Deliver Us From Evil

"This work is spiritual warfare", advised the founder and director of a large local NGO who previously had a contract with an International organization to implement a project for women in prostitution in our town. "But we don't have time for spiritual warfare", he continued so as to explain the cessation of that particular attempt at meeting the needs of the local community. His subsequent advice to me - "Pray!"

When Jesus was teaching his followers how to pray, He included some key components to successfully address all of the areas in which God is willing and able to work on our behalf.

"Our Father, who art in heaven... "

"Deliver us from evil" was one of those key components. Evil is real. It's out there on assignment ready to take captive those who are living unaware. Unaware of its schemes', its subtlety, its power. It doesn't work alone but it has legions of soldiers in it's army that are ranked and are ready to attack on any given victim, in any given region, at any given time. And if that civilian is unaware they are even under attack...they will be captured.

And Jesus concluded his prayer with "deliver us from evil. For Yours is the Kingdom, the Power and the Glory Forever and Ever!"

The battle begins in the mind and it is won or lost in the spirit of the man or woman. It happens in agreement with the victim. Like Eve believed the lie of the serpent "did God really say?" So too when we believe the lie, A lie, A whisper of doubt or fear, even a subtle thought that we are not good enough, our lives are not "fun" enough, our body is not "beautiful" enough...so too do we fall into a trap. We sign the dotted line and miss the fine print.  Evil is moving in!

Over the past few years God has taken me on a journey of discovering more about the evil that we battle against.  Growing up in a home where mental illness confused and scared the living "daylights" out of me. It also welcomed the darkness of evil in. The spirit of fear took up residence for longer than I had prepared to pay for it to stay. I however, was totally unaware that it was winning this battle in my spirit and it became a part of who I was. It influenced my decisions, my relationships, and it manifested in my dreams.

It wasn't until I became a bystander of someone else's fear that I was able to face my own. It wasn't until EVIL literally came and slapped me on the face, that I was able to see it for what it really was- an enemy to be reckoned with and a resident that was overstaying in the heart and mind of the person that mattered most to the ones I loved the most.


Me.

So I cried "deliver me Lord from this evil." Well actually it was a bit more dramatic than that but we wont go there this time. It took people who knew what they were praying against and the authority they were praying with. But not every experience of deliverance is the same.


Ok so going back to the story I began with. Part of my own journey's purpose was to prepare me for what I would encounter here in Ethiopia. Every Wednesday at Zion church where I first visited on our first week in Ethiopia, people squish into the uncomfortable wooden chairs for up to six hours on end to receive a word, a healing but more often than not, a deliverance from evil. Its real and it's raw and its pretty rough.

Unlike my experience, the experience of many here; through ancestral practices or through animistic worship, evil spirits are actually welcomed in to become resident in ones body, ones home or ones family. (We think we don't do that in the west but we do - through mediums or clairvoyants, through séances or Ouija boards, through alcohol or drug abuse or very simply by just believing a lie.)

The deliverance that occur every Wednesday at Zion Church and frequently at most protestant churches around Ethiopia, are the result of a prevalent darkness that has come down through the generations as the result of curses, witchcraft, demonic worship and idol worship sometimes associated with the Orthodox beliefs that are particular to Ethiopia.

Now take that background from which most of our women come from, then add a lifestyle of sexual exploitation which often comes as a result of sexual trauma, neglect and rejection; add to the mix a hardened heart who has built up walls or strongholds against the things of Light and you can see a better picture of what we are facing.

The restoration of lives who are bound up, occupied, deceived and discouraged takes place over a period of time. A life time. So we pray "deliver US from evil" and we bring truth to undo all the lies the evil has planted to make his way IN and we seek to break down the walls that are built up around their hearts. All of us as we go into this battle together. And we see Him set THEM free as He set us free.

"Transformed lives, transform lives."

God has called us out of darkness into His glorious light and He gives us ROYAL status. He is more powerful. He grants us freedom and victory. He desires to deliver us from evil, just as he desires to give us our daily bread. That's why He tells us to ask Him to do it, because He knows only He can. And He too has legions of a greater population that are out for our good, to wage the war in the spiritual realm where we can not go.

Gods plans for us are for good and not for evil. To prosper us not to harm us. To give us hope and a future! Jeremiah 29:11

Please join us in this battle. Pray for our ministry in Ethiopia. Especially as we take back territory the enemy has held captive for far too long. We need more soldiers in the battle. Come join the winning team! "For Thine is the Kingdom, the Power and the Glory! Forever and ever, Amen."

Red Lights and Beating Drums

“The drums, they are summoning you in” Saba warns me as the beat entices me to see what lay behind the curtained doors. It’s the Amhara drum that’s playing and it plays fast and it plays loud. Amhara region is the second largest region in Ethiopia.


