Too close to home !

When I was in Ghana, I learned how God helped us to escape the devious plans of a child trafficker to steal one of the children from Haven of Hope under false pretenses. I learned that a woman came to the home with an adoption form she had been sent by a man, an application to adopt one of our children. Those of our children who are eligible for adoption are adopted only through Social Welfare in Ghana, so out people knew right away that something was wrong. When she learned she had been taken in by someone's deceptive scheme, the woman left the form with us. It looked like our literature and carried our logo, undoubtedly copied from the internet, but there was a different phone number on it. She even had a little girl picked out, but the girl was at the home temporarily due to family issues and was not eligible for adoption.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized how narrowly we had escaped a huge tragedy. Someone was evidently using our website to try to sell the children under our care. Had they planned to try to steal the children from the home, or to pose as some legitimate agent? The woman herself was simply an honest person who nearly got sucked into the deception. How thankful I am that the security fence is now completed. It's now much harder for anyone to ferret away a child, and we are now alert to the scheme. We hate child trafficking anywhere, but this one came way too close to home. May God follow the despicable people involved and give them their due, and may His hand of protection always be over the beloved children in our care.

One of our street children trafficked & returned!

One of the orphan street girls to whom Every Child Ministries ministers was trafficked last month. A sweet-talking woman at the market began to sympathize with her about her hard life and offer her a way out, a good job...the same sorry lies that have snared so many other children. Like most children who are trafficked, she didn't have to be forced or abducted. Seduced by sugary lies, she went willingly with the woman. Deceit is one of the main recruiting methods of traffickers.

The really great thing is that our street workers are on the job regularly and really know the people of the street. They heard about the girl's disappearance, asked questions, followed leads, kept searching. They knew her health and safety and maybe her life were at stake. After two weeks, they found her and were able to rescue her from the "madame" who was using her as a slave. She was hidden and has now been taken to safety.

Great work, ECM street workers! Because of your diligence, one more girl is safe and free.

Lord, we've been praying about adding more "eyes and ears" in key trafficking areas. Would You provide soon so that we can increase our street staff?

Prime time for selling children into slavery

A week or so before my recent ministry trip to Ghana ended, I visited the Central Region to gather information to enable our organization, Every Child Ministries, to begin combatting child trafficking at one of its major sources. We are hoping to raise the $18,000 needed to open a center and begin work in the Central Region this year. I left Ghana on July 29 and arrived home on July 30. When I got here, I read that on those days, police intercepted three large groups of children being trafficked. One of them was a group of 118 children being sent out of the Central Region where they lived, to serve as slaves in the fishing industry to the west. I thank God for the diligence of the Ghana Police to intercept children being trafficked in the country. I pray that PLEASE Lord, ECM may begin to work in the Central Region this year. Right now, while schools are out on vacation, is prime time for selling children into slavery. My prayer is that before the next vacation season comes, ECM will be there, actively acting as a deterrent to the trade and helping to rescue and restore children who do get caught in the traffickers' nets.

Handicapped Boy Brings Blessing

Yesterday I was sorting donations of goods that have come in for our various projects in Africa when one of our missionaries called me from Africa. Social welfare workers in one of the countries where we work were looking for help with a young hydrocephalic boy. He was 8 but looked 4, could only speak a few words, could not stand or care for his own toilet needs. His mother wanted to throw him out to die, but oh yes! only after calling a witch doctor to perform some ritual to absolve her of guilt. The father refused, so the mother left. It was evident that the father really loved his son and was seeking what was best for him, but how could he work and also care for his handicapped son? In discussing the boy's situation, and searching for an answer together, the social welfare worker learned of ECM's intense interest in helping free trafficked children. He knew of children he strongly believed were trafficked into a certain heavy duty type work in his area. What stopped him from investigating and intervening? Only a few dollars of transport money! Our worker wanted to know if ECM could facilitate the investigation. Yes! Lord, please provide the very best answer for this handicapped young boy. You love him just as You do all Your children. And thank you for using him to bring us the opportunity to help in the investigation of other children who are trafficked and abused for selfish ends. Please multiply our ministry and our effectiveness in that area. I offer this prayer in the name of Jesus who welcomed the children and who gave His life that I might be free.

