2nd Annual Benefit Concert

Restoration Ministries presents the 2nd Annual Benefit Concert. Featuring Redeemed by the Savior. Opening act by Elizabeth Hawkins and Bonnie Pritchard, along with accompanist Leann Little. Friday April 24, 7pm. Hosted by Ebenezers Coffee House, 201 F Street NE, Washington, DC.

The Subculture of Sex Trafficking and Prostitution in Washington, D.C.

The Subculture of Sex Trafficking and Prostitution in Washington, D.C.

Saturday, April 19

9am-4:30 pm

Washington Community Church
9th & Maryland Ave., NE
http://www.wcfchurch.org/

Cost is $35

If you would like to have a greater understanding of what is happening right here in DC, then this is the workshop for you. Guest speakers will be from the MPD Prostitution Enforcement Unit, US Attorney’s office, Youth Investigations Branch, and the DC youth detention center. You will learn about recent local cases that have been prosecuted, understand the process of what happens to youth when they are picked up for solicitation, the John’s School (an intervention program for men who are caught soliciting), gang prostitution, internet crimes against children, and more.

Register here:
http://www.restorationministriesdc.org/dc_registration.doc

Brock Holmes & Carol Nicotera

Brock Holmes & Carol Nicotera
along with Doc Benjamin
preform a benefit concert

Where: Ebenezers Coffee House
201 F Street NE
Date: Friday, April 25
Time: 7PM
Suggested Donation: $20
All proceeds go to Restoration Ministries

Brock Holmes & Carol Nicotera perform a remarkable and entertaining repertoire that covers a wide mix of styles, including jazz, pop, blues, country, and swing, with a little rock thrown in for good measure. Brock counts as his musical influences Tommy Emmanuel, Lenny Breau, Joe Pass, Tuck Andress, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Martin Taylor, Jimi Hendrix, Bela Fleck, and the Ebo, while Carol numbers Ella Fitzgerald, Nat King Cole, Patti Austin, Steve Goodman, Wynonna Judd, and Diana Krall among her favorite vocalists.

Brock & Carol have performed in the Washington, DC, area for more than 20 years. They met while doing the Hexagon Musical Revue, for which Brock was the musical director and Carol, a featured soloist. They then sang together in the award-winning vocal ensemble Brock & the Rockets. The Rockets performed to local acclaim and loyal audiences for a decade and gave a sold-out reunion concert at their favorite venue, the Birchmere. The Rockets' self-produced album, Out to Launch, was a sell-out.

Before helping launch the Rockets, Carol appeared in a number of local community-theatre shows, including her 7-year stint with Hexagon. After leaving the Rockets, Carol helped start up a new musical venture, Love & Madness – a four-person vocal ensemble featured in a Washington Post article about the local cabaret scene – that performed in local clubs and in an annual Pops concert with the McLean Symphony. She also takes great pride in having sung the "National Anthem" for several local sports franchises.

Brock has been performing in both private and public venues since the age of 3, when he figured out that "Frere Jacques" has only six notes in it and this was the hardest song he knew. Before coming to Washington, he performed as a singer and instrumentalist in a wide variety of venues, including as soloist in the European premier of Leonard Bernstein's Mass. While in DC, he has been musical director of Hexagon for its 20th and 30th anniversary productions, musical director of Brock & the Rockets, and leader of his polyrhythmic band Rhythm Warrior. He is currently musical director of the 53rd Hexagon show, “Stars and Gripes Forever.”

Under the name of Doc Benjamin, Dr Benjamin Keyes has played music for the last 37 years in coffeehouses, small stages, and churches throughout the country. In 1973 he opened the Ashville Folk Festival in Ashville North Carolina and was the opening act for Richie Havens in 1999 in St Petersburg Florida. He has produced 2 CD’s, one secular the other Christian and has continued to be seen in acoustic venues over the past few years. Doc is a singer/ songwriter with a 60’s/70’s flair and an entertaining perspective on the topics his written about. Cover songs have been reworked to fit his genial style and his favorite has always been the protest songs.

Esperanza One Day Workshop

Esperanza

Esperanza or Hope in Spanish rests upon a scrap of rock. She feels that it is her only security against the drowning sea. Large waves attack, continuing to reduce her island. Armless, at the end of her ability to help herself, she looks up to God for relief. Esperanza’s useless, stunted arms stretch out into wings. A miracle frees her from her former life on the island that had become a trap. Esperanza is a statement of hope in the power of God’s arm which is not too short to save, even when ours is.