It’s home to 21 million of the most beautiful people in the world. These people are the holders of the national language and a deep culture that reaches back into biblical times. 80% of the people in Amhara are Orthodox while only 17% are Muslim born again or Protestant 0.02%.  Orthodoxy has granted many men the right to marry young girls even less than ten years old for far too long, yet apparently that culture is changing. Without knowing all of the facts and figures, we know that partly due to this, we find 70% of prostituted women around the country are from the Amhara region.




It’s a Thursday night and six of us, two of the new staff for the Bahir Dar EWAR project, Mesfin (who is helping to get this whole project started as part of his outreach project with E3) and the three of us from Addis Ababa and Debre Zeit, scale the streets of the city to see the context of prostitution in Bahir Dar...at least in the case of the women EWAR will be working with over the next year.

The women cleaning up what will be their temporary project site

“The women” are the twelve we met with today. Some of these women had been approached more than a year ago by an Evangelist called Solomon who works for a local Kale Hiwot (meaning “Word of Life”) Church. While they have waited for a year for this project to get started, other ladies have since been approached and took the chance for change by coming to our drop in sessions yesterday. Here they shared their stories, what they would do once their hope was renewed and what they have in their hands to make it happen.




One lady, not much younger than I, spoke of how she had looked up to the prostituted women who worked in her neighborhood as a little girl. Orphaned and alone, she started working the street in her teens, falling pregnant and being left alone again, she kept working. For seventeen or more years….she kept working…to provide for her two children and to survive. Her desire was to be beautiful like the women she saw, all dressed up and made up. Her beautiful skin that glowed over her defined cheek bones hid her wounded heart. She has had enough now. Her youngest son is now ten and she wants better for him.

Mesfin (from e3) and Saba from Ellilta Women at Risk on the shores of Lake Tana

So we walked down the streets that these women have worked for so long. These streets are dark and they are unpaved. They’re narrow and cold and they beg for me to look down so I don’t trip up, rather than look up to see what we were really there for.  I almost wish I didn’t look up.




Red lights illuminate the muddy urine smelling paths. The men who urinate on these roads are only down here for one purpose. It’s not a thoroughfare, but rather a well designed lure for men wanting an irresponsible encounter to appease their sexual appetite. And the girls are there just waiting.




Unlike I have ever seen before, or expected to see, these girls have their OWN room. Their rooms are decorated with flashing lights and enticing bed dressings. Plastic weaving covers the mud walls and TVs blare to keep the girls occupied while they wait. The atmosphere feels so alone and so commercial.




Gorgeous Ethiopian girls (and I mean most of them ARE just girls in their teens) who grow up in a culture where life is all about community and communal living, about sharing rooms and plates and hearts, stand idle by themselves at the doors of their own little room. One girl sat looking out from on her bed that tonight she will service many men from (so she hopes) and her loneliness is tangible. My heart breaks for her and the many girls who stand alone in their red rooms and tears start to flow unexpectedly down my face. The sadness of the situation, the desperation that has caused them to give themselves away like this, causes our hearts to sink. I am not alone in this heart break.




After pulling myself together and taking a quick bathroom break, we round the corner and see these men. They’re lining the walls and seats of a local bar, preparing themselves for the night which has barely just begun at 8pm. They’re quiet and they’re rowdy, inviting us to ‘DRINK!’ They won’t stay long before all these brothels we saw with open doors and waiting girls are occupied by them.




This bar is situated on a street where a broker, known to traffic these women in from the rural areas, operates his business. Some of the women, according to Mesfin our guide, are sent to be house workers, others stay here in what is the capital of the Amhara region and work the bars, while others are trafficked into the Middle East. Others are trafficked into bordering countries North of Ethiopia and not too far from this city’s borders. Promises of a better life and better income beguile many young girls to leave their familiar to support their families. She’s not just thinking of herself but of her family and she will pay a high price for it.






The ladies who are about to enter the program tell us how much they get paid. Sometimes they will be paid as little as 10 birr (50c US) per trick, sometimes the man will take her out for a meal as his payment and sometimes the payment she gets is a beating- a night of abuse for the giving of her body. They get away with nothing if the man is so obtuse that he won’t even pay for her service. Unlike her, he’s just looking out for himself and doesn’t even want to pay for it.


Women at risk are only able to open new projects like these as local people take up the challenge and other people partner financially with the cause. If you would like to support Ellilta Women at Risks work, please go to www.ellilta.org and donate so you can play a part in empowering these women to be all that they were created to be.

The Scarlet Thread...

"Behold, when we come into the land, you shalt bind this line of scarlet thread in the window which you let us down by: and you shalt bring your father, and your mother, and your  brethren, and all your father's household home to you."  Joshua  2:18 

The scarlet thread was to be a sign for the rescue of Rahab and her family in the days that would bring destruction to her city.  She, by faith, had hidden these spies in her house so that they could spy out the land for Joshua and their people.  It was the beginning of the overtake of Jericho by the people to which God had promised the land.  Yet the method they used  to enter the city was to go into the house of a harlot.  A prostituted woman.  A prostituted woman who lived in a brothel on the wall of Jericho.

