Presented to The Salvation Army Alberni Valley Ministries, on the International Day of Prayer against Human Trafficking, 25 September 2022, by Major Michael Ramsay
Joseph in
our text today was trafficked. His family – his brothers, ten of them, ganged
up on him and through him into a pit and sold him to people passing by. The
people who bought Joseph took him to a foreign country and sold him as a
household servant. His family did not know what had happened to him; his dad
never knew what happened to Joseph, his favourite son. Joseph was all alone.
Joseph was
a domestic servant with no rights. When his employers was done with him he was
sent off to jail.
Trafficking
like this isn’t just a thing of the past. We have worked to try and help many
different people who have been trafficked in a number of the places we have
lived and worked with The Salvation Army.
Here in
town there are a couple of businesses that are rumoured to be involved in
trafficking people, domestic help, like Joseph – one is a hotel. This hotel
apparently has a number of new ‘staff’ come regularly from India, stay and
while and then be moved along.
I have
just heard – not verified – as well that another business in town has a family
from Vietnam living in their lunchroom. Of course, from this there are all
kinds of stories of international human trafficking and hopefully when an
investigation is complete that we be all they are just stories.
But human
trafficking happens. Like I said, we have been involved in trying to help
people out of this circumstance in various places we have lived across this
country, and it can and may be happening right here, right now in our
community.
It is our
responsibility to be aware and if you know of anything that needs looking into
let the police and/or let me know and lets follow up. That is my call to action
for today.
Beyond my
call to action, I would like to offer the hope that God offers us through the
Joseph experience. Joseph was trafficked but -even in his darkest hours and
days and years serving as a domestic save and as a prisoner in a foreign jail
he had hope and God delivered him. I can’t imagine the horrors of what he – and
many others have experienced – but God gave him hope and delivered him in and
eventually from his circumstance.
Let us
pray.
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