Adam had been a quiet but intelligent young man, docile in public interactions but possessing a distinct liveliness and gentleness, until he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in junior high and put on a heavy regimen of drugs. His new medicines seemed to glaze him, trapping him in a monochromatic world where both joy and sorrow were suppressed by a languid, drug-induced apathy.

A few days into the trip, sitting in collapsible chairs on the hard-packed dirt around a camp fire, Adam began to laugh. His arms were crossed across his chest, and his legs were straight out and likewise crossed at his ankles, rising up when his whole body would be captured by a deep, maniacal guffaw.

At first we thought he was being goofy, experiencing the common mix of hyper-ness and lessened inhibition that usually accompanies Christian students on such trips. But, we soon realized, this laughter was not normal. We sat, confused high-schoolers and interspersed leaders, and were bewildered at his absurd amusement. Something was wrong, but we didn’t know what.

The next morning, he was gone. The leaders were in a controlled frenzy, not wanting to frighten us, not wanting to lose this student who was somewhere wandering alone in the Baja Peninsula.

Allison was sitting in a folding chair, calm. I asked her how she was: she was fine. I wasn’t. I started crying. And back then, only the idea of a missing twin brother (I have one myself) could make me deign to shed tears in front of others.

They found Adam about a half-hour later. He had been taking a walk down the country road which led to the camp, and was wandering on the agricultural lanes of the Mexican countryside. He was not phased, just confused, not knowing where he was or why everyone was so concerned. It turns out he had dropped his carefully organized pills the day before and chose not to tell, so he wouldn’t scare anyone. But without his pills he was even scarier to a naïve group of pseudo-evangelists without the means or knowledge to care for him.

Adam revealed to me that the public image of stability could mask a private life of pain and confusion. I began to wonder about the dichotomy: who else in my Baptist context had to negotiate these two realities? If it could happen to the schoolteacher’s son, why not the pastor? The woman who ran the nursery? My friends in Sunday school?

I never felt adequate to help or handle situations such as Adam’s: a nice boy with a heartbreaking disorder that is not his fault or anyone else’s, but branded with a stigma I was taught not to touch or handle. No one told me not to care; the problem was that no one told me anything. I began to fear empathy, and this fear can still drive me to look away in the face of poor mental health.

But as I meet more people dealing with such issues, ignoring them is no longer an option. I wasn’t taught how to care, but learning not to fear such issues (most of which are mere biological problems, see Spotlight, pp. 12-13) is a step the Christian community must take in order to truly love the members of its body. We need to strive for compassion and understanding instead of pretending that mental health is not an issue, or stigmatizing people who deal with it.

*names have been changed

Josh Duvauchelle, the Humanities and Social Sciences representative on TWUSA, has been planning the event since July.

Duvauchelle originally wanted to use energy metres for each residence building to monitor students’ energy consumption. After talking to a number of facilities and maintenance staff, however, Duvauchelle discovered this was not feasible for the short-term. TWU currently has one energy metre for the entire campus.

Duvauchelle’s inquiries have incited interest within different departments on campus, including Housing Services and Community Life, to create a more energy-efficient university infrastructure.
The focus of the contest was changed from accurately measuring energy consumption to looking for students’ effort and creative ideas.

Resident assistants and apartment reps will fill out an action report for each conservation initiative their dorm or apartment implements. TWUSA will accept these reports until midnight Nov. 30. The greater the number of reports a dorm or apartment submits the greater the chance of winning.

Each action report requires students to outline their target, goals, implemented changes and results.Jared Elenko, the RA of Fraser Hall 3H, says that his dorm was interested in the contest when he first told them about it, but that the ideas really started to flow when they heard about the prize money.
“Seems like every day they have new ideas,” he said.

Some of the dorm’s conservation initiatives include unplugging appliances that are not in use, unscrewing hot water taps on their sinks and not turning on heaters.  The boys are also taking advantage of “No Shave November” to use less water.

Elenko mentioned that their main idea is to use pop bottles to displace water in their toilet tanks, resulting in less water consumption.  The dorm is also considering purchasing reusable napkins to use when eating in the cafeteria.

When asked if they are worried other dorms will steal their ideas following the printing of this article, Elenko said the boys joked about keeping the contest’s goal in mind.

“If someone wants to copy our ideas they can – it’s about saving energy.”

Duvauchelle hopes that students will realize how easy it can be to reduce waste and energy use and maintain the changes following the contest.