SHE "straddled the fence"- literally.  The Bible said she had her brothel on the top of the walls of Jericho.  She saw the desert and the Jordan River and she saw the land of Jericho that in her heart, she knew was one day going to belong to the people who worshiped this One True God.  The God of Israel. 

This week we learnt about the different stages of women in prostitution breaking away from their lifestyle.  There are four stages and they are really not representative of their physical stand point- whether or not they had left the street, but where they were psychologically with the whole situation.  One of them was the "turning point" stage.  Rahab, was literally straddling the fence of this stage and the previous stage.  She had seen the advantages to starting a new life yet was still tied to the lifestyle she currently owned.

Yet this “prostitute” had heard of this great God and the things He had done for His people.  This is the reason for her co-operation with these men.  She vowed not to tell of their visit or spread a word about their business.  She was fully willing to risk her life for the life of these men because she knew what they knew.  

Joshua 2:10-11  "For we have heard how the LORD dried up the water of the Red sea for you, when ye came out of Egypt… And as soon as we had heard these things, our HEARTS DID MELT, neither did there remain any more courage in any man, because of you: for the LORD your God, he is God in heaven above, and in earth beneath."

I love this story for a few reasons.  It shows us the tenacity of these men to go into a brothel.  Not something many men of God would do or even women for that fact.  It may bring the “appearance of evil” and therefore many stay away.  BUT GOD used this medium for the rescue not only of this woman but for His people from the desert. 

It also shows the bravery and intelligence of Rahab.  She didn’t fear upon the arrival of these two men and she knew how to make the best of the given situation.  She knew how to navigate her way around their hearts.  She also wasn't afraid to open a window to her heart.

She believed without fear.  She heard and then, she believed.  And then she acted on that belief.  

She went to the 'turning point' stage.  She was thrown a lifeline in return for her bravery and faith.  The lifeline was her rescue not only from the destruction her city was about to face but it was from the lifestyle she had led up to that point.  

Rahab went on to live with the Israelites, the book of Joshua tells us.  But other parts of the Bible (such as Matthew 1) tell us that she went on to marry.  She married a man called Salmon and they raised a beautiful baby boy who ended up becoming a kinsmen redeemer over some land.  One day Rahab's son (otherwise known as Boaz) met a young lady gathering the leftovers in his field.  He had heard good things about this lady and showed her favor.  This young lady was widowed and away from her homeland so her mother in law suggested she go and seek a relationship with this kind gentleman.  They ended up marrying and having a son called Obed.  He also married and had a son named Jesse.  Jesse went on and had eight sons- one whom he called David.  David grew to become King and so the story goes on.  

God totally changed the destiny of this woman.  She sits in the lineage of not only the King of Israel but the King of the Jews.  The Son of David.  The Great Messiah, who by His blood would rescue souls.  By His Scarlet thread that ran from His Veins to rescue us from our destruction.

We are rescued to be rescuers.  

This Scarlet thread is being thrown out today for some ladies who find themselves in brothels with the view of what God is able to do with their lives.  They are straddling the fence but they are willing to risk their lives for the life of others- often times their own children.  But they need a way out.

I think of the ladies I met in Nazaret in 2009 and how they offered rescue to me.  On hearing their stories and hearing how God had rescued them, my life was rescued.  In restoration phase myself, I found myself repenting of my selfishness and pride that had built up over years of self-righteousness.  They rescued me from myself.  From my own self destruction so how else could I repay them but to provide their rescue in return.

So a couple of weeks we had a staff retreat out in Koka to evaluate and plan for the upcoming ladies who will enter our house.  We talked about Night Visits and the team decided our goal was to let every prostituted woman in Debre Zeit know that there is hope for her through our program.  The idea was raised to order some plastic wrist bands that displayed the words that hold our vision : Renewing Hope.  But written in Amharic so that every woman would remember that there is hope for her.  Especially when she feels hopeless.  This is her scarlet thread. 

It's not scarlet but it's orange which is the Ellilta Women at Risk logo color.   This is a draft of what we want to produce!  

You too have an opportunity to throw out a scarlet thread today.  Help support the distribution of some of these wristbands for us.  We not only want to order some for Debre Zeit but for every city our organization exists in- including for now Addis Ababa and Nazaret.  For every one we sell for $2, we can give away 11 to women who need to know there is rescue for them.  If we have 80 orders, we can distribute 1000.  

If you would like to buy one, contact us by email and we will send one out to you.  Postage and packaging not included.  

Contact michelle.tiatia@gmail.com

Be blessed!