Praying For Vulnerable Children - Human TraffickingÀpẹrẹ

When five things are present, children are better protected from people trying to hurt them. Here’s the second key:

A Loving Family

Traffickers are often pros at deceiving families. They tell parents they can offer their children a better life. Instead, the children are sold into child labor. Children work for little to no pay, far from their home, completely hopeless. 

Our verse today is selected from a passage in Ezekiel where God calls out the leaders of Judah for taking advantage of their power. He compares them to a shepherd who feeds on the sheep, rather than feeding them with love and care. God declares that He is the shepherd the people need! He will bind up the injured and shepherd the flock with justice. He promises to bring a covenant of peace. God’s call to be a loving caretaker reminds us of a grandmother in Ghana.

Meet Comfort. What an appropriate name for this determined grandmother who fought hard for her grandson. Ebenezer was 6 years old when he was sent to work on Lake Volta in Ghana, a notorious hotbed of child slavery. 

Comfort took in Ebenezer as an infant when His mother died. She cares for nine grandchildren whose fathers have abandoned them. So, when a relative appeared at her house looking for boys to work on the waters of Lake Volta, she agreed. She wanted them to learn the ways of the fishing boats. The boys would have something to eat and somewhere to sleep, and she would have a little more for the children who remained in her home. She made her decision. She let them go. 

For three years, Ebenezer worked the lake. He cast the nets and heaved them in until his shoulders burned and his hands cracked and bled. He prayed that God would let him survive where so many others had not. Ebenezer prayed for deliverance.

Children are routinely beaten with paddles, heavy ropes, and electrical cables. Many have spoken about sleep deprivation, malnutrition, sexual assault and grievous injuries; dark testimonies of witnessing unspeakable crimes. There is no other word. They are slaves.

Comfort’s fear for her grandchildren wouldn’t let her rest. “One day … I was praying and reflecting when the thought just hit me: ‘I did not go to school; why then will I allow my grandchildren also [to go without] school?’ So I went to bring them back.”

“Child trafficking is a poverty issue,” says Henry Tetteh Amanor, center director of New Ningo Good Shepherd Methodist Child Development Center, a Compassion program.

Spurred by a fresh hope, Comfort enlisted Henry’s help and set out for the lake. When Comfort tracked her grandson down, she wept with relief that he was still alive. When she learned of the abuse and despair he’d suffered through, she wept again. With Henry’s support, she negotiated Ebenezer’s release.

“If not for Henry’s support to bring these children back from the Volta Lake, their lives would have been destroyed,” says Comfort. We’ll learn more about Henry in our devotion tomorrow.

Now in the final years of high school, Ebenezer hopes to become a mechanical engineer. He has suffered through great trauma but survived. In the years since he left the lake, he has been registered with the Compassion program, protected by his mighty grandmother, nurtured by the love of his local church, and encouraged by his Compassion sponsor.

We can ask ourselves: are we being like the leaders of Judah and taking advantage of others? Or are we like God, who reaches out to those must vulnerable and binds up the injured? He shepherds the flock with justice.

Suggested prayer:

Heavenly Father, I pray for the children enslaved around the world. As Your Word says, I ask You to bring back the strays, bind up the injured and strengthen the weak. I ask You to give their families strength to continue looking for their children. Provide these children with rescuers. Be their advocate, Lord! Make me an advocate too. May I model my life after Your love for the world. In Jesus’ name, amen.