I thought it might be a good idea to share with you some of our experiences and stories as we prepare to continue moving forward...Enjoy!
Village of Life
We are excited to share with you a little of Jesus’ story as it relates to our lives –
The mission statement of The Mission Society is:
The Mission Society exists to
mobilize and deploy the body of Christ globally
to join Jesus in His mission,
especially among the least reached peoples
We have joined Jesus in His mission to some of the least reached peoples of Ghana in West Africa.
The Bible says:
Galatians 5:1 (NIV)
1 It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.
So, what is Jesus’ Mission to Ghana? We believe that one part of it is bringing freedom to the captives
Isaiah 61:1-3 (NIV)
1 The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me,
because the LORD has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives
and release from darkness for the prisoners,[a]
2 to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor
and the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who mourn,
3 and provide for those who grieve in Zion—
to bestow on them a crown of beauty
instead of ashes,
the oil of joy
instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise
instead of a spirit of despair.
They will be called oaks of righteousness,
a planting of the LORD
for the display of his splendor.
You may or may not be aware of the issue of slavery that is thriving in the world today – even as I speak there are thousands – maybe hundreds of thousands worldwide – of children that are being sold, caught, or kidnapped and forced into a life of slavery. More than 24,000 of these children are enslaved annually (estimate by Challenging Heights, a Ghana based NGO) in the fishing industry on Lake Volta in Ghana.
We first became aware of this situation in November 2010. We were on a plane headed back to Atlanta from Accra, Ghana after a brief but supernatural visit.
The flight had originated in Liberia where there had been computer issues regarding the seating assignments – as a result, when we boarded, the flight attendants instructed everyone to just take an empty seat – so picture this – a half empty plane, being boarded (almost, if not completely) to capacity and boarding passengers being instructed to “just take a seat” – Dave was sitting in his assigned seat, however, I was not nor were the passengers in front of us.
As we were getting settled in, the gentleman in front of us noticed a book in the seat back pocket (“When Helping Hurts” by Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert) and asked who was reading it? This started quite a conversation – one that not only changed the course of our lives over the next few months and following summer but now has altered the course of our full-time ministry in Ghana.
The gentleman’s name is Brad Guatney (Global Health Innovations) – a full time medical missionary who travels throughout Africa and Haiti. Brad started talking to us about the time he had just spent on the lake (Volta) in the Volta Region of Ghana. He and his team had been to the islands of the lake and done health assessments on the children that lived there – with just a little more prodding we discovered that the children he had been assessing and treating were slaves…
According to Wikipedia, Lake Volta is the largest man-made reservoir (by area) in the world. A dam was built and the valley flooded in 1961 by the convergence of the White and Black Volta Rivers. The dam generates power for much of the country as well as neighboring countries of Togo, Benin and others.
In the middle of the lake lie many, many islands that are only accessible by boat. It’s on these islands that the slave children are taken. There is no way of escape for them so even when they do develop the courage to get away there’s nowhere for them to escape to.
The slave master perceives the children as a “tool” to be used in his work. Most of the time the thought doesn’t occur to these men and their wives that these are children – children that need to be protected and provided for – but only as slaves that do the difficult and dangerous work so that their children don’t have to…while the slave master’s children are in school or playing or doing chores in the community, these slave children are made to dive into the dark waters of Lake Volta to untangle the fishing nets that have gotten caught on the underwater trees or other debris. If the children come up before the net is untangled, they are beaten and sent back down – often several times. Many times in the course of this mistreatment they become exhausted and drown. Often they are attacked by crocodiles or electric eels which also kill them or leave them maimed…
The girls that are taken as slaves start out usually as house help for the slave master’s wife – they cook, clean, haul water, dry fish, and take care of the children of the slave master and his wife. As they get older their usefulness is increased as they are prostituted – often to many men in a single night.
How does this happen? How do these children end up here? Frequently the children are from small, small villages – villages without electricity, often without schools – villages where illiteracy is rampant. The families have never read a newspaper or heard that children are dying in the fishing industry – the families are very, very poor – often single parent families (the mortality rate for men and women is high) with many mouths to feed. Frequently a supposedly well-to-do man will come to their village and offer to take the children and raise them as his own – with promises to send the children to school and give them jobs so that they can send money back home to care for their families. Frequently the single parent is sick and in need of medicine they have no money for and the visitor will give them the money they need – as well as take one or two children off their hands with promises of a better life for the children…it’s all a sham and a lie - the children leave and most often never see their families again…
There is a Ghanaian man who God is using, along with his partnering US organization, to open the eyes of the world to what is occurring in Ghana on Lake Volta. We heard about him as we researched and read about the situation after we returned home from our week-end visit. We talked to friends about our new friend (the man we met on the plane - Brad) without yet mentioning his name – as we were telling them that we had met a man – they started telling us about a man that friends had told them they needed to meet – two completely separate events that led to the same man – Brad, our new friend.
