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!

Transformation

From the rural villages of the vast expanse of land that is Ethiopia, girls travel for miles, for days, from family and familiar to the door steps of urban settings to find work and a better life.

They are often forced into this situation due to poverty, large families and lack of educational opportunities. 

They are desperate. 

They are destitute. 

They are deceived.

Deceived into thinking that this life will be better than the life they lived before.

Often they find work as child slaves, forced into domestic services without pay, forced out of education with time spent on preparing food, looking after children and keeping house while their "employers" work.  Often times it's their own families who send them away to help with the work of another family living in the rural setting.  

As these young girls grow, they try to find work. No longer able to sustain a living in the home and often ousted because they are too demanding on the household income.

So they go out onto the street looking for jobs. Work for an uneducated, inexperienced GIRL is not easy to find. She can get manual labour but even then she may be rejected.

One of our girls was. "You're too young" she was told. Maybe by international child labour laws, to work for a internationally seen institution, she was too young. "Go look for work in a bar" this young, naive teenage girl was advised.

Huh. You are too young to chip at cobblestones but you are not too young to work at a bar.

In this particular case, a case not too uncommon, the girl was raped. Introduced to drinking and sex by a "friend" who she had found on the street. This preceded her finding work in a bar where selling alcohol earned far less than selling her body. 

This is actually the typical case study - one that was portrayed last year at one of the Addis Ababa sites of EWAR.  One drama that was giggled at by women who knew the story, oh, too. well.

It was a story of a girl who came from the rural village to find work, discovered she was incompetent at city life then was befriended by someone who took pity on her. She was raped, she was deceived and she went on to find hope at EWAR. It was a story of survival.

When survival outweighs knowledge, one has to succumb to survival.

Though they know better. Though they are worth more, if hope is lost, survival strategies take first priority.

I remember attending my first training with Ellilta Women at Risk. Unbeknownst to me, it was an ICAP Africa training and it was based around trauma. There were some amazing speakers there from the Seattle School and they were preparing the participants on how to deal with trauma in their ministries. I heard stories that would make most horror films I had seen, sound lame.

But they were TRUE stories! How could such evil exist? I thought. And my question was answered over the couple of days I was there.

Evil was sent to destroy what Good had intended for all. It came to destroy beauty. It came to destroy sexual pleasure that displays the glory of the One who created it to be enjoyed.

But I had never anticipated that I would engage with such stories. That the women who stood outside the houses that lined the streets of Zion Church would be carriers and victims of such gross evil. In my total naivety, I never would have imagined that such horrific events would have led such innocent girls down the path of sexual commercialization. Not JUST the selling of their bodies, but the giving away of their souls. For free. At a price that they themselves have paid. Some for years and some since they were just babies.

So, in His intricate design, this Bringer of Hope, placed together the right people and the right community to rescue these girls from their despair.

In Debre Zeit, it happened like this. That this broken mother of five from New Zealand would be flying across the Indian Ocean to join a team she had met thru a post on Facebook, to join an entourage of ten from America to be introduced to an organization called Ellilta Women at Risk. Two years later her and her family were planted in a city where a church who was desperately trying to reach out to the women working in their location were needing some extra support. As she had been introduced to EWAR, she then in turn introduced them. So an alliance was formed against the enemy and the battle begun in Debre Zeit.

The model was applied into the context of this community where women enter into their brothels with nothing and they leave with nothing. So a 24/7 rehabilitation centre was planned and eventually implemented. The team comprised of workers from Addis Ababa EWAR and staff from Zion Church (aka Tsion Mekane Yesus Church).

The "team" also expanded across the globe as people gave to support the cause. Ladies took up responsibility for their Ethiopian sisters and set up fundraising campaigns, from head shaving ideals, to yard sales, formal galas and glass blown necklaces with the word "HOPE" stamped on the front. Their community of support multiplied.

One of our first drop ins with the ladies who are now graduating from our house

On the ground, the EWAR leadership assigned Abrehet (who was originally a part of the staff in Nazaret who I had met in 2009) to oversea our site. She put together plans and proposals and instigated our licence application (and saw it thru up until our latest report.)