“The most important part is getting people to start in the first place,” he said.

Elenko says that his dorm will probably keep some of their changes in place, such as the pop bottles.
A panel of judges will meet in the first week of December to determine the contest winners and divide a $700 prize amongst them. The panel will include Duvauchelle, representatives from Community Life, facilities and maintenance staff, and students.

Winners will be announced before the beginning of the final exam period.

Driving really impresses upon us all the importance of a good education. On the one side, people, through a habit of inattention, forget how to drive: signals, school zones and parallel parking get ignored. On the other hand, the driving-test system doesn’t really teach you how to drive: the gullible student is taught to go the posted speed limit, get in the left-hand lane at least a kilometre in advance, ignore tailgaters, slam the brakes for a yellow and otherwise drive like a paranoid geriatric. The only real driving education we get is through attentive practice.

It is clear that the state of the drive has a significant impact on the mental health of everyone who must drive around on a regular basis. So, in the interests of your mental health and practical education, here is a guide to driving in the Greater Vancouver area:

The average Vancouverite, let’s call him Joe the Stockbroker, is a competent, courteous, quick driver. Yes, he may “transcend” the speed “limit,” but remember: those were set when Edsels were hip and Caddies took pride in getting gallons to the mile. He, being an average Vancouverite, has no discernible faults.

There are several tribes of drivers that imperil Joe’s life on a daily basis:

– The Impatient Tailgaters hug his bumper when, clearly, Joe can’t go any faster.

– The Magical Double-Signallers tap their brakes constantly, giving simultaneous impressions of directional indecision and impending danger. Master MDSs can even accelerate while braking. Joe sometimes fantasizes about rear-ending them when they actually do brake to slow down.

– The Signal-less Weavers take the same sort of opportunities as any in Vancouver, but slowly and without signals. This is contagious, particularly among truck owners.

– The Left-Hand Laggards have forgotten the purpose of having two lanes on any given road. Either they grew up in the 20s, before such things as passing lanes, or they take pleasure in deception and causing confusion. Late at night, you’ll sometimes see them driving in the left-hand lane, just you and them on the highway. They still won’t move over.

– The Speedy-Trucks, when combined with a few LHLs, are a dangerous force on the road. Joe doesn’t enjoy being cut off by a 60-foot vehicle. Speedy-Trucks forget that they can’t accelerate, breeding further angst in Joe.

– The Careless Accordianers scoff at the idea that if you all accelerate at once, at least three times the number of people get through any given light. Though not literally dangerous, the CA identity is a contagious disease. Proof is that everyone from Victoria has caught it. Entropy of the same brain-lobe responsible for Physics is thought to be at blame.

– The Pernicious Cell-Phone-Talkers may be a secondary loyalty for any of the other tribes. Most of these are in denial about the fact that that they would drive better while inebriated than on their phone. The only good point about this tribe is that they are the reason why no one questions the Doctrine of Original Sin anymore.

Finally, if you belong to any (or all) of these groups, there is help and hope. Just put down your cell phone and get off my bumper, and I’ll show you.
As an aide to you all, commuter and resident alike, here is a guide to driving in Greater Vancouver.

It’s five o’ clock a.m. I think I’ve been awake since two o’ clock. No, I know I’ve been awake. I’ve relived every minute of the past three hours too many times.

The clock strikes 7:04 and a piercing buzz stirs my cloudy state. I haven’t been asleep. I haven’t been awake. Minutes later I am in the bathroom staring down a row of pill bottles echoed by my mirrored form starting back at me. Chemically balancing my brain has become a mechanical process stripped of emotional attachment. I’ve cursed the pills, I’ve cursed myself and I’ve cursed the countless doctors and therapists that have peered sympathetically down their noses at me. I am still the same.

On the drive to work my head is throbbing, spinning, not there. Tiny bolts of energy rush down my spine and out of my fingertips; it is all I can do to stay focused on the road. I get into the office and I’m abnormally warm, hot even. Hot flashes? Please, no. Co-workers greet me warmly as they come in the door, “Good morning, how are you?” I give a smile and respond accordingly. “Morning. I’m good, yourself?” I walk fast down the hallways, weaving between chatting women commenting on each other’s hair. I need to find a bathroom.

