On January 22, 2010 I joined five other women on a trip to the Sweetwater House in Ghana, West Africa. Sweetwater House is a ministry of Today’s Choices, and is a residential home for young ladies 16-21 years of age, designed to give them a safe place to prepare for life. During their 2-year residence, the young ladies are taught English (the official language of business in Ghana), reading, writing, sewing, tie-dye and batik (both are methods of dying cloth). Most importantly, they are exposed consistently to God’s truth through devotionals, songs, and Bible studies.
(Photo 1 - left: “Ashes”, taken when the girls first arrived - Summer, 2008). These amazing young women come from various walks of life. Yet, all have stories of instability and insecurity, being shifted from one family member to another (and even to strangers), from one village to another, from one region to the next. Ashes. Some have served as “house help”, cleaning homes, selling products by the roads, and doing whatever is required in order to receive what meager room, board and in some cases, pay, they could. There are stories of being beaten for “missing product” and short sales, being forced to eat leftover food that cats and dogs had eaten, and being abused by wives of fathers and uncles. Ashes. Several have experienced the death of parents, leaving the family in even more dire financial straits, sometimes thrusting them into the workforce as mere children.
In all of the stories of hardships, perhaps the more difficult ones to hear were those who had some connection to the Trokosi slave system. Run by fetish priests (similar to witch doctors), these girls were the “payments” required for some family member’s debt or crime or to superstitiously stop a series of unfortunate events (illnesses or deaths). So, they were sacrificed, one as young as 2 months old, to live a life of servitude to the priests. Ashes. One sweet young woman tells of her awkwardness in putting on shoes and clothes for the first time after being rescued from the shrine just a few years ago. Another tells the story of her escape and her mother’s deception in trying to convince her to return to the shrine “for the sake of the family.” Ashes.
And yet, I look at them now. God has done amazing things, not only in their lives, but in their hearts. They eat His Word, treating it as life-giving “honey” on their tongues, for some remember when they believed they would die by simply opening it. And it is beautiful. They sing praises and dance with freedom and reckless abandon, for they know what it is to be bound. And it is beautiful. They pray with fervor to a God who loves them, for they remember how it feels to be abandoned. And it is beautiful. They worship Him with gratefulness, for they know what it is to be sacrificed for something you have not done. And it is beautiful. (The photo below - Beauty - was taken in February of 2010. The girls have been living at Sweetwater House for 1 1/2 years. They look like normal teenagers … because they are!)