We had counselors with years of experience come on a weekly basis to have one on one time in trauma counselling sessions. Other staff came to deliver the 12 step rehabilitation program, health, skills and work training components as well as parenting and basic maths skills.

From the get go we pushed relationship and showed a love that demanded nothing in return. Nigist (Pastors wife from Zion Church and social worker in our Hope House) not only executed this policy but also taught our illiterate girls how to read and write in a short amount of time.

We also added a fitness component at the girls request. My darling husband would leave home at six in the morning to reach the house by 7am to train the girls in resistance exercises and boxing. They. Loved. It.

We ate together, laughed together, cried together and examined ourselves TOGETHER. We were vulnerable together.

If there's one thing I love about what Cherry (aka Serawit Friedmeyer) has taught me and that we have tried to implement in our work, its that we are all equal. We serve each other equally. We admonish each other equally. There is no one who is above anyone in our project site.

 If God has created us all equal, then surely we should act like it.

Here is a clip of the work we have seen Him do over the last seven months. Thank you to all those who have contributed so far! God is so good!

I've been wanting to write this story for SO long...

It’s a story of heart break and betrayal.  A story that bears the scars of an inner wound that stings as if it were freshly made, yet it had sunken so deep; buried under piles of rubble and debris of years gone past.  Rubble now named contempt, shame, dishonesty and denial. 

Who knew that a work to heal a broken heart would take so much longer than a year?  And that the revelation of the damage that was done would be discovered amidst the motion of writing…and then sharing with strangers as if dividing it apart to distribute and expose the secretly written to an open audience.  The exposure resurfaced the wound yet it allowed it to heal a new.  Like it had never been healed before.  Actually, in the resurfacing I discovered it had NEVER been healed before.

“Will you grow in tenderness towards the child that has been contaminated by harm?” Dan asks us. 

A room full of people working with people who have experienced harm.  As children and as adults yet they have never found the healing or the hope.   Yet WE offer them that hope and that healing but we were now being challenged to experience it for ourselves.

We broke up into groups of five and shared our stories out loud.  In an uncomfortable silence we awaited feedback from those around us.  Soft tender hearts were there to bear the pain.

“Redemption happens when you allow people to dwell in your heart and grieve and fight for you.”

And then in their grieving they see a perspective of MY story I never saw before.  Like discovering the key to the treasure box that held my healing.  But the healing still demanded something from me.

Again he challenges…”You have to give up a lot to write your story.  We have to give up our loyalties.  It is true that we have a great loyalty to Jesus UNTIL we are asked to give up other gods.  So where do your loyalties lie?” 

Loyalties and honor.  Both touchy subjects that were covered to bring light to the battle that raged in not only our minds but in our world views.  In my world view.  So slowly my loyalties shifted and the loyalty lay in the healing that needed to be done for me, for my family, for my ladies.  My loyalty lay in the Healer. 

So I clung to the process and endured the pain again of the sacrifice.

In the sacrifice and in the honesty that surpassed the desire to dwell with the wound any longer there was a loneliness that begged for me to search deeper to find where God was in that place of pain.

“In beauty there is brokenness.  All beauty bears brokenness… God intends to use the scars to bring Him glory.”

Last year I wrote a blog about God wanting to heal my broken heart.  It coincided with a tumultuous time for me and my family.  I felt a need to drop down, a picture of a falling flat on my face.  So I did it- literally.  Nothing changed.

As we drew near to the end of the story writing workshop I was reminded of this falling down.   At the beginning Dan challenged us with this question- “Can you enter into the stories of death in your own life?  When our lives are meant to tell the story of the death, burial and resurrection of Christ.”

Entering into death is not easy.  It was exemplified in others in my group who had the courage to do so in the company of tender hearts.  Yet I did it in the quietness of my room- I finally found the falling down, the dying.. and as it caused the tears to flow again, I opened my little pink Bible and found solace in the words from the pages that have held my heart afloat for so many years. 

“For you have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you have received the Spirit of Adoption, whereby we cry ABBA Father.  The Spirit itself bears witness with our Spirit that WE are the children of God.  And if children then heirs, heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ, if so be that we suffer WITH Him that we may also be glorified TOGETHER.” Rom 8:15-17 (emphasis added)

So I am comforted by the fact that I am an ADOPTED child who has been chosen by LOVE (which perfectly casts out all the fear that had taken up reign in my heart) and that in turn allowed me to not suffer alone but suffer WITH Christ, so that we may be resurrected in glory together. 

