became the doorway to one of the most disruptive forces in my life.

I wasnt new to Africa or to activism. For years Id lived just one country overRwandaand had somehow missed the extent of the suffering in neighboring Congo. The Congolese women I read about that morning were unsung heroes. I didnt just cry; I sobbed. Something deep in my gut told me I had to meet them.

One year later, I found myself sitting on a wooden bench in a rural church near Rutshuru, a town located at the heart of the decades-long conflict, listening to the stories of a group of women. Something significant had led me across an ocean to meet these superhero moms, grandmothers, sisters, and daughters. Their pain-filled stories began a new story in me.

My sisters in China like to say, When sleeping women wake, mountains move. And oh my, did mountains move for me. Theres nothing simple or safe when awakening to your story.

Since that Mothers Day, Ive had to fight some pretty daunting odds to tell the powerful and provoking stories of women. At the risk of sounding sentimental, if youre willing to be brave, theres a story waiting to be awakened in you too.

I stake my soul on it.

Sheltered White Woman Shocked into Reality After Meeting War Survivor in Congo.

If you are rolling your eyes, thinking, Ive heard that story before