Sweetwater Ministries

I had the privilege to meet Charlotte in January of 2010 and she shared this story with me in our small group one day … it’s her story. I want to recognize the great boldness it took for her to share this in front of her peers… She brought her story out of the depths of darkness and into the light!

Charlotte… betrayed, outcast, wounded, alone, child of the gods, evil, not human. These are words that have been spoken over and to Charlotte since she was a baby. She has literally spent her entire life hearing these names over her from everyone in her life, including her own family and close friends.

When Charlotte was just a baby, she was consistently sick. Her mother, following the tradition of those that went before her, went to the fetish shrine to ask the priest for guidance. She feared that Charlotte’s reoccurring illness was the effect of some family curse or sin. The priest, having the mother right where he wanted her (soaking in fear), told her what was required. He told her: “the next time your baby (Charlotte) is sick bring her to me, I will cut her face six times on each side, and then you must take her to the nearest trash pile and leave her there. She will either live or die. It is up to the gods.” And that is what was done… she was laid on the trash pile and she lived.

Years later, Charlotte is a young girl walking home from school with a friend. They skipped along with childlike abandon. As they approached the friend’s house, a woman’s figure was standing in the doorway. The friend’s mother did not ask the children how their day was, or if they were hungry for a snack, or even to stop playing because there were chores to be done. Any of those would have been a dream compared to the reality. The words oozed like venom, wrapped in misguided trust, at Charlotte… “Get away from my house and away from my daughter. You are never to see or speak to her again. You are evil and a child of the gods! Stay away from us!” All the while she was quickly catching her own child up into her arms and shooing away Charlotte.

Charlotte ran home, crying… all the while the shock turning into pain as the small tears turned into a flood. When she got home, her mother told her all that had happened when she was a baby. It was told with sadness and yet a hopelessness because there was nothing to be done about it.

Charlotte continued to live in her village but things were never the same. She very quickly became the outcast of the village, now aware how everyone saw her. She sat on the outskirts of festivities at parties because she knew no one wanted her to be there at all, much less participate. Other children soon heard her story, and teased with abandon. The other mothers also looked on her as a poison that they wouldn’t dare allow to enter their lives, or the lives of their children. And then, the final piece of the dark journey of this innocent child, were the voices in her head… encouraging the hopeless, dark names she had been called. Speaking them as truth over her life…it was as if with each word or thought or voice, the bars to her own personal prison were being put in place.

The final stone to this prison was the hope of an education. Charlotte’s story in this area is extremely common in Ghana. Charlotte’s father had died when she was young, and so Charlotte’s olde

r sister had raised her because the mother was working on a farm to provide for their meager needs. When Charlotte was in 5th grade, her mother was struggling to support them and Charlotte had to drop out of school so she could help to sell the crops.

Time wore on and Charlotte grew in size, but in all other areas she was stagnant, hopeless, and alone.
One day, she heard about Sweetwater through a young woman who had graduated from the program. Although her heart was full of doubt and fear, Charlotte went to the school and applied. The acceptance came as a surprise, and was quickly followed by strong thoughts telling her: “Don’t go to that school; the people at Sweetwater will treat you as a outcast just like everyone else; you are evil and not even a human being, you will never fit in there.” But when the time came to start at the school she went. It was extremely hard because the voices and thoughts in her head continued and within a few months the thoughts turned for the worse to plans for her own suicide.

She went to church one Wednesday night with the students and some staff for a teaching and prayer night the church had planned. What she was not expecting was for the pastor to stand up and call out the person in the room who was planning on killing themselves. She made her way forward and the pastor prayed with and for her. He encouraged her to open her heart to Jesus and to continue to pray on her own and with friends at the school. That night the voices stopped. And they were replaced by joy, freedom, tenderness and an eagerness to learn, a relationship with God and his son. Words of truth replaced the lies…She has been made holy (Heb.10:13)…He goes with her wherever she goes (Duet.31:8) …He has given her a new name and she is a royal diadem in His hand (Is. 62:2-3)… she is his Beloved (all of SOS)… He has given her beauty for ashes (Is. 61:3)…  He rejoices over her with singing (Zeph. 3:17)!!!

Over a year after she prayed with the pastor, the negative thoughts and voices did return… full of evil lies that had been spoken over her. She told me that she had become accustomed to the joyous freedom she found through her prayer that night at the church and that she had continued to pray on her own… but as time passed, her prayers waned. And slowly, some of the negative thoughts returned. Her tears flowed freely as each word left her lips. Those listening cried with her also.

Our small group of students spoke truth to her and prayed with and for her. That freedom is hers… She has been bought with a price and He died on the cross so that she would have it. We have the ultimate victory…but the battle on this earth wages on. Please pray for her continued freedom from the lies that have been spoken over her and that the truth would grow roots in her life and bear MUCH fruit!! And also that she would be released from any shame!!
 —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  — -