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!

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....