September is Human Trafficking Awareness Month in the District of Columbia, and in recognition, RM will hold its first annual awards banquet on Friday, September 5, 2008. The purpose is to show recognition and honor for some unsung heroes in the U.S. and our community—-specifically direct service providers who are serving women and children who have suffered commercial sexual exploitation, as well as individuals or organizations that are pioneering efforts to end the demand for commercial sex.

Two awards will be given Ending Demand and Direct Service Providers. All nomination forms need to be received by July 15, 2008. The awards are valued at $1,000 each.

Ending Demand Award Nomination
Ending Demand Award Guidelines
Direct Service Providers Award Nomination
Direct Service Providers Award Guidelines

Karen Swenholt is a figurative sculptor who lives and works in Northern Virginia. Independently practicing her art for over twenty years, she continues to study at various studio schools including New York City’s New York Studio School, under Bruce Gagnier, Virginia’s Art League, the California College of Arts and Crafts and the Maryland Institute.The combined influences of the bright, loosely painted figurative work of Bay Area artists with the emotional power of abstract expressionism from her East Coast studies and origins have formed the foundation of Swenholt’s work today. The rough painterly surfaces of her sculptures pleasingly contrast with their grace. She is particularly effective in depicting the human face along with gesture to convey emotion and movement.Karen Swenholt is presently the Artist in Residence at Washington Shakespeare Company. She is a member of the National Sculpture Society and the Washington Sculptor Group. She is also a board member at the Anacostia Gracious Arts Program for under-privileged children under the instruction of professional artists and musicians.Her work can be found in many public and private collections including the home of Bono (U2); The House of Scientists, an historic Romanov palace in St. Petersburg, Russia; and churches in LaJolla, California and Portland, Maine. Karen Swenholt’s sculpture is represented by Foxhall Gallery in Washington DC and the Allen Sheppard Gallery in New York City. http://www.karenswenholt.com/

International Christian Conference on Prostitution

International Christian Conference on Prostitution

“Come to the Peace”

Sept 7-12, 2008

Green Lake Conference Center

Green Lake, Wisconsin, USA

http://www.glcc.org/files/conferences/ICCP%202008.pdf

Tsou Art Studio

On City Streets Conference

Defining the role of the faith community in how to equip
the church body to minister to sex trafficking survivors

October 19 & 20, 2007
Regent University
1650 Diagonal Road
Alexandria, VA 22314

Dear Conference Attendee,

Restoration Ministries has designed a conference specifically for clergy and lay leaders who are encountering or hope to encounter sex trafficking survivors. This conference will help the church develop a deeper understanding of the trauma survivors have endured and will learn to build their skills to do this important work.

Believers always seem shocked to realized that the majority of the women and girls, whether they are foreign or domestic, have had some exposure to Christianity. Getting right with God is foundational to their healing process as most survivors search to find a deeper meaning for their affliction.

A recent study in Chicago asked women who had been enslaved into prostitution who they trusted the most to help them recover and who they believed they could be the most honest with. They rated law enforcement at 0%, service providers, including social workers, recovery groups, etc at 35% and the church at 90%! If the women and girls are given one outing a week by their trafficker, they usually choose to go to church and even more surprisingly their traffickers let them. The church clearly has an opportunity if she will prepare herself and rise to the occasion.

We have brought together speakers who have a wealth of knowledge in their subject area and know the importance of weaving their faith into the vary fabric of their work. Come and hear their journeys as they teach you to dismantle the mystery of who trafficking survivors are, how they got there and how to aid them in their recovery.

We will be addressing topics usually not found at trafficking conferences but they are ones that apply to all survivors whether they are foreign, domestic, minors, or adults. We will be discussing mentoring the trafficking survivor, understanding trauma, compassion fatigue, breaking free from shame, same sex attractions, the male sexual addiction, animal assist therapy, suicide, multicultural concerns and more.

It is important to remember that the women and girls are very complex and we cannot begin to address every issue that affects them in two days. This conference is simply a place to start, to begin the conversation, get involved in their lives and to understand the important role the body of Christ has to play.

