Bowen Island resident Caitlin Frost met Costa Ndayisabye through her work and ongoing practice with Byron Katie (www.thework.com) and the inquiry process. Frost felt that Ndayisabye, who has just published a book titled The Work That Brings Peace In Me, has a lot to offer and invited him to Bowen Island. In addition to enjoying a retreat and writing time, he will also share his story with the community on Friday, November 9, at 7 p.m. at Cates Hill Chapel.Admission is by donation.
"Costa is a lovely man from Rwanda who lived through some of the very hard times there, and has had an amazing journey to finding peace.Some years ago, Byron Katie sponsored a group of people (both Tutsi and Hutu) from Rwanda to come to her nine-day intensive retreat.It was very powerful for Costa - and he took the process back to Rwanda where he did a lot of healing peace work," Frost said. "He has written a book about his life there and the experience of finding peace, and is now on a book tour."
Ndayisabye's story began when his parents fled a Tutsi massacre in Rwanda to Burundi in 1959. After his mother was widowed at a young age, he and his siblings grew up in extreme poverty. Ndayisabye was imprisoned three times in Congo and Burundi at the age of 17, and in Rwanda. Inspired by a retreat with Byron Katie, he found his true line of inner peace and became an international presenter and facilitator for individual healing and interpersonal reconciliation. The title of Ndayisabye's book, The Work That Brings Peace in Me, is also the name of the presentation he will give on Bowen Island.
Frost says that she has been doing this work for about 12 years as her core practice and has studied and trained with Byron Katie in California. "There are lots of places where working with your own mind and thinking can open space for a more connected and peaceful life, and more ability to act both wisely and compassionately," she says. "The work Costa has done in himself and that he has hosted in Rwanda is both inspiring and a way to deepen one's own awareness of how peace is possible, even in such painful and challenging circumstances. Even if people are not meditators - or doing the inquiry work, I think it could be an inspiring experience to hear his story and how working with his thinking helps in the peace work he does," Frost said.
More information is available at www.caitlinfrost.ca.