A story that waited to be written for so long to bring healing to my heart was finally inked onto paper as an expression of the pain.  A pain that I had tried to physically express as a teenager by taking a craft knife to my hands; a pain I had tried to spiritually express as I found Forgiveness that caused me to “forgive” and forget, pressing on but not entering in; a pain that I had let control my emotions more than I had realized as my trying to keep my distance from it turned my face to re-enact it over and over again. 

Yet it was a pain that desired to be entered into like a tomb with a stone that had rolled away, calling out to reveal the light of the resurrection that could only happen upon the entering in- the falling down into the grave that needed to happen for real resurrection and ascension to occur.   And in that ascended place, I am able to reach down again and help to pull those who are still fighting the death. 

The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,- Jesus Christ (Luke 4:18)

The girls

I think about how humble these girls are and how hard it must have been for them to leave the street.  In doing so they acknowledge their inability to change by themselves.  They acknowledge their need for help.  They walk out in the face of the their peers who also had the same opportunity to leave but chose against it.  Admitting in the midst of all of their community that they are helpless against the evil that so easily besets them.  Humility.  That’s what they displayed.  Yet some would call it weakness.

As they entered the house they again faced their weakness.  Their inability to write or read.  Their lack of any education which sets them up for dependency at it’s fullest. 

But God “gives grace to the humble and resists the proud.”

When you call on me, you will find me when  you seek me with your whole heart.

For the last week I have seen them change.  Just in ten days.  From shying away and struggling against the desire to go BACK to now being content with where they are and excited about staying; about making this their home and about the future that awaits them back outside the walls around them.

And I remember how I am no different than them.  I too have sold myself short.  Not for money but for acceptance, for love, for companionship.

“Working with these girls will reflect things back to you about yourself so you have to be prepared for that”.  Wise words from Women at Risk counsellor, Wondesson.  That, without a doubt, is true.  Even from the first encounter I had with them in Nazaret, this truth reigned in my heart.  I really am no better than them.  I felt their shame, I know their regret.

We were given questions to talk through this first couple of weeks, questions to really get to know each 

other.  I learn how to say that- Iney kowukachuwegn… If you really knew me, you would know that my favourite colour is…etc.  But as the week progressed, the questions got deeper. 

My biggest dream is, my closest person is, my relationship with my family is, my most funniest moment was…

My greatest regret is..

Eek. 

I don’t even want to share mine yet they are being challenged to share theirs. 

I ask.  This one is hard isn’t it?

Right now I am planning a trip to the States with the Women at Risk staff for the ICAP (International Christian alliance on Prostitution)  Conference.  Preceding this, Dan Allaman, author of The Wounded Heart and member of ICAP is holding a workshop called “Your story becomes my story”.  It will help us who work with these women who have experienced great trauma to first deal with our own.

This past week we were sent our story writing assignment to do before we enter the preconference.  I cringe at the thought of bringing up the past.  A past that as I grew older I became to realize that it wasn’t all that bad.  But as my mum reminded me, in the eyes of a child, it was bad. 

I am sure, as are the facilitators, that this exercise will allow some past shames to resurface, some deeply hidden wounds will sting again and my fear of sharing them openly will be challenged. 

Yet these girls have stepped up to this challenge that soon I will face.  They will find healing in the midst of their trauma as they do so because they have found humility.  And they have hit rock bottom so they can only look up.

We on the other hand want to look like we have it all together, that we are completely restored yet our inner child needs tending to, our emotional outbursts reflect our wounded soul and our pride has orchestrated this facade that covers all our pain to all those who see only on the outside.

“But God looks on the heart.”

And He cares about the heart because out of IT flow the issues of life. 

Matthew 11:29

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. -Jesus

I love how when we humble ourselves, WE are the winners!! WE get grace.  WE get rest for our souls.  WE are finally able to overcome the stumbling blocks that pride puts up to stunt our growth, stunt our freedom.  Humility results in Rest for your souls.  