The church has been reluctant to champion this cause but she can no longer keep her head in the sand. It is through the power of Christ where permanent and lasting healing will take place. Not only can we offer hope, but it is only the church that can offer victory in Christ.

It is our desire to share our information with you so that you will become engaged in the healing and recovery process of sex trafficking survivors.

Candace Wheeler
Founder/President
Restoration Ministries

Speakers



Plenary Speakers

Benjamin B. Keyes, PhD, Ed.D, LPC Program Director/ Associate Professor- School of Psychology and Counseling, Regent University

Aside from his University duties, Dr Keyes is a board member of Restoration Ministries, Licensed Psychotherapist and Clinical Consultant whose work has been with churches, agencies, hospitals, and partial programs. His private practice work includes individual and group therapy with adults, adolescents, children, couples and families. His specialties include Dissociative Disorders, Domestic Violence, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Trauma, Addictions- Substance and Sexual, Adolescents, and Christian Counseling with an emphasis on Inner Healing. His work over the years has focused on severe psychopathology and the devastating effects of Early Childhood Sexual Abuse, Rape, and Domestic Violence. His book, E Pluribus Unum, Out of Many One, co written with Sandy Sela-Smith, chronicles the therapeutic journey from fragmentation to integration of a Dissociative Identity Disorder client (formerly Multiple Personality Disorder) to complete wholeness and healing. His cross-cultural research in the area of Schizophrenia and Dissociative Disorder has generated several Journal Publications and has contributed to the treatment of Dissociative Disorders in the Peoples Republic of China.
• Understanding trauma
• How trauma hurts and the survivors daily struggle
• The stages of change
• Setting healthy boundaries—the risks of connecting with trauma survivors
• The importance of attachment--creating a new support system for survivors
• Barriers to growth-promoting relationships
• Why the person of the helper is essential
• Why the relationship in itself is healing
• How spirituality can promote healing and spiritual growth
• Dissociative disorder
• Post traumatic stress disorder
• When to counsel, when to refer



Peter Vanacore, MSW, Director of the Christian Mentoring Institute (CMI)

Peter trains churches and ministries to develop mentoring outreaches to at-risk youth and their families. CMI is the teaching arm of the Christian Association of Youth Mentoring (CAYM). Peter has been in youth work since 1978. For fifteen years he served as an Area Director and Staff Supervisor with Long Island Youth Mentoring where they trained church members to mentor adjudicated teenagers and youth from abusive families. He later served as the National Field Director of Straight Ahead Ministries, an outreach to incarcerated youth. Peter is on the part-time faculty of Gordon College where he teaches courses on at-risk youth and families.
• Biblical basis for mentoring
• Basic elements of mentoring ministry
• What makes mentoring work
• Recruiting philosophy
• Recruiting cycle
• Who makes an effective mentor
• Mentoring trafficked youth


Workshop Speakers



Candace Wheeler, MPA, Founder and President of Restoration Ministries

Candace has been involved in social justice issues since 1988 working in the arenas of anti-pornography, right-to-life and the homosexual community. She has ministered in Amsterdam's Red Light District, the slums of India, Washington D.C.'s prostitute diversion program, the streets of D.C., the District's youth detention center and the D.C. Jail.
1. Introduction to trafficking:
• Definition of trafficking
• Difference between sex trafficking and prostitution
• TVPA (Trafficking Victim Protection Act)
• Working with domestic adults and minors
2. Understanding spiritual bondages:
• The character and work of evil spirits
• How demons enter a person
• The restorative power of the Holy Spirit
• The spirit, mind, soul, body, emotions and will
• Having a balanced healing ministry

Bonnie Martin, MEd, CACS, LGPC, Founder and Director The Scarlet Project.

