The Church of the Brethren Ministers’ Association will host a pre-annual conference continuing education event in Cincinnati from Monday to Tuesday, July 3 to 4.

The event will start with a free dinner where attendees can socialize and get to know each other.

Featured Presenter

Sheila Wise Rowe, who will be a featured speaker at the pre-Annual Conference continuing education event, is an advocate for faith and Christ-centered emotional healing. 

Her focus is on the dignity, rights, and recovery of abuse and racial trauma survivors, as well as promoting racial reconciliation. 

She has more than 28 years of experience as a Christian counselor, spiritual director, educator, writer, and speaker.

Rowe has also worked with unhoused and abused women and children in Johannesburg, South Africa, for ten years. 

Her book title, “Healing Racial Trauma: The Road to Resilience,” which has won awards, will be the main topic of discussion at this pre-conference event.

Healing Racial Trauma

According to the book’s summary, people of color have faced ongoing assaults on their dignity and have a traumatic history. 

While some have prayed about racism, denied its existence, or acted out in anger, there has been a lack of knowledge on how to heal from racial trauma as individuals or as a community. 

Rowe, who herself experienced racism as a child when she was bused to a majority white school, recognized that this harmful lie of superiority continues to be perpetuated in today's society.

It is through various channels such as the government, media, viral videos, churches, and families. 

However, Rowe turned to Scripture, which teaches that every individual is fearfully and wonderfully made, to counteract this lie. 

As a professional counselor, Rowe exposes in the book the symptoms of racial trauma and provides a pathway to freedom from the past and new life for the future. 

Each chapter includes an interview with a person of color to explore their experiences and resolutions for racial trauma. 

Through this book, Rowe serves as a reliable guide, having both been on the journey herself and shown others the way forward, which can help readers find a safe pathway to resilience.

While Wise Rowe's book "Healing Racial Trauma" focuses on the journey towards resilience, her latest book "Young, Gifted, and Black: A Journey of Lament and Celebration" is centered around the stories of Black millennials and younger adults. 

The book gives voice to their real-life experiences and highlights the importance of faith, love, hope, joy, and healing.

Young, Gifted, and Black

“Young, Gifted, and Black’s” summary stated that Nina Simone's famous civil rights anthem acknowledges the joys and struggles of the Black experience. 

While in a fair race, every runner has an equal chance of winning, this is not always the case for young, gifted, and Black individuals. 

With this, in her book, Rowe goes beyond the common narrative that solely focuses on the success or struggle of Black millennials and younger adults. 

Through her stories of celebration and lament, Rowe highlights the importance of hope, joy, and healing.

Rowe drew from her extensive counseling experience with trauma and abuse survivors to offer stories, reflections, and tools in her book that can benefit Black readers of any age as well as their supporters.

Through these stories, readers can reflect and explore ways to overcome the barriers that affect their lives, their children, and their communities.

 

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