I am thankful for all the girls are teaching me and the humbling journey we are on together.

I used to hate Valentines Day, but now I love it and this is why...

Habakkuk 1:15

Look at the nations and watch-- and be utterly amazed. For I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe, even if you were told.

I am sitting there, in my early twenties with a baby at home who challenged me every day to be a better person and a husband at work who worked hard to make ends meet for our family and yet I had a dream in my heart that had been silenced by the circumstances around me and the doubt that took residence right on top of my dream.  Yet this widowed lady from America who had come to visit our church passed me a piece of paper with this verse on it FOR me. As if it were a love letter from God.  A message sent from El Roi…the God who sees me.

That dream was to do something significant in Ethiopia- to feed hundreds of starving people, to care for orphaned children, to help in some way to end the extreme poverty that existed in that land.  This piece of paper in my hand made me wonder if that dream would, COULD possibly…ONE DAY come true.

Fast forward 15 or so years.  Here I am, sitting in this house we have just secured a two year rental agreement for.  We (our two friends from Women at Risk and our two potential staff from Zion Church) are strategizing how we can shift six specific women who had made it through the months of trials we had put them through and STILL decided they truly wanted to start a new life.  How we could allow them to move off the street and out of their work as prostitutes and into this home within a five day span.  This beautiful peaceful home is sitting there empty yet full of so much potential- like the women we will work with.  It’s surrounded by rooms that will house the six women who are desperately desiring to get OUT! 

We draw up a list of things we need.  We have applied for funding from three groups for set up costs and running costs yet none are certain and we don’t know if or when any money will come.  So Cherry (co-founder and Director of Women at Risk) halts the meeting and starts to pray.  We ask God to give us a strategy so these women don’t have to wait any longer.  We start to tally up what we ourselves can contribute; looked at our current available resources and we decide that it’s going to happen whether the funding comes in or not.

Excitement fills the once empty house and my friend Abrehet does her happy dance in joyous elation on the empty lounge room floor.  I had met her in 2009 in Nazaret at the Women at Risk site where she was the Co-ordinator of this one of three Women at Risk sites.  She was young and passionate about the work she was doing and she totally won me over.  We had kept in contact over the years and never would have thought that we would be working together to bring about this new project site. The arrival of the women and the beginning of this new adventure felt so close we could almost touch it.

We hear from one potential funder and we sit in the Canadian Ambassador’s Residence in front of a myriad of represented nations.  Cherry tells the story of Women at Risk and everyone in the room is captivated.   The plight of these women echo through the stories and the strategies that this organization now has in place all lined up with the issues that surface because of their histories. 

Serawit (Cherry) Friedmeyer and I in the Canadian Ambassadors Residence

So we await for funding and in faith we plan for the women to come and join us in the house the day we call Valentines.  The day of Love.  How appropriate I think.  I remember the week before we left New Zealand, I stood on the edge of Lake Rotorua.  I was talking to the One who sent us here.  He reminded me of the love story that took one man (Tutanekai) many years before across the lake and cultural boundaries to meet his beloved (Hinemoa) on the island that sat within.  He did this for love.  A voice whispered in the depths of my soul that THIS is what our journey across this great ocean was about.  That He was calling us out over THIS ocean as messengers of His Love. 

His GREAT love that changed my life. 

That rescued me. 

That continues to do so.

And I hear the whispers of the haters.  The enemies.  THE enemy...The one they call the accuser of the brethren.

“Why is that Michelle and Asaua trying to go all the way over there for? I know what THEY’RE like.  They can’t be useful.  They need to help themselves first.  Their own family first. Their own community first.  Their OWN.”

Well somehow we go and we believe and then it comes to Valentines Day 2014 and five ladies drive through the gate of their new home into the shade of the Hibiscus trees.  They are all dressed up with their hair done.  One runs late because she is in the hair salon.  They look like they are going on a date.  “A Valentine’s Date with Jesus.” I say to another.  They look beautiful.  Like they just found Freedom. 

And it’s honeymoon stages and there’s definitely some scepticism and doubts going on.  But within a couple of hours of eating together and coming to an agreement of boundaries about this new space, facilitated by the amazing team from Women at Risk, the hope starts to form.  Repeatedly we hear, “I had no hope.” 

