On September 13th, I preached a sermon entitled “Redemption” at my home church, Church of the Savior, in West Chicago. In it, I testified to the redeeming power of God at work among women freed from the trokosi system in Ghana, West Africa and in my own life as I have recovered from sexual abuse and assault. To hear this sermon, click on:
http://www.friendsofthesavior.org/2008/20080913-JB.mp3
The above address is a connection to Church of the Savior’s home-page (www.friendsofthesavior.org) and the section on which interested friends may find audio recordings of all sermons preached at our church.
The text of my sermon, “Redemption,” is given below.
REDEMPTION
Yosef’s Story:
“Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good, in order to preserve numerous people, as he is doing today. So have no fear” (Genesis 50:20-21a, RSV).
These are the words of Yosef, son of Ysrael, son of Yitzak, son of Avraham when his brothers come to him seeking forgiveness for the evil they did to him in his youth.
These brothers were the same men who assaulted Yosef, sold him into slavery, and pretended he was dead. Not only did they strip him of his beautiful robe, they stripped him of his innocence, his freedom, and his sense of security in the world. They were driven by hatred and jealousy and rage that came, in part, from the fact that their father loved Yosef more than any of them—and that their father loved Yosef’s mother, Rahel, and hated their mother, Lea. They cast their younger brother first into a pit and then out of their lives. In one swift series of events, they physically abused Yosef, they violated his will, and they robbed him of his dignity as a young man. They overpowered him. They shamed him. Then they sat down to eat together while he was alone and thirsty in the bottom of a pit in the desert without water. Finally, instead of killing him like they originally planned, they decided to sell him, half-naked, to Midianite slave-traders and profit on his flesh. Yosef was then taken out of his homeland and into Egypt where he suffered first as a slave and then as a falsely-accused prisoner for thirteen years.
Yet, when his brothers approached him asking for forgiveness, he could say to them: “Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good, in order to preserve numerous people, as he is doing today. So have no fear.”
You see, the greatest trauma in Yosef’s life was not the end of his story. The pit, the pain, the powerlessness – the enslavement and the suffering – were not the end of Yosef’s journey. The God of the Universe was watching when all these things happened, and He had a plan to redeem. God had a plan to redeem not only Yosef, but every living member of his family, all the citizens of Egypt, and thousands upon thousands of people from surrounding nations.
As we well know, Yosef did not remain a slave or a prisoner in Egypt all his life. Yosef was delivered by the hand of God. God gave him dreams in his youth of what would happen in his future. He gave Yosef the power to interpret dreams. He elevated him in the court of Pharoah and gave him a position of leadership. In that position, God gave Yosef authority over Egyptian agriculture, so that Yosef was able to preserve the lives of thousands of people during a severe famine that went on for seven years. Yosef married and had two sons. So, in his personal and professional life, Yosef prospered. During the days of famine, he was reunited with his father and all his brothers, and the entire family was reconciled one to another. Yes, God had a plan to redeem.
Tonight, I want you to know that God has a plan to redeem your life and every painful experience you have been through in the past and every difficulty you are suffering through now. The God of the Universe has a plan to redeem. His love for you is very great.
The concept of redemption: (getting the theology straight)
Now, as we begin to discuss redemption, I want us to get the theology of redemption straight. Redemption does not mean that God planned or caused the evil that happened to Yosef—or to us. God is light, and there is no darkness in Him.
Redemption does not mean that the evil Yosef’s brothers did to him—or that others have done to us—was somehow justified or excusable just because God brought good out of it. From a fully-informed, Judeo-Christian, biblical perspective, if the means are evil, the means never justify the ends. God hated the sin done to Yosef just like He hates all sin that we do or that is done to us.
Furthermore, redemption does not mean that sin is necessary to God’s plan. The wrong Yosef’s brothers perpetrated against him—and that others have perpetrated against us—did not have to happen for God to accomplish His purposes in Yosef, in his family, in Egypt, in the world—or in us. Sin is in no way necessary to God for God to accomplish His sovereign purpose.
But neither is sin any impediment to God’s will.
God knows that we live in a sinful world, and so when the effects of sin traumatize and damage our souls and our circumstances, our relationships and our cultures, God has a plan to redeem.
Tonight, I want to share some stories with you about redemption.
I grew up in churches where we used to have “testimony services” some Sunday nights, and people would encourage one another by telling the stories of what God had done for them. There’s a basis for this practice in scripture. In Revelation, it says: “They overcame the devil by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony.” Does anyone here want to overcome the devil tonight? I need to hear some amens. Jesus, the Lamb of God, has overcome the world. He is the Word of our testimony. And when we testify about His redeeming power, freedom comes not only to us, but to all those who hear in faith and believe in Jesus’ Name.
Let me tell you the first story.