The Scarlet Project is a non-profit organization that provides culturally sensitive faith-based crisis intervention, professional counseling, and mental health resources for women and children who have experienced the emotional trauma of trafficking, abuse and exploitation. It also provides consultation and training for the staff of grass roots organizations that work with this marginalized population. Bonnie has over 15 years experience speaking, teaching and counseling through the local church. Bonnie was raised in the Washington D.C. metro area where her father, Mike Zello, Sr. was the founder and director of the Washington, D.C. and Maryland Teen Challenge (a residence program for drug addicts and alcoholics) and the pastor of a church for the inner city poor. Bonnie has worked with victims of sex slavery in India and at-risk youth and children in Haiti, Barbados, Jamaica, England, and South Africa.
1. Compassion fatigue counseling
• How compassion fatigue affects us
• How to assess your own compassion fatigue
• What to do about compassion fatigue: anticipating, addressing and transforming the pain
• Self-care strategies
• Hope and rewards
• The pain of caring
2. Multicultural concerns in counseling:
• how cultural differences can create resistance in the treatment process
• how to create a culturally sensitive and accepting environment

Captain Agata Tyson, Former National Program Manager, Suicide Prevention Program at the Army National Guard HQ

Agata is a student at the University of North Carolina School of Social Work, with a concentration in mental health direct practice. She is a board member of Restoration Ministries and is active at the DC Department of Youth Rehabilitative Services with female survivors of sexual abuse and trafficking ages 10-21; as well as street outreach to prostituted and trafficked women. She also assists in conducting awareness training for the faith community. Agata is a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Prior to leaving active service to attend school full time, she was the Program Manager for the Army National Guard Suicide Prevention Program at the National Guard Bureau Headquarters in Arlington, VA. She is also a registered trainer of Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training, an intensive two-day workshop designed to equip students to perform suicide first aid.
1. What is suicide?
• Adverse childhood experiences and suicide
• Why this population is especially at risk
• Warning signs
• Suicide first aid
• Postvention



Candy Lewis, M.H., N.D. Aha’va Wellness Research and Education and Delta Society Pet Partners

Candy is a board certified Naturopath and Master Herbalist; founder and owner of Aha’va Wellness Research and Education in Dayton OH. She combines Naturopathic and Animal Assisted Therapies as an approach to health and wellness management. She is a member and spoke person for Delta Society an animal assisted therapy program. Candy has assisted women across the U.S. in exploring alternatives to traditional health care by understanding the holistic connection of the body, soul, and spirit. She is an instructor in clinical aromatherapy for the Naturopathic Learning Center located in Stroudsburg, PA., and Tobago, West Indies. Candy is a graduate of Payne Theological Seminary in Christian Lay Education and serves on the Advisory Council for Curriculum Development for the Center for Wellness Ministry and Education at United Theological Seminary.
1. Emotional Release with the use of Aromatherapy
• Oils for healing, cleansing, and holy anointing are mentioned more than 500 times in the Bible
• Healing emotionally, physically and connecting spiritually
• The safe uses of essential oils
2. Animal- Assisted Therapy (A.A.T.) Animal-assisted therapy is the utilization of animals in conjunction with healthcare and other therapies.
• Finding certified A.A.T. teams
• Mental health/stress management
• Physical therapy/rehabilitation detention and correctional facilities



Josh Glaser, Executive Director, Regeneration Ministries

Regeneration is a Christian healing and discipleship ministry that for over 25 years has helped men and women seeking freedom from life-dominating sexual sin issues such as homosexual behavior, sexual addictions, and the effects of sexual abuse. Through its safe support groups, one-on-one discipleship, and times of healing prayer, Regeneration seeks to lead its participants into greater intimacy with Father God through Jesus Christ. Josh is a 1995 Cum Laude graduate of Colorado State University and has served with Regeneration since 1999. Before joining Regeneration’s staff, Josh was involved for three years as a Regeneration client, addressing his own problems with sexual addiction. Josh speaks to various groups and churches on topics related to how Jesus restores those caught in a cycle of sexual sin and brokenness, and he is currently co-authoring a book on how Christian men struggling with pornography can—from the heart— move increasingly from lust to love.
1. Reducing the demand— addressing male sexual addiction
• Sex as an addiction
• core beliefs of the sexually addicted
• The cycle of sexual addiction
• Holy presence— Breaking the cycle
2. The powerful delusion of pornography
• The fiction of the sex goddess
• pornography as meditation – transforming the mind
• Linking pornography, prostitution and other sex crimes
• Special considerations about children and early exposure to porn
• Incarnational hope—living in reality



