*Name changed for protection
“Ezra! You should come to India”, she said with an underlying sneer. “I have a job for you where you can make lots of money. And a home where we can live. I’ll even make all the arrangements. You won’t regret leaving Uganda like I did. Please say yes!”
“Wow. That sounds like a dream,” Ezra responded with a childish giddiness. “Okay. I’ll do it!”.
With her passport and visa in hand, Ezra was ready for a bright future full of opportunity. She was tired of the unrest that continues to captivate her beautiful Uganda. At 22 years old, she boarded her very first plane with her head held high. She arrived in New Delhi with high expectations. Though a bit hesitant to leave her family behind, she believed that her friend had a career of a lifetime waiting for her; of what nature she would soon find out.
Locks on the doors. Bars on her window. A dust filled room. And the men. So many men in and out of this three-room shack she would be calling home. These men were the business plan her so-called friend had been preying on. Ezra would become her prostitute. Locked in a room, a fellow Ugandan would now have ownership over her body, money, food and life.
“I fled Uganda in hopes of a better life,” she tearfully said. Stripped of the visa and passport she had worked so hard to get, she felt hopeless. The next seven months were full of horrid scenes; ones of force, disgust and anguish. She no longer felt human. Like a dog, her only contact with her now trafficker was through meal and bathing times. For more than 200 days, Ezra endured this grueling nonexistent life.
But she had hope. When telling me her story her eyes became alive again at the mention of God. Her hope was in Him.
With “this hope as an anchor for the soul,” (Heb. 6:19) Ezra made her great escape. Without much detail, she explained to me that she was able to break free and run from the hell she had been living in. “The authorities will help me,” she thought. With a helpless mindset, Ezra desperately wanted the authorities to rein justice upon her friend and the pain she had caused her. “They didn’t care. Not at all. They brushed it off as though my case was nonexistent,” she said.
I could see the desperation in her eyes as she replayed the story in her mind. Vulnerability engulfed her. Her assailable condition was latched onto by two Nigerian men posing as her knights in shining armor. By train, the three were headed to Bangalore; a place she knew nothing about. In her emotionally paralyzed state, she was headed into uncharted waters. The house may have been different but the situation remained the same. Two men alone with a beautiful 22 year old woman. It all seemed too familiar. Soon after Ezra lost ownership of her body once again. “How could I have let this happen again?”, she said with a crushed spirit.
But she was carrying with her “the death of Jesus” (2 Cor. 4:10), therefore she was “not driven to despair; [she] was persecuted but not abandoned ; knocked down but not destroyed” (2 Cor. 4:8-9).
And the hope within her would rise once again. This hope led her to The Church of Zion. She was taken in by a female church member who felt called to find Ezra a safe haven; a place where she would receive the counseling she needed, a place far from the men, doors with locks and rooms full of dust.
17 months. Ezra has been trapped here. Some days she feels like there is no way out. Others are filled with constant phone calls to Uganda; where her mother is frantically waiting for her return. We met within her safe haven but her face told me it was more of a jail. She has been working with authorities for more than two months to flee a country she once believed held her dreams. Within this nightmare, she holds tight to the belief that God is preparing herfor what He has not yet revealed.
To have her complete trust in God after the agony she has gone through makes me question my faith. How many times do I question God’s presence in my life? How many times have I questioned His mere existence? But He is revealing these beautiful stories to me so I can look back on them in my times of questioning. He is real and He is more present in my life than ever before.
