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The Welcome Home Initiative, a spiritual healing retreat for veterans with combat trauma, is one of the ministries supported by ACCTS Staff. For more information, go to the By His Wounds Ministry website at http://www.byhiswoundsministry.org/.
A female veteran, diagnosed with 100% disability due to PTSD, came to a Welcome Home Initiative (WHI) in May 2011. She had been on active duty with the Air Force during the bombing of the Oklahoma City Federal Building on April 19, 1995. During the recovery effort, she had held the dead body of young children. Later, she was tasked to direct parents looking for their children to other sources of information, and forbidden to tell them whether their children were alive or dead. These events traumatized her with fear, flashbacks, isolation, paralysis and the inability to cope with daily life. In addition, she had been traumatized by sexual abuse and other assaults as a child. After medical treatment, a diagnosis of PTSD, and discharge from the USAF, she became suicidal.
At a team prayer meeting just before the May 2011 Welcome Home, a team member related this woman's story, and asked if we should offer her a place on the retreat. She came, but in a desperate emotional state. It was discovered that she had a rope in the trunk of her car with which she planned to hang herself that very day, but that being invited to the retreat had thwarted the plan. Even though she was still quite emotionally fragile by the end of the retreat, it was clear that her soul had been lifted and encouraged, and that she was in a better space.
The same team member felt called by the Lord to invite the woman to her home for a few days after the retreat. The stay lasted for several months. Much ministry was done in that time, but there were also setbacks - she was not only involved in some dubious spiritual organizations but also in a controlling lesbian relationship (thankfully, the partner moved away) and dominated by manipulative parents.
In January 2013, she came on a WHI retreat for female veterans, and received much healing by Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit. She was living on her own and walking more closely with Jesus, despite occasional lapses when she isolated herself from the world for several days at a time. Thankfully she was also less inclined to suicide.
Her story is one of many WHI experiences where Jesus has graciously come in when a veteran has "given God another chance. He might have failed you before, but see if He can help you now." As these spiritually sounded veteran have cried out to Jesus for help, the Good Shepherd has gathered them up one by one, brought them back into His fold, and begun to heal their wounds.
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