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.

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