"She would have been trafficked...."

My family started sponsoring children when I was young. I was fascinated by the fact that we could write letters and be a part of someone's life who lived so far away! I really enjoyed writing to the children and sending family pictures! Each time I would write a letter I would imagine what it would be like to go and visit one of these children in their village. Well, this dream came true for me on Saturday!



We received a letter from one of the children (Catherine) while I was visiting home this summer. She wrote about her village and mentioned the name of it. Google maps brought me to realize that she was literally 2 hours away from where the ship is located right now in Togo! Catherine lives in a small village in the Volta Region of Ghana which is a bordering country to Togo. After a few emails back and forth with the organization, a meeting time was set and we were on our way!!

3 friends came along (Christina, Stephan, and Friedhelm) on the journey. We were picked up at the Togo/Ghana border early in the morning and made our way to the village. We were greeted by some people from the village and were taken to Catherine's house. We sat and talked (through translation) with Catherine, her 6 siblings, her mother, grandmother, uncle, the village Chief and 2 of the village elders.



They took us on a walk around her village, showing us the small lake where they wash their clothing, the well that provides the whole village with clean drinking water, and the school where Catherine goes (along with her 54 classmates and 500 other students from surrounding villages!). The government has agreed to put electricity in the village so there were some hydro poles (without wires still) around the village as well.





Catherine's village is one of the villages where an Ewe cultural practice called Trokosi is common. In this practice, young virgin girls are sent into fetish shrines to atone for the sins committed by their family members. These girls serve as sexual or domestic slaves for the fettish priests and never receive a payment. The Ghanaian government outlawed this practice in 1998 so IN Network has participated heavily in liberating these girls from the shrines. They have a rehabilitation center where the women learn new skills so they can start their own businesses in their villages. We were also able to tour this facility and meet some of the girls at the center.

It was so amazing to see the work that IN Network has been able to do in this community alone. God has used this organization powerfully to affect so many lives. The words are still ringing in my ears when I was told "If Catherine was not sponsored, she most likely would have been trafficked into Trokosi". It just breaks my heart to think of how many more young girls there are in the world where the reality of trafficking is the only future that exists for them right now. When will this reality end?