International Needs in Ghana, West Africa:
This summer, I saw the evidence of God’s redeeming power being made manifest in Ghana, West Africa.
I’ve been blessed to visit Ghana before to attend the wedding of my dear friend, Kate Na-aku Tetteh, and to help Kate when she was traveling from San Francisco to Accra with her newborn twins, my godchildren, Reina Akweley and Renee Akuorkor Tetteh. This time, this summer, I went to Ghana because the Wheaton College Office of Christian Outreach sent me there to visit to student interns working at the International Needs Network Vocational Training Center in the Volta River region of Ghana.
I first learned of the work of International Needs in Ghana from the Rev. Walter Pimpong when he came to speak at Wheaton College in the fall of 2007—one year ago. He spoke of the “trokosi system” that is currently practiced among Ewes and Dangmes of the Volta Region. “Trokosi” is a word that means “slaves of the gods.” In the trokosi system, girls and women are handed over by their families to village priests as sexual slaves to pay for the crimes of their ancestors.
When I was in the Volta region, I learned the story of a woman named Mercy who works with the International Needs in Ghana and regularly speaks on behalf of the trokosi who have been set free and those who are still in slavery. Mercy herself was trapped in the trokosi system until she was redeemed.
Mercy’s Story
Mercy Senahe, an Ewe, grew up in the Volta region of Ghana, West Africa. When Mercy was about eight years old, the fetish priestess cursed her family after the priestess lost a gold earring because she believed that Mercy’s grandmother had stolen it. To pay for this “theft,” and avoid the fatal consequences of the priestess’s curse they so deeply feared, the family planned to give Mercy, the youngest virgin daughter in the family, to the village shrine in Avakpe.
Mercy has said of this event: “My age-mate came to tell me that I would be sent to some place and I would never come back. Some days later they told me that I should bathe because I was going to some place. I remembered what my age-mate had told me, so I went to the bush to hide. I stayed there until the night. When I came out, my grandfather beat me roughly.
That same night they took me to cross the river to the shrine.”
After Mercy arrived in the next village, she fell asleep on the ground. When she woke up, her family was gone. Women from the village shrine came and placed bracelets on her wrists and ankles. They showed her how she must worship each of the idols in the shrine. Mercy had become one of the “trokosi,” a slave to the gods.
Her new name in the shrine was “Gold.” She was named after the item her grandmother had been accused of stealing. She was the sacrifice meant to be appeasement for that crime, and she bore its name.
But Mercy did not understand this at the time. How could she? She was only eight years old. She really had no idea why she was in the shrine. But she quickly learned to be terrified in her new environment.
In the Avakpe shrine, Mercy was sexually assaulted repeatedly by the priest, sometimes as part of an occult ritual meant to symbolize the “marriage” between the trokosi and the shrine gods.
At about age twelve, Mercy gave birth to her first child, fathered by the priest. She would eventually have four children by him. The priest had already fathered dozens of children borne by the other trokosi in the shrine.
Even as a young pre-teen, Mercy had to farm to support herself and her children. She was forced to work all day before she was allowed to eat. She could not go to school. Her children were not allowed to go to school either, but were instead forced to work with her on the farm to feed themselves.
Mercy tried to escape, but her family sent her back to the shrine. She was completely trapped in slavery.
But when Mercy was in her early twenties, the International Needs team in Ghana (ING) team came to negotiate for Mercy’s freedom.
Intervention: International Needs Ghana, freeing the trokosi
Typically, the International Needs team in Ghana involves all the stakeholders in the redemption process: the priest, the women, their children, their families of origin, the tribal village communities, the International Needs negotiators, and a Ghanaian government representative. Native Ghanaian negotiators explain to the priest why he must, by law, release the trokosi who wish to be free from slavery. Sometimes the priest is compensated for releasing the women. In such cases, the women are literary “bought back” –literally redeemed— from slavery.
Once the priest agrees to set the women free, he performs a ritual inside the shrine to appease the idols. Then, a second ceremony is performed, in which it is declared to the women, their families, and their village communities that they are free: no longer trokosi, no longer slaves. They are set free. The government official bears witness to this and signs a document to this effect.
The freed women often return to their families of origin and the villages where they formerly lived. International Needs workers talk with their families to facilitate this re-integration process—and, again, they can do this effectively because the workers are native Ghanaians. International Needs also offers education and work-skills training to the women through their Vocational Training Center (VTC) in Adidome, Ghana so that the women can economically support themselves and their children.
I was at the Vocational Training Center myself this summer, and I saw the amazing work of teaching and learning going on there. Women can learn mat-weaving, soap-making, bread-baking, hair-dressing, cloth-dyeing (“batik”), and dress-making, among other things. Their older children attend schools in the Adidome. Their younger children are cared for in an on-site nursery. They themselves have the opportunity to learn reading, writing, and small business skills as well as health-care.
