She had come to our Daddy’s Girls devotionals each Saturday. A traditional skirt wrapped around her waist and strings of beads encircling her biceps and head. There were puffy scars across her cheeks and she wore no top, leaving her whole upper half exposed.
“She is waiting for her dress,” they explained. Most children who stayed home from school in Keta were unable to afford tuition, or did not have the resources to purchase a uniform, but that was not this girl’s story.
As a young child, she had been harassed by an evil spirit, once having her room catch fire while the rest of her home remained unscathed. After seeking assistance from multiple pastors and spiritual leaders, she was finally brought to a “fetish priest” (pastor of one of the idol worshipping communities). He claimed that the evil spirit was her dead grandmother. The idol he worshipped could free her from the oppression, but she would have to dedicate her life to the idol in exchange.
While most children run around Keta in typical Western attire, those enslaved to fetish priests dawn special clothing and specific markings, signs to show that they have received help and now belong to a shrine. Because schools in Keta require their students to wear uniforms, slaves are additionally excluded from receiving an education.
Freedom can theoretically be earned through the completion of many costly rituals, but in poverty torn communities this freedom sometimes never comes.
I watched her giggle and smile like all of the other girls at our devotionals. I sat at her table as we discussed the names Christ had given us: daughter, chosen, beloved, free. I thanked God for the ways He was pursuing her, for the fact that her family was allowing her to attend Christian gatherings, for the truth that He was planting in her heart. I prayed that someday she might receive her long-awaited freedom, freedom to not only dawn beautiful dresses and receive an education, but freedom to spend eternity in the security of knowing who she truly belonged to. I prayed that she might one day understand that her debts have been paid, that there is nothing left to earn.
Idol worship in Keta is overt and rampant. Physical idols can be seen enshrined at compound entrances and in the centers of communities. The local church struggles greatly with embracing the exclusivity of the God of the Bible and there is major pressure to retain pieces of idol worship amidst Christian practices.
While parts of the idolatry I witnessed seemed shocking and extreme, I found most of it to feel sadly familiar. Americans may not intentionally deprive their children of sufficient clothing or the opportunity to receive an education, but can we honestly say that the idols of “achievement”, “success”, and “appearance” are not impacting the lives of our youth to equally devastating extents?
The fight for freedom is universal and the answer to every form of darkness is the same.
“I am the way, the truth and the life.” John 14:6a
Please join me in praying that not only the children in Keta, Ghana, but children all around the world would receive their long awaited freedom!