Ellilita Women at Risk is their full name.  Ellilita is the name given to the noise that the women make when they cry out in praise.  Their Vision statement is simply, “Renewing Hope”.  I paint it on the wall so they know. 

We have a vision at the church too.  It includes meeting the needs of the community.  So we collide as, what we call, a Love Triangle.  I am one edge of that triangle to join the two together.  So we begin this new journey, a partnership between E-WAR and Zion (Tsion) Church that will run for the next 18 months.  One man says “a drop in the ocean” BUT drops make ripples and who knows where those ripples will end.  Hopefully this splash will ripple for years to come.

Yes, me.  And yet it’s not me.  People SHOULD look at this and say…that CAN’T be Michelle...or that CAN’T be Asaua.  It MUST be God.  And yes IT IS.  And I remember the verse that starts this blog and I think…If someone would have told me, I would not have believed that I could have been a part of this.  But I am so happy that we can get to be a part of what God was already doing here and help bring together the people from both corners to serve these women and their children. 

Me and my beautiful friend Abrehet at Ellilta Products

Selam, one of the girls in the group.  A girl who’s been through the wars and out again..who has a vision to reunite with her family she was snatched away from.  She grabs my hand and takes me to her new room to show me her new bed and how she has made it all pretty.   A bed that demands nothing from her but rest.  A bed that has no history but is waiting for hers to be written.  A story of Love.  This is what Love is all about.  So now Valentines Love has taken on a whole new meaning. I love it.

Trafficked

I remember watching the movie Taken for the first time and feeling absolutely HORRIFIED that these events not only HAPPEN but they are a common occurrence in our world TODAY!  Women all around the world are being tricked and trapped in situations where they at the mercy of EVIL on epidemic scales. 

:There are more slaves in the world today than at any other point in human history, with an estimated 27 million in bondage across the globe. Men, women, and children are being exploited for manual and sexual labor against their will.

In response I googled, searched, listened, SPENT hours into the early morning researching what was happening around the world and what people were doing about it.  From the sex tourism industry that is so rife in my grandparents home country of Greece, to South East Asia, Eastern Europe…monstrosities were occurring to innocent women ALL OVER THE WORLD!!

What were people doing about it?

I found a couple of organizations- one being the A21 Campaign and heard an interview with it’s founder- Australian Greek, Hillsong Church minister, Christine Caine.  She shared her journey of discovering what was happening while on a visit to Greece and how SHE decided to respond to it.  I heard her share of a story where she rescued a woman and told her she had come because she cared about her- this complete stranger!! And the woman replied with “if you cared so much, what took you so long?!”

 This information falls on my ears while my hands were in a sink of warm bubbly water, 

washing my designer dishes 

in my beautiful home

 in New Zealand.  

Tears started running down my face as the urgency of the calling hit me and I remembered the stories I had just recently heard while I was in Ethiopia at Women at Risk.

But the stories I had heard didn’t seem so brutal.  The stories I heard were covered in cultural nuances and traditionally accepted practices.  

"Bride snatching...it's common here in some parts of Ethiopia with twelve year old girls especially."

Yet their lives seemed just as trapped.  Maybe God would use me again to find and help women like this one day I thought- MAYBE there is a woman just WAITING for someone to rescue her.  One who might even say to me “What took YOU so long?”

I sat next to a trafficker once.  He made my skin crawl as he arrogantly admitted he was an “employment agent” here to help women attain jobs in Saudi Arabia- his home country.  These were the women who lined the streets outside the immigration office that we sat in and filled it with their young, rural, innocent lives.  4000 a day, they were in number.  Believing for a better life.  Believing that THEY would be the ones to help their families from afar.  Yet this man who was helping them to get there, was dreaming of coming to New Zealand to study English.  He had a translator with him from Somalia who filled the gaps for me during our short conversation in the immigration line.  Somewhere in that conversation he had the balls to ask me if I wanted a job too! His motives were purely selfish and his heart deathly cold.  I guess that's the way it needs to be when you are sacrificing human lives.