Women not only receive vocational training, but on-going counseling and psychological support. They are provided with one-on-one and group counseling to help them overcome their intense fears and traumatic experiences. Many of them have been told that if they ever speak of what went on in the shrine, they or one of their family members would die. But they do become free of these fears gradually.
And the International Needs staff shares the knowledge and love of Jesus with these freed women, and many of them become passionate Christians. Not only does the staff share with the women, the staff goes out into the villages and invites whole villages to accept Jesus Christ as Lord. As Ewes and Dangmes and others become Christians, they turn away from the trokosi system, and even greater freedom comes to the tribes and the cultures of the Volta Region of Ghana and the neighboring country of Togo.
Today, Mercy is one of these Christians, telling her story and helping to change the lives of hundreds of people who need to know of the sovereignty of God, the love of Jesus, and the power of the Holy Spirit.
My Story
Now I want to tell you a second story, part of my testimony, because I want us to see together that God’s redeeming power is not just for Yosef, who lived thousands of years ago in Egypt, or for Mercy, who lives thousands of miles away in Ghana, but it is also for us, the members of Church of the Savior living today right here in Chicagoland. God’s plan to redeem is not only for the whole world, it’s for you, each of one of you here with me tonight. His love for you is very great.
Now I’m just going to tell it like it was so I can get to telling it is now. This is my testimony, and I’m giving it with full confidence in Jesus, my Savior, who said, “You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.”
When I was eight years old, like Mercy Senahe, I was abused, and I was sexually assaulted. A friend’s grandfather, a man who has since died, and my best friend’s uncle, a man who is now a registered sex offender, were the perpetrators. A girl from my church, who was herself abused, acted out many of her issues with me and more than half a dozen other children we knew.
These experiences were like being thrown in a pit. In many ways, they stripped me of my innocence, my freedom, and my sense of security in the world. They physically injured me, they violated my will, and they robbed me of my dignity, my sense of beauty and self-worth, as a young girl. They overpowered me. They shamed me. They sold me into an emotional slavery to a pain so deep that I can only express it by saying I wanted to die, and I nearly took my own life four separate times, the first time being when I was just nine years old.
But the greatest trauma of my life was not the end of my story. The pit, the pain, the powerlessness—the enslavement and the suffering—were not the end of my journey. The God of the Universe was watching when all these things happened, and He had a plan to redeem. God had a plan to redeem not only me, but everyone who calls upon His Name to be saved.
I can tell you truthfully that the Holy Spirit has faithfully guided me through a process of healing.
The story of that healing process is a long story, and I can’t tell you all of it now, but I can tell you the steps that were involved. First, the abuse had to stop. I had to feel physically and emotionally safe. I had to recognize the truth about what had happened to me, and I had to make a decision to seek help and healing. I had to fully remember my experiences and integrate them with my present understanding of myself. I had to learn to express all the emotions my memories provoked in healthy ways. Through the healing process, I gained understanding, and I gained the courage to tell my story. I grew stronger, I confronted those who had harmed me and those who had not done anything to stop the harm, and I forgave those who had abused and assaulted me. I began to see myself as I am, and as you are, in Christ. We are overcomers.
This summer, when I went to Ghana, West Africa, I shared my testimony of overcoming sexual abuse and assault with more than sixty women who were formerly trapped in the trokosi system—women who have now been set free and who have accepted Jesus as their Savior and who are healing and growing and prospering by the grace of God. I shared my testimony in detail, and in very short sentences that were translated into Ewe and Dangme.
I played my flute at different points in my testimony. The first song I played was called “Give Me Jesus,” and I talked about how I saw Jesus at the time of my assault, and he held my soul until it was over. The second song I played called “Evidence of Your Glory,” and I talked about how suffering can cause us to wonder if God is truly good and if He truly cares for us, but in the end, He shows us that He is redeeming everything and showing His glory.
Finally, I danced to a song called “Surrounded,” and I was so glad that I chose to dance a praise dance, because it spoke across the language barrier about how fear devastates us but the love of God surrounds us and lifts us up so that we are strengthened and made whole.
Tonight, I want you to know, whatever you have been through in the past, whatever you are going through now, God has a plan to redeem. What Yosef said to his brothers, the very men who attacked him but later threw themselves down at his feet praying for mercy, is very true:
“Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good, in order to preserve numerous people, as he is doing today. So have no fear” (Genesis 50:20-21a, RSV).
Praise the name of Jesus.
Prayer requests: Please pray for the work of International Needs in Ghana, West Africa. Please pray for the full recovery of women who have been freed from the trokosi system. Pray for those that are still in slavery that they might be set free.
If you would like to donate to this ministry, see www.innetworkusa.org or contact Terry Heyward directly at terryh@innetworkusa.org.
