Joseph's Hope Beyond the Dark. (Genesis 37:14-36; 39:1-21)

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.

www.sheepspeak.com

www.facebook.com/salvogesis

Comments

Beware: Christian Junk Food

THIS IS AN INTERESTING ARTICLE WE STUMBLED ACROSS BY ANNE GRAHAM LOTZ Why the average believer is starving for something more. By Anne Graham Lotz I love junk food—McDonald's french fries, Auntie Anne's pretzels, and almost any kind of pizza! If I'm not careful, though, I will gain unwanted pounds while getting zero nutrition. Many Christians seem to eat spiritually the way I am tempted to eat physically. They fill up on "junk food"—Christian books, CDs, TV programs, seminars, and all sorts of church activities—none of these are bad, really, but they lead to a sickly spiritual state if consumed apart from the true Bread of Life. We need the real nutritional "food" that will be served one day at the Wedding Supper referred to in Revelation 19:9, food that we can partake of right now as we dig into God's Living Word. For the past 17 years, as I have crisscrossed America, speaking at various conferences and churches, I have become convinced of

The Lourdes' Lessons (John 7, 4 & 5)

John 7:37-38: On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” We went to Sanctuaire de Notre-Dame de Lourdes . They have healing water in a spring there under the church that you can walk right up to. The story of the healing spring and the cathedral goes a little like this: Bernadette Soubirous, a 14-year-old peasant girl, on 11 February 1858 saw a vision of Mary, the mother of Jesus and was told to go and drink water from a spring which was to appear inside the grotto and wash herself with it. She did and she kept going there and by mid-July had seen Mary 18 times. She was also told to tell the priests to build a chapel at the grotto site. They did. The Cathedral was built over the spring and people – like us - still visit today. God is a God of miracles even today. There is a whole community built up

Ephesians 5:8-20: Jet Lag

The other day the whole family flew from Toronto to Victoria. Flying can be an adventure – especially when you are travelling with young children. This most recent trip was probably the first one from which we all experienced Jet Lag. Jet Lag is an awful feeling. It wastes your whole day. We have only one week’s holiday and during that time I have some work to do as well and the whole first day or even two are wasted. Jet Lag is when you feel so tired you can’t really enjoy your day or be productive. It is only when you get over this that you can do what you need to do and experience life. Are there times we suffer from Spiritual Jet Lag? We want to pray and read our Scriptures and associate with other Christians in a Christian context, we want to even sing praises to the Lord and thank Him for everything but we just seem to be lethargic instead. God really will get us where we are going a lot faster than any jet but sometimes our strength will lag behind us. This is why t

Salvogesis

Search This Blog