Recently I came across a study of human trafficking in Ethiopia.  While I knew that we wanted to help these women out of prostitution, I had read an article someone had posted once about the difference between prostitution and trafficking.  Prostitution was definitely where the heart of our ministry was.  The author talked about how everyone is trying to jump on the Trafficking "band wagon" to get more sympathy, more attention, perhaps even more FUNDING! 

Trafficking is not a band wagon I ever wanted to jump on.  Why would I want the situations of these women to be any worse than they already were.  But after learning more about Trafficking, what it means and how it is disguised, I realized that this IS indeed the work we are getting ourselves into. 

This, not because these women are being locked up and raped as we have seen in movies such as Taken.  But because the definition of Trafficking is:

Human trafficking is the movement of someone by deception or coercion by another person for the purposes of exploitation such as forced prostitution, forced labour or other forms of slavery. It is an organized criminal activity in which human beings are treated as possessions to be controlled and exploited.

Domestic trafficking in Ethiopia, in my opinion, is endemic.  

"A large number of women and children suffer from different types of inhuman abuses and exploitation as a result of trafficking within Ethiopia. Existing studies indicate that trafficking in women and children from rural areas to urban areas is a prevalent and steadily increasing practice in the country." Reads this study on domestic trafficking."

Trafficking here extends far into the fabric of society.  It rips up the potential of the women and children it targets and throws them into the deep pit of hopelessness.  There is a heart cry from the corners of eternity that call US to do something about it. It's found in Isaiah 58:6-7 and goes like this...

“Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:

to loose the chains of injustice

and untie the cords of the yoke,

to SET THE OPPRESSED FREE

and break every yoke?

Is it not to share your food with the hungry

and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—

when you see the naked, to clothe them,

and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?"

It's talking about fasting...and maybe that fast is from food...or maybe it's from the comfortable life you live, the safety of your own country...to extend into the dark corners of the world to bring rescue.

Someone has to....

Help us, help them to Dare to Dream

Most of us in the western world take even our dreams for granted. Our ability to have big visions and dreams for our future often stem from the opportunities that surround us and the people who have inspired us to take advantage of them.  We see people realize their dreams and in forgetting their initial struggle in attaining their dreams, we think that if they can do it, well so can I.

We have a dream. Its a dream I am going to share when I get to New Zealand and pray that people will catch it and support it. Its a dream I believe was Divinely inspired.

I have so many dreams that I find myself having to control them. I have to filter which ones are worth chasing and which just need to be swept into the dust pan in my mind.

But today I sat with a room full of women who struggle to dream.  I have   lived in a country where people struggle to dream for the last two years. They struggle because of lack of opportunity, lack of inspiration, lack of resources and presence of political and economical obstacles. Yet some still dare to DREAM.

Yet these women face a greater struggle. Their struggle is against their own worth. Their own value. Their own shame. The greatest enemy of their dreams are themselves.  Yet we live in societies where the greatest enemies of our dreams are the ones closest to us! We struggle against the Tall Poppy syndrome where we are so insecure about ourselves that we need to chop the heads off of those around us who dare to rise above their circumstances and chase their dreams!

But these brave women openly shared their minute dreams. They were limited by their desire for survival and their visions were blurred by their desperation. Desperation for the immediate can alter our patience for the eternal.

We want immediate change when God wants eternal. "For our light affliction which is but for a moment, works for us a far more exceeding and ETERNAL weight of Glory. While we look not at the things which are SEEN, but at the things which are NOT SEEN: for the things that are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal." 2 Cor 4:17-18

"How can I dream when I am like this?" One girl asks as she points to her 39 week pregnant belly. And the others dreams weren't far off her mark. Dreams of change. Dreams of deliverance. Dreams of a home with no pressure of a landlord who expects you to pay your rent with your body. Dreams of a home where the focus is on their children. Even if that means eating less, earning less, exposing less.

They see what more they can gain: their dignity, relationships with their families, their FREEDOM!

So today I want to ask you, yes you, big dreamer, to dream FOR these women.  This week I was in a development training with our church and we learnt about going into the community and establishing relationships with community leaders BUT we also learnt the importance of going in with a vision. People want to know that you have a vision. And when

I told these ladies that I had a vision for them today, I saw the reality of that lesson in action. As they right now find it hard to dream for themselves, we need to dream for them.