Ghana Staff Training on Child Trafficking

I just returned from Ghana where one of my jobs was to train all our staff on issues related to child trafficking. As part of the workshop, the staff compiled a list of all trafficking situations they were aware of in each of their areas. It was a challenging list, indeed. We also role-played asking questions to investigate possible cases of trafficking. Now they have all been charged with watching for and reporting all possible incidents of child trafficking. Our organization, Every Child Ministries, hopes to get more involved and to help some of these children. Please pray that the staff will remember and actively use all they have learned.

Sold 2-Year Old Daughter--For What?

I have committed myself to try to track all the news about child trafficking/child slavery in Africa or involving Africans. It helps me understand the pattern of things. (You can see my postings on www.slaverymap.org. Click on the flag and it tells you the story. My pen name on slavery map is musoniki, which means "writer" in the African Kikongo language.

Day before yesterday, I read about a man in Zambia who tried to sell his two year old daughter. With the money from the deal, he hoped to move to the city to start a new life.

Fortunately, he tried to sell her to the wrong person. He was arrested for attempted child trafficking. Yea for somebody.

But his story just shows how short-sighted this all is. What did he think someone would do with his baby girl? She wasn't going to clean houses for awhile. She wasn't going to braid hair, like the girls I learned about yesterday. There are a few extreme pedophiles who might use a two year old for sexual purposes. I've heard of that. But in Africa, she would more likely become a human sacrifice or be dismembered for her body parts. It's big business right now, and I've heard African police talk about how it is growing even as other crimes are shrinking. There are those who murder children and try to sell their organs to those needing transplants. There are probably even more who use various parts to create what they believe are very powerful magic charms, having come from someone who is young, virginal, and innocent. The father knows this. He didn't think about this? He knew, but he didn't care? A new life for himself in the city seemed more important to him? How did he think he would enjoy his new life, knowing that he had sold his baby for such purposes? The person who turned him in saved not only the child, but also the man from a life of terrible guilt and remorse. A prison term is nothing compared to the condemnation his own conscience would surely have brought him.

This man's problem shows up problems I see over and over in my work in fighting slavery: the devaluation of human life, especially the lives of children, and the extreme emphasis on the here-and-now, with very little if any thought to the future. On these two points my Christian faith helps me so much. Soon after I became a Christian, I realized that since we were created in God's image, we are all pretty valuable in God's sight. Then as a Christian I am able to withstand hardships in the present knowing that there is a glorious future ahead. May God help this poor man in Zambia and his precious baby. May he come to see children as a precious gift from God. May he seek God's help for his present troubles, for my God says that all who seek Him, find Him. Jesus, help him. Amen.

Abolitionist Academy

Here I am at Abolitionist Academy in San Francisco. Our training in researching, documenting & intervening in modern-slavery starts tomorrow, but already I have enjoyed such stimulating conversation with others who are on the front lines of the abolitionist movement. My roommate works with a ministry that rescues girls in Houston, trafficked into prostitution. Another gal I've met is trying to find out what has happened to a long string of Native American girls who have disappeared along a certain highway in Canada.

I am hoping to learn from others' experiences and to go home with new ideas & skills to help us move on in our own efforts to free trokosi slaves in Ghana, Togo and Benin. We are also interested in child trafficking from the major markets in Ghana where we already have a well-established street ministry, in trafficking of children to dive for oysters in the Volta River (a practice that not infrequently results in their deaths and they get tangled in the fishing nets), and in sex/labor trafficking between Gulu, Uganda and Juba, Sudan. Lord, each child is a human life full of potential and promise, a child You love. Help us to know what to do to snatch them from those who would abuse them for their own profit and pleasure. You who came to set the captives free (Isaiah 61), do it again. In the next two weeks, let me not miss one lesson You would want to teach me. Thank You, Jesus! Amen.