       I sprint across the lobby and up a flight of stairs. I don’t care that I’m shaking, I don’t care that people are staring. I have to get away, I have to get where no one knows me. I’m halfway to the stall when it hits: a crushing wave of nausea and disorientation. I am no longer in control; I can no longer hold it in. I am the Ark. I am the tsunami minutes after the quake. I shake and cry and I shake and cry. Pull it together, get off the floor. The voices of my entire life crash through me, roaring sentiments I wish I could attest to. Don’t be so dramatic, what is so wrong? I try to fight back; I try to control my shaking hands, my ruined face. Countless battles rage within me and it isn’t until there is a banging on the door too loud to ignore that I realize I am no longer alone.

“Do you need help?” A voice trickles through the cracks of my incomprehension, weak and scared. To her, I am a threat to understanding, compassion and sympathy. I push the stall open and shut it quickly behind me hoping to leave my panic inside like Peter Pan trapping his shadow. But my shadow never leaves and I can’t stop shaking, despite the helpless look on this girl’s face. “I…I. Please, get Julie.” I fire the words at her like bullets; she jumps and runs out as I crumple to the ground once more. Breathe.

Minutes later Julie stands at the bathroom door. She won’t come in. She teeters on the edge of the threshold, one foot in, one foot out. I can’t blame her, but I hate her all the same. As my manager, Julie was always strict with me but still my favourite boss. Now I am on display and she doesn’t really want to watch; this is a side of people you hope never to see in the work place. “What’s wrong? Are you sick?”

I can’t answer her no matter how hard I try. I cannot believe I asked for her - she’ll never treat me the same. “I’m…attack…panic…sorry…panic attack.” I watch her face contort as I spit out the words with instant regret.

She looks at the floor. “What’s causing it? Are you fighting with someone, is it something to do with work? What should I do?” Luckily, she doesn’t look like she expects an answer. I don’t know what changed her mind but now she enters the bathroom, picking me up and helping me out the door and towards her office. Forty minutes later I am sitting at her desk, still shaking and breathing fast. No one has come in for what feels like forever, and I wonder if I’ll ever be able to show my face here again.

They say it is a deficiency of a chemical called serotonin in my brain. The paradox of being categorized as clinically depressed is that you never had a choice in the matter. Stimulants and depressants in my brain, chemicals I’ve never seen running through an organ I’ll never touch, decide what I will feel day to day. I am not sad, I am not having a bad day, I am not an angst-ridden teen unappreciative of the world around me; I am a normal university student with an abnormal amount of synapse firings and chemical uptake.

You are on an airplane, and over the loudspeaker a flight attendant says, “If there are any doctors or nurses on board, could they please identify themselves as a passenger is experiencing severe chest pains and needs medical attention.” A doctor and two nurses respond immediately, and the passenger with the chest pains is given appropriate help.

In the other scenario, you are in a coffee shop. A customer sitting at the table next to you begins to shake, then gets up and starts stammering uncontrollably. The manager goes over to the shaking customer and says, “I’m sorry, we’re going to have to ask you to leave, as you are disturbing the other customers,” and leads the stammering customer out the door.

Our society knows how to deal with physical ailments. When someone is experiencing chest pain, we get him medical attention. When someone is diagnosed with breast cancer, she has surgery and chemo treatments, and we visit her in the hospital. When an elderly member of the church falls and breaks her hip, we pray for her and send her cards.

Our society doesn’t know what to do with mental health problems. When someone with schizophrenia walks passed us on the street, talking vehemently to the air, we avoid eye contact. When an autistic boy comes up to us, showing us his most recent artwork, we smile awkwardly. When someone is severely depressed, we talk in hushed whispers about her.

Why do we respond in these ways? As a psychology major I’ve been forced to think about this for the last four years. And although I’ve been blessed not to have to deal personally with chronic mental health problems, I’ve developed relationships with numerous people who have. Through my experiences, I’ve come to the conclusion that we respond badly to mental disorders because we can’t wrap our heads around them, but it is easy for us to figure out physical sickness. If someone has a tumour, they have surgery and get it removed – this is easy to understand. And since cancer has become such an epidemic in our world, when someone is diagnosed we can empathize because we know it could be us next. We don’t have the same understanding for mental disorders.

Yet we should have that understanding. Bipolar disorder generally presents itself between the ages of 17 and 21. Most people with schizophrenia first showed signs of it in their twenties. Contracting a mental illness is like contracting any other disease: something goes wrong biologically. More and more studies are proving that mental disorders result from malfunctioning receptors in the brain, or too much serotonin production, or other imbalanced neurotransmitters. Like diabetes or cancer, mental disorders are simply internal biological problems.

