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By Dorothy Brotherton
“FORGIVENESS frees me from being an emotional slave to my attackers.” So said Eloise Bergen – and she has much more to forgive than most people.
She and her husband John were attacked at their rural home in Kenya by a gang of
nine men in July 2008. John was beaten, cut, choked and left for dead. Eloise
was tortured and raped.
The story of their suffering and amazing recovery is told in their new book, Forgiveness in the Face of Terror. They are now touring all over North America. All proceeds from the book will
go to help the orphans they left behind in Kenya.
The Bergens must have left their hearts in Africa too, for they’ve already been back to Kenya once. Even in the rawness of trauma, as Eloise was
discharged from hospital to return to Canada for recovery, she said: “Oh Africa, I’m going to miss you! I will carry you back home with me in my heart. Oh, Africa,
I promise you, I will be back!”
Before they embarked on their mission to Africa, the Bergens lived in B.C. In
Vernon, John operated a construction business; and Eloise worked as a nanny. In
2007, they met Ralph Bromley, president of Hope For the Nations. He told them
about Kenya’s orphans, and after learning of their interest, asked pointedly: “So when are you coming to Kenya?”
The Bergens received support from their four grown children and all their
families, even though the media at that time was filled with stories of
bloodshed in Kenya.
The book chronicles their early experiences in Kenya, with its deep poverty.
Their hearts broke over the Kitale Show Grounds, which had become a temporary
home to 4,000 internally displaced people, and a garbage dump. People lived
there in huts made of rags, sticks and pieces of plastic.
The Bergens quickly jumped into working with street kids, focused on a 13-acre
farm where they started growing food for orphans. It was there the brutal
attack took place. Their ordeal made headlines around the world; and in the
book, they suggest that even the publicity was used by God.
For example, a CBC news reporter visited them in the Nairobi hospital and asked
what they would say to their attackers if they had the chance. John replied, “I would tell them that Jesus loves them, and that I love them. And that there is
forgiveness for what they have done.”
Later a CBC staff member in Toronto told them the story of their forgiveness had
reverberated throughout the entire staff.
John told BCCN he has had “a lot of practice forgiving.” He had experienced abuse; a father whose actions left him bitter and angry; and
relatives and friends who betrayed him. All of these things seemed to line up
in his soul to be forgiven, when Eloise nearly left him after 27 years of
marriage. John then realized he needed to deal with unforgiveness.
Because of that ‘practice,’ he said, it didn’t feel like a struggle to forgive the attackers in Kenya. Ryan Schumacher, who
drove John to the hospital, details that trip in the book and describes how
John, only semiconscious, spoke of forgiveness even then. “This was possible because, for many years, he had been downloading intimacy with
his heavenly Father into his spirit,” writes Schumacher.
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John tells people forgiveness is easier when there are no unhealed hurts to tap
into. He asked friends in Kitale to visit the attackers in prison and share God’s forgiveness with them.
Eloise also traces her ability to forgive to earlier practice. The Bergens went
through deep pain when their adopted daughter rejected them and turned to a
dark side of life.
After years of working to extend love and forgiveness to her, they were
reconciled. “Today Amanda is one of my best friends,” said Eloise. “This heartbreak and lesson in forgiveness helped prepare me for responding to
the horror of the attack in Kenya with a healed heart.”
John and Eloise are taking the message of forgiveness on their speaking and book
promoting tours; they have been finding it is deeply needed in churches in
North America.
“To forgive is not the same as to condone,” said John. “We can’t excuse evil, but we can forgive the evildoer. In this way we protect ourselves
from the poison of anger.”
Eloise added: “When we go speaking, people relate on different levels. People who have gone
through any kind of abuse can find solutions in the book.”
John is hoping to jump-start a project to buy more land for the orphanage when
he returns to Kenya in January.
Meanwhile he and Eloise are travelling in a camper van, going wherever they are
called across North America.
October 2009
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