They have dreams. They are locked away along with their potential. But what we want to do is give them the keys to help them unlock this treasure chest that has been hidden to keep them safe.  And its going to be a process that will take a few months - maybe a year.  And we have a plan. We have  put our dream on paper and we need others to run with it, to advocate for it, to financially get behind and support it. For the sake of these women and the next generation.

So right now, we need sponsors.  We need you to give, to share, to ask, to sacrifice, to reach down into your treasure chest and give us a hand up. We want these women to be able to help themselves but first we need you to help us help them.  There is a ship load of treasure just waiting to be found.  Here is how you can help:

Sponsor one lady to get off the street for one year for  $50 a month. This will enable her to be rehabilitated and self sufficient after the first year. We will give you a name, her story, her photo and help you follow her journey.

Sponsor a Social worker to work with these ladies through the program @ $100 a month.

Buy a loom for $150. This will help these women train in scarf making and hopefully earn themselves a good living off the street.

Buy a spinning wheel for $100 for the same reason!

Plant a seed. As start up costs are often high, we need people to help plant a seed.  We currently have these set up costs needing some assistance:

Rent of some land: $5000 for the first six months.  This land has buildings for accommodation for the women, warehouse space for cotton weaving, classroom space for addiction rehabilitation and life skills training, office space, child care space and agricultural potential.  For more info, contact me.

We also need to buy beds, mattresses, desks, chairs, tables, ovens, kitchen utensils, cupboards, couches, linen, mats. All of these can be made locally and aren't too expensive. 

Your seed of anywhere between $10-$1000 can help us purchase one item. Depending on how much you give, we will let you know what the fruit of your seed is!

This is us dreaming again but also having a bit of faith in what God is able to do.  Please, give generously.

You can give to Redeeming Love World Missions Fund in America or through PayPal to Michelle.tiatia@gmail.com and we will make sure 100% of your money will go towards what it was gifted for with full reports.

Merry Christmas everyone. Now go buy something that will last for eternity!

"Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth where moths and rust can corrupt and where thieves can break in and steal. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven...for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." Matt 6:19-21

Project: Rescue

It’s been a long time coming.  Four years to be exact, since this dream, this vision; this need was identified and planted in my heart.  Four years ago since I woke to the sound of the Muslim Call to Prayer at 5am and called out to MY God in silent prayer.  Silent because I lay a metre away from another girl on a mission.  Called out because this girl on a mission (me) was being missioned herself.  The mission that went on outside of me reflected the mission that God was trying to accomplish inside of me and that July morning in Nazaret, Ethiopia, the mission was accomplished.

The childhood pain, the adulthood shame; all culminated into a place of purpose.  Unforgiveness I held against my father, my foes, myself; at that point seemed futile.  It paled in comparison to the stories I had just heard. Here I was trying to piece together my story to share.  In trying to figure out what parts I should expose, I navigated through my dirt and my perceptions and reflected them back off the lives of these women.  Nothing that I had ever experienced seemed wasted.  I thanked God for carrying me through.  For “what you [they] meant to harm me, God meant for my good.” But not just my good, the good of others. 

For the time my father told me he would pay me $2 when I ended up on the street.

For the women who had taken away the security of my relationships.

For the friends who turned against me when I needed them the most.

I finally saw the purpose in my pain.

These women I had encountered in Nazaret, their stories broke the floodgates of my tear ducts.  Their testimonies penetrated the defense walls of my heart.  Their children tore down the ideologies I upheld in my mind of what life should look like.  My life was at the mercy of their pain.

Fast forward three years and I find myself walking to church through a hallway of brothels.  This street lined with women and children in the same situation as the women I had met in Nazaret.  Except they lived on the opposite side of the wall of hope.  Hope was not in sight for these women as it was in the Women in Nazaret who were on their way to recovery. 

But one woman found it.  Her redemption had come.  Her grace had been found or GRACE had found her.  I helped to move her off the street and into a new place and received the blessings from onlookers that I didn’t deserve.  I was just a straggler in a bajaj who just happened to be in the right place at the right time to help this woman make the best move she had ever made.  The move first began in her heart though. 