These friends and the two of us were in the early stages of planning a return trip to Ghana the following summer – planning a two week mission trip with healing and restoration as the focus. Even as we were trying to make contacts and get organized the whole focus of our trip changed – we knew that we had to check this out, see it for ourselves, and pursue what Jesus was doing in Ghana as it related to these children.
With Brad’s introduction we were invited to join a group that was planning a health fair for the following July with the focus being on the children that had already been rescued. There were approximately 65 of them that were housed at a Christian boarding school in the southern part of Ghana. We were excited about this health fair and being part of what God was doing in the restoration of these children, but we knew that for us, there was more to the story – that we had to go to the starting point - we needed to see for ourselves what was going on on the islands and allow the Lord to speak to us about our potential involvement in this healing process.
Through a series of connections we found our way to Kete Krachie, Ghana – Kete Krachie lies at the tip of a peninsula on the northern end of the lake. The Lord gave Dave a dream about a spearhead – when he awoke from the dream he went to the kitchen to look at the map of Ghana that is hung there and saw that Kete Krachie was at the tip of what appeared to be a spearhead shaped peninsula…from then on there was nothing that could stop us from getting there.
It was a long journey by road that took us to Kete Krachie and the Village of Life – this school/home houses the teenagers that have been rescued from slavery on the island of Lake Volta – boys and girls. Here we met a most incredible family and saw with our own eyes the beautiful picture of restoration – the bright and shining faces of these teenagers!
This family – George (his now deceased wife, Hannah), his son George Jr. and wife Rebecca, as well as sons Kofi and Prince all work to rescue the children from slavery and provide for them a safe, warm and loving home where they are restored…through God’s grace and mercy and healing power of His great love, these children grow and learn.
We got word before we left the US that there were approximately 43 children in the Village of Life – we didn’t know how they were divided in number between boys and girls but thought that there were about 11-12 girls and the rest were boys. A friend that was struck by the enormity of what God was doing here was struck by the thought that since these children for the most part have no idea how old they are, no idea where they come from, and no idea even of when they were born – that it was a very real possibility that they had never had a birthday party – to us in the states birthday parties are big deals so to think that these children had gotten to whatever age they are and had never experienced the joy of their birth being celebrated was overwhelming. So, we decided to give them a birthday party! Ha, ha – we had no idea what we were doing or how to do it – it was a walking it out daily – sharing the vision with others, often weeping over the pain and realization of the lives these kids had experienced – depending on the Lord Himself to show up and lead us.
One friend brought in 13 pink T-shirts, various sizes; another donated money; another had 13 beautiful necklaces and matching bracelets made; another paid the fee for extra bags to be checked – all in all we ended up with 35-40 boys t-shirts, new underwear and sandals (varying sizes) and 13 pink t-shirts (varying sizes), new undergarments (varying sizes) and 14 gift bags of jewelry. We packed Hostess cupcakes (in strawberry pink as well as chocolate!), candles, tissue paper, gift bags, and miscellaneous small gifts to fill the bags further. We took party hats and balloons as well!
We shared with George Jr. and his wife Rebecca that we wanted to give the children a birthday party and Wednesday night, July 17 was the day chosen for the event. That evening after dinner and after daily chores had been completed, we all gathered in the evening and separated the boys from the girls while their gifts were handed out – to avoid embarassment as the undergarments that were included in the bags were unwrapped. Afterward everyone reconvened and cupcakes and soft drinks were passed all around – there were quite a few more children than had been estimated (same number of girls, however) so the gifts were divided and the cupcakes cut in half – plenty to go around and a few left over. So, on July 17, 2011 in Kete Krachie, Ghana we sang Happy Birthday to about 65 children that had never had a birthday party, had never blown out a birthday candle, had never seen a cupcake before, and had never received a gift all packaged in a cute bag with ribbons and bows – and now 65 children have adopted July 17 as their birthday!
What an incredibly sweet gift from God for them but also for us – many, many tears of joy streamed down our faces as we gave each child their present and looked them in the eye and told them we love them – much fun and laughter as the party went on and on – with the children playing the drums and doing a dance that was representative of their culture – another part of their education, being taught their heritage through music and dance.
This is the story of HOPE – the story of REDEMPTION – the story of Jesus and His Mission in the Lake Volta area of Ghana in West Africa – these children have been redeemed – their feet have been set on the solid path – the path that leads to a bright future where their stories will be told and this heritage of slavery broken once and for all.
This is just one part of what God has called us to in Ghana – however, even this is way bigger than we can accomplish under our own power or in our own strength. This is a God sized project and without Him we can do nothing – so we are depending on Him fully for every step that we take.
We don’t really know what our involvement will be or how it will look – to the children that live in the Village of Hope we are like grandparents - something they have never had; we have already added George and his family to our ever growing list of heart friends – and we know, that we know, that God is in it – that He will lead us and that He cares about these children as well as the rest of the children that are sold into slavery everyday all over the world…