Melissa Ingraham, MA, NCC, Counselor, The Christian Counseling Center

Melissa is a National Certified Counselor and is pursuing licensure in New York State as a Mental Health Counselor. She is Chairwoman of the Board for Exodus International, the largest Christian referral and information network dealing with homosexual issues. Melissa graduated from Regent University with a Masters in Community Counseling. Prior to moving to the Binghamton, NY area in September 2006, she was the assistant director of Regeneration of Northern Virginia, a ministry to the sexually and relationally broken. While there, Melissa spoke and taught extensively on gender and sexual identity to large and small groups, and the press. Previously, Melissa worked in Washington, DC on the 9-11 Commission and on Capitol Hill.
1. Working with women experiencing same-sex attractions
• environmental and developmental factors that may predispose women
to emotional and/or sexual attractions to other women
• How to respond and help
2. Breaking free from shame
• Difference between healthy and unhealthy shame and guilt
• Sources of shame
• Manifestations/symptoms of unhealthy shame
• Ways to help self/others break free from shame

Michele Clark, Former Head, Anti-Trafficking Assistance Unit (ATAU) and Deputy Director, Office of the Special Representative on Combatting Trafficking in Human Beings, Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Vienna, Austria

Michele has spent the past two and a half years overseas assisting 56 participating States in the OSCE to combat trafficking in human beings through raising political awareness; strategic planning; coordination with other OSCE institutions and structures as well as leading international NGOs and IOs, and providing technical assistance and consultation directly to participating States.

She has been an advocate on behalf of identified victims of trafficking and the author of the first OSCE annual anti-trafficking report, “From Policy to Practice: Combating Trafficking in Persons in the OSCE Region.” 2006. She is also the editor of “Working Papers on Combating Trafficking in the OSCE Region,” a series of professional papers on groundbreaking topics related to trafficking in human beings.

Prior to moving to Austria Michele was the Co-Director of The Protection Project, a human rights research institute focused on combating trafficking in human beings at Johns Hopkins University in Washington, D.C. There she developed core research programs, was a consultant to U.S. and foreign government agencies and Members of Congress on the developing of anti-trafficking policy and legislation.

She was on the planning committee of the U.S. Government’s first international conference on combating trafficking in persons, “Pathbreaking Strategies,” Washington, DC March 2003 and the editor, “The Protection Project’s Human Rights Report on Combating Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children,” and “The Cabaret Artistes of Cyprus – An Investigative Report.” Michele has served as adjunct faculty at the University of Haifa Haifa, Israel where she taught specialized programs of immigrant students from Ethiopia and the Commonwealth of Independent States and developed curriculum for students with special linguistic needs.

She has also served as adjunct faculty at George Mason University and with the Arlington Public Schools. Michele currently resides on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. and is an advisor to
Restoration Ministries.

Schedule

Friday, Oct 19, 2007
7-8:30AM Registration
8:30-9AM Worship
9-9:15AM Welcome Candace Wheeler
9:15-9:30AM Special Remarks Michele Clark
9:30-11AM Plenary Session I Understanding Trauma Dr. Ben Keyes
11:10-12:30 Workshops (choose one from list A)
12:30-2PM Lunch (on your own)
2-2:30PM Worship
2:30-4PM Plenary Session II Understanding Trauma Dr. Ben Keys
4:10-5:30PM Workshops (choose one from list A)
5:30-7PM Dinner (on your own)
7-9:30PM Special Remarks Michele Clark
Showing of film TRADE (http://www.tradethemovie.com/)


Saturday, Oct 20, 2007
9-9:30AM Worship
9:30-11AM Plenary Session III Mentoring Trafficking Survivors Peter Vanacore
11:10-12:30 Workshops (choose one from list B)
12:30-2PM Lunch on your own
2-2:30PM Worship
2:30-4PM Plenary Session IV Mentoring Trafficking Survivors Peter Vanacore
4:10-5:30PM Workshops (choose one from list B)
5:30-6:30PM Bookstore open (visit the bookstore to see products and materials offered by speakers)


Workshops A
• Introduction to trafficking
• Compassion fatigue counseling
• Emotional release through aroma therapy
• Reducing the demand— the male sexual addiction
• Working with women experiencing same sex attractions

Workshops B
• Understanding the spiritual battle
• Multicultural concerns in counseling
• What is suicide?
• Animal Assist Therapy
• Breaking free from shame
• The powerful delusion of pornography

To register click here!
(the registration form will open)