This is, of course, a strong statement. And perhaps there is more to mental problems than a chemical imbalance. The issue becomes confusing because many things get lumped into the pile that we call “mental health.” What about the mother who suddenly loses her young son? Her grief and depression are a mental problem brought on by circumstances, not a biological mix up. Often mental disorders are a result of horrific childhood abuse or tragic life events. But even in situations such as these, studies continually show that there are biological roots to mental disorders.

Within Christianity, this idea seems to be particularly foreign. Rather than treating those who have mental disorders with love and grace, the Christian response to poor mental health is often judgmental and close-minded. The response to the young woman with clinical depression is: “Put your trust in God and find joy in the Lord.” The response to the middle aged man with schizophrenia is: “Your relationship with God must be suffering, because demonic forces have a strong grip on you.”
This is not the general response to physical ailments. If someone has a heart disease, perhaps he might be judged because of poor eating and exercise habits, but his spirituality is not questioned. So why should we question the spirituality of someone with a mental disorder?

If we understand that mental health is as much physical as any other disease, we are able to respond to it in ways that are beneficial and empathetic. If we begin to view it as a physical problem, rather than something that is simply “mental” and therefore controllable, we are better able to do something about it. Even if it is only that the next time we encounter someone dealing with a mental disorder, we respond in love rather than fear.

“I was driving along and he was in my lane, actually so far over he was more like on the shoulder of my lane, coming straight for me, but it all happened so fast that I just remember seeing lights coming at me and the road slopes so then I lost the lights and then saw them again. He hit my vehicle head-on,” said Klassen. The other driver died upon impact.

She remembers being in a lot of pain but still having the presence of mind to assess her situation. “I had been in another serious head-on collision about four years prior, so memories of that flashed back.”

Her injuries were extensive; she sustained neck and back injuries, soft tissue damage, and a concussion. But beyond the physical, the psychological impact of the event was also traumatic.

“It took me quite a few months before I drove again and I still have difficulty driving, especially at night,” Klassen explained. “I knew that I had to drive again, but it is always difficult knowing that in both of my car accidents I could not have prevented them. Every time you drive you are trusting that the other people on the road are going to stay in their lane and drive where they are supposed to.”

Klassen has had to process all that one would expect to come with experiencing a trauma: wondering why it happened to her, how her injuries are going to affect the rest of her life, how it would be to return to school and volleyball. “There are just so many things that were going through my head about how my life would be affected by the accident,” she said. “I’m still dealing with a lot of them.”

What was most difficult for Klassen was that she remembers so much of the incident. “I have dealt with guilt even though it wasn’t my fault; I just felt that if only I had not been driving home at that time or was somehow able to swerve out of the way. I have also felt just sadness that someone had to lose their life for making such a stupid decision.”

Klassen had a lot of support systems around her though family and friends. “They encouraged me, prayed for me, visited me, drove me around, brought me candy, gave me presents and listened to me as I dealt with the aftermath of the accident.”

She also realized, however, that it might take a little more to help her process and get through what had happened to her. She currently meets with a counselor from the TWU Wellness Centre. “I did not want to go to counselling at first,” Klassen said, “but I have found it somewhat helpful. Sometimes it feels better to just forget about the whole thing but that is kind of impossible, so in that regard it is helpful to discuss [what has happened] with a counsellor.”

The recovery process is one that she thinks of as a journey, a continuous process. She feels at times that no one really understands what she is going through. At times she felt distant from God wondering how He could have let this happen to her and yet other times she felt very close to Him. She said of her inspiration, “Ultimately, I know that He has some purpose in it all even if I cannot see it now; I take comfort in [I Corinthians 13:12]: ‘For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.’”

When Klassen thought about advice she would give to someone who had been through a traumatic experience, she offered this, “For me it was important to just rest in God and focus on recovering, just taking the small steps to recover. At times, the recovery process feels excruciatingly painful and yet you will be okay. You might never be the same as before, but you will eventually learn to live again even though it is a slow process. I am still learning how to live with my new reality [even though] the pain is still there.”

Last year’s champions, the Cape Breton Capers were the tournament favourites as they went undefeated in the regular season. Joining them were teams from Nova Scotia (Dalhousie Tigers), Quebec (Montreal Carabins), Ontario (Laurier Golden Hawks, Ottawa Gee Gees, Brock Badgers) and the Canada West champions (Victoria Vikes). On paper, TWU was going to have a tough tournament, but luck was on their side as the unranked Badgers quickly eliminated the favoured Capers in the first round.