I had been a part of this ministry of Hope in Nazaret and knew that there was more that this woman needed than a conversion and relocation.  She needed rehabilitation. 

Not long after another woman died.  A woman who had cried out for help but failed to receive it before her lifestyle took this mother from her children.  From HIV to alcoholism to prostitution; the legacy she left behind was not one worthy of any accolades. 

Women on the street witnessed two events that MUST have shaken their worlds.  They saw Life and Death pass before them.  Life given and life taken as a result of choices made.  SURELY, I thought, this must have made them question their own decisions to be where they are and doing what they were doing. 

Now that I have seen, I am responsible… There goes that line again..

So I find myself again this year receiving GRACE = undeserved, unwarranted, unexplainable, outlandish UNMERITED FAVOUR.  By this grace, I overcame the temptations that faced me again.  And the Bible says that we are more than conquerors.  I heard it once said that we are MORE than CONQUERORS when WE ourselves CONQUER and then HELP OTHERS to do so!!

So in His time, and by His Grace I set out to connect with these women who God had placed on my heart. 

Last Sunday night my friend and I went out to meet these women where they are at- in their workplace. 

We walked into one house, bar, brothel- whatever you like to call it.  It’s getting dark and the kids are still playing outside.  They take us in to see their families. There’s coffee being poured and a customer is waiting on the bed in the room adjacent to the room we enter.  We sit on one bed which takes up more than half the space in the room.   I can’t help but think of the activity that has taken place on this bed.  My heart revolts.  The nerves soon dissipate into the coffee cup that is always accompanied by conversation; otherwise a spurring on of one is instigated. 

So we talk, play, break the ice with introductions and exchanging of names and glances that signify peace.  Selam new.  It is peaceful on this bed of desperation.  I ask how work is and the young pregnant one says it is good.  The other disagrees and says, No, it’s not good.  "It’s bad." 

She has just been deported back into the country because she had been found illegally working in Dubai.  She was desperate for a way out and we had come with a large signpost showing her which way to go.  So we leave them with a decision and a time and place to let us know what they decide.

Four days later, the word had spread and 18 women come to sign up for the program that was about to take place the next day.  Unsure of whether or not they would all come, we welcome them with open arms and big smiles and sign up their names on a piece of paper.

So Thursday comes and the lunch is prepared by two amazing ladies who, at the last minute had prepared for the unexpected response.  We are waiting for the call and it comes.  First one woman and her baby and then seventeen more and three more babies.  All boys.  All fatherless and yet full of smiles when given a simple toy to play with.

Trust was displayed as they shared their stories.  Short versions to break the ice and to make them reflect, as I did when asked to share my story, about whether or not they were ready to change their lives.  Tears were shed and defences were lowered as they made the first step into the journey that could possibly set them free. 

We heard stories of slavery and bravery...stories of abandonment and desperation...stories of love lost and dead ends that led them to this place they would never have chosen before. Two hours later and we had names to the faces I had walked past so many times before.  Hope made an appearance and ultimatums were given. 

Their stories were familiar yet again so heart breaking.  I have heard them before and I can understand their dilemma in a society where streams of income are not readily available to the uneducated and rejected. 

So we have job to do.  The relationships we have built with people working in the same field will hopefully make it easier for us to do so. This is them...

Yesterday on my way to church, I walked past these women again.  I am no longer a stranger to them nor they to me and they ask if we will meet again this week and I say YES!  They are all planning to come again this week.  Even without promises of money or an allowance or even a description of what our rehabilitation journey will look like.  They come in faith and in hope to receive Love; and the greatest of thing we can show them right now is Love.  Love will Rescue these women.  It’s the only Thing that can.

“If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.  If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love." 1 Cor 13:1-7;13

This song has been ringing in my ear this week  It’s a song that was written by an amazing girl who came here last year in January with a team from SBU in Missouri.  The lyrics go like this:

Because she wakes up every morning, walks down to the corner, turning every head as she goes; she makes a living with her body, let’s somebody own her, coz that’s the only life that she knows. She doesn’t know what Love is…

So we will sing about ...

(Song by Madi Walker)

LOVE is something worth sharing.