March 2008 Update
March has been an amazing month for JSASSN.
At Wheaton College, I conversed with the Director of Christian Outreach, Brian Medaglia, who was looking for a professor to visit students participating in SMP (Student Missions Project). Four students are going to work with organizations that minister to women who have been abused in the sex trade. Two are working with ServantWorks in Thailand and two are working with IN Network in Ghana, West Africa. In May and June of this year, I will be going to Ghana, West Africa to visit the latter two students and work with the vocational training program run by the Rev. Walter Pimpong and his wife, Marion, to help women and girls formerly known as “trokosi” (”slaves of the gods” or “fetish slaves”).
These women, who have now been set free, were originally given by their familes in sexual slavery to village priests to pay for the crimes of their ancestors.
While in Ghana, I hope to offer support to the Wheaton College student interns working with IN Network, evaluate the strengths of internship site for the college and for future SMP students, and participate in some of the work of the IN Network. This work includes negotiating with village priests to set the women free, sharing the gospel, and meeting the physical, spiritual, educational, vocational, and communal needs of the freed women and girls thereafter. Wherever I can contribute, in the short two weeks I have in Ghana, I hope to do so.
For me, this will be a return trip to Ghana, where my dear friend, Kate Tetteh, her husband Theophilus, my three goddaughters, and the extended Tetteh family, my African family, all live. I am full of a sense of anticipation about what God will do at the beginning of this summer! Please pray for this work.
Dr. Jane Beal
JSASSN International
Tags: Ghana, IN Network, trokosi