The quarterfinals pitted the Spartans against the Golden Hawks. The host team went up 2-0 within the first twenty minutes with beautiful goals from strikers Nikki Wright and Daniela Gerig. A look at the play-by-play of the game tells the same story as the Spartans held possession and walked circles around the Ontario university champions. The Spartans sent a message to every team in the tournament as they finished off the night with a 3-0 victory.

Two days later, the Spartan faithful were in for a real treat as the women faced their Canada West rivals, the UVic Vikes in the semi-final. This was a rematch of the Canada West final in which TWU lost in a penalty shoot-out. Feeding off the energy of 750 fans crammed around the field, the Spartans had home field advantage. However, just like the CW final match, 90 minutes and overtime could not resolve this tight match up. After four rounds of penalty kicks, TWU was down one goal – even with the spectacular efforts of first year keeper Kristen Funk. The shootout went to the eighth round when Rebecca Ferguson scored to put the pressure on UVic. The UVic player missed the shot and the faithful rushed onto the field. The Spartans were in the final.

Sunday was the first day that the rain slowed to a stop all weekend. The field was packed with nearly 1,000 spectators. The Spartans were to face the team that had knocked off top-ranked Cape Breton and Montreal – the Brock Badgers. In the 40th minute, Ferguson, the hero from the shootout, struck an unbelievable corner kick right to the head of mid-fielder Kayla Dilling and through the keeper’s fingertips. That goal would be the difference as the Spartans held control of the game until the final minute. For the second time in the Spartans’ eight-year history, they were Canadian champions.

Gerig was named tournament MVP. Joining her on the tournament all-star team were fellow Spartans Wright, Ferguson, Dilling and team captain Dana DuMerton.

“I’m so proud of our players,” said Head Coach Graham Roxburgh. “They are a young group and they have matured very quickly over this year.”

Flip through any magazine and you’ll be taken to an alternate reality, filled with beautiful, seemingly flawless people. Sometimes we take that reality into our own lives and place the standards of starvation and photoshopped images on ourselves. Sometimes we think that if we could look like the models our lives would somehow be better, but this is an illusion as well.

A friend of mine from back home explained to me that she had always felt self-conscious because she was a bit bigger than her friends. “I became anorexic really bad,” she said. She would either not eat, or take laxatives after every time she ate. “I would freak out if I didn’t have [the laxatives] with me,” she said. Reaching a lower body weight did not make her life better. There were times when her whole body hurt. “I’d wonder why I did this to my body, how I got so screwed up,” she said. “You won’t be happy obsessing about your weight, believe me, it just makes you miserable,” she said.

In little ways our self-obsession with achieving the “perfect body” can start to control us. We might try to mention how little we eat, in order to draw more attention to ourselves. We might become preoccupied with achieving a smaller dress size, or we might become addicted to compliments about our looks. When our focus becomes inward and we start using the way our bodies look to communicate to others, a starvation-ravaged body might start to become the only way we know how to cry out for help.

As Christians, we can look to Christ to restore us from misguided perceptions of ourselves. My friend from home mentioned that she prayed a lot when dealing with her eating disorder. “It has gotten a lot better,” she said, “but I am still dealing with it.” Fortunately, the TWU student mentioned earlier has now recovered from her disordered eating patterns. When she looks back on the time she spent dealing with her eating disorder, she remembers how present God was with her. “It was a really bad time, but it was also when I got closest to God,“ she said. “In that way, it was a good time, too,” she said.

For centuries people have used art as a way to heal their inner brokenness, like the artist Frida Kahlo.

Kahlo was a Mexican painter in the early 20th century, who used art as her own brand of healing. She confronted the thoughts, pain and desires of her mind through her projects. She made her personal problems real by portraying them on canvas: her yearning for children, her tempestuous relationship with her husband, her depression.

I remember first seeing Kahlo’s work in grade ten during art class and being deeply impacted. I was confused by her paintings – the way that she placed her subjects, her depictions of herself, her metaphors – but they still struck me. There was raw emotion that leapt out of the picture plane; it amazed me. Art can do this. It can mean so much to a random teenager 50 years after the artist tried to confront her issues because it is, as she said, a “primary human impulse.”

Janet Oakes, Vancouver art therapist and psychoanalyst, says that the reason art is so conducive to therapy is because it “makes the unconscious conscious” as much as possible, illuminating unconscious areas that were before misunderstood or completely ignored. The characteristics of art and art-making are used to effect healing when it is used “as a process to work through emotional and cognitive difficulties that people experience,” says Oakes. Art has a way of putting one at ease that is well utilized in therapy, because patients are often terrified to put themselves out to be examined and pulled apart. It is used in conjunction with speaking to create a calming and honest atmosphere.

Often in art therapy, themes and questions arise in the artwork of a patient that were before unrecognized or ignored by he or she; those issues can then be confronted. The images of a mind can be shown without the needless words that are so often hard to find. Because of these factors, art therapy is incredibly useful in confronting one’s personal issues. Often it serves to make the difficulty real in the mind of the patient so that it can later be addressed by psychoanalysis or psychology.
Art therapy is a rather recent conception in its newest sense, though it has been utilized in an unofficial way for millennia. The science of applying psychoanalysis and psychology to art is new but the therapeutic act of making art is not a recent development; it is one of the most instinctual impulses of humanity.

As I talked to Oakes, I became aware of a beautiful release in the action of art itself, in the way the movement stimulates thought and introspection.

Because humans think first in images and then in descriptive words, there is so much that can be communicated through visual art compared to what can be said. In conversation, there are taboo subjects only spoken of behind closed doors that can be breached in art. It can provide a safe outlet for physical feelings. Whereas words and feelings change and past experiences are forgotten, a piece of art stands as a symbol of that emotion. It won’t disappear or change with time.

Art is a beautiful part of human nature which stands alone in its ability to communicate human emotion and action because of its close connection to the psyche.

Just ask Farrango, a team of four people who are hoping to raise awareness and funds for an organization called HEALing Arts through a concert at South Delta Baptist Church.

Trinity Western University alumni Mark Thompson will be opening the concert evening. His debut album Look Both Ways will be released at the show.

The purpose of the benefit concert is two-fold. “[Our aim] is to help rising Christian artists while helping local and global causes,” said Adam Krahn, a member of Farrango.

Other members include Jon Sinclair, Dan Smutylo and Jeremy Johnson, who will be headlining the concert. Johnson has been nominated by the Gospel Music Association for the Modern Worship Song of the Year award. All proceeds from ticket sales will go directly to HEALing Arts.

Founded by Vancouverite Christine York, the purpose of HEALing Arts is to equip women and children, treated at their HEAL centre in Africa, with resources to support themselves.

“Educational and social aspects of healing [are] addressed by creating an environment where women can learn income generating skills and where children have a place to learn and feel loved,” says the foundation’s mission statement.

HEALing Arts works within the Democratic Republic of Congo. This area has been at war since 1997. Sexual violence, one of the primary and most destructive weapons of the war, is rampant in the eastern part of Congo, near the Rwandan border. Women and girls as young as eight are raped and tortured.

The resulting situation is a population of women and girls with high rates of STDs such as HIV/AIDS. Many of them also develop vesicle vaginal fistula (VVF), a condition extremely painful not only physically but emotionally, as many are ostracized by their families and villages because of it.
In addition to the approximately four million lives that have been lost during this war, villages, roads and crops have been destroyed. This has left in its wake innumerable malnourished and diseased children.

HEALing Arts, says in their mission: “[We] are committed to helping men, women and children through the concept of holistic healing (physical, social, and spiritual) in the context of their community.”

They are also committed to counseling and literacy training for women and children at the hospital. The HEAL Africa hospital in Goma has performed over 1,100 VVF surgeries since 2003.

A representative from HEALing Arts will be in attendance to explain what is going on in Africa and how people can get involved. HEALing Arts will also be selling items made by the women in Africa helped by the organization.

Farrango decided to host the concert because of their connections with York. “We all have connections with her and there is a great need in the Congo right now not only for money but also the war seems to be ‘forgotten’ by western media and we are trying to help raise awareness,” said Krahn. 

“We want to stress that even if someone can’t attend the night to please check out their website and try to support in other ways such as donations or prayers,” he added.

The concert will take place on Nov. 21 at 1988 56th St. Delta, BC. Tickets can be purchased at the door or by phoning 604-943-8244.

Look for the organization
on the web at
www.healingartsafrica.com and Farrano group at www.farragomusic.ca