Formerly, when you did not know God, you were slaves to those who by nature are not gods. Galatians 4:8

It began with loss…and the loss compounded until she was encaged by a wall she could not escape from.    This is how debt begins.  A bill payment is due and your husband has new responsibilities with his new wife and baby and so he’s late in paying you the school fees due for your son.  You ask around and find out that right across the lane is a woman who is willing to loan money.  You take out the loan…and your payments begin.  The interest in 20% per month so at first you pay back right away but then another bill needs paying and the work for your piecework sewing job is on a low, so you take out another loan from another woman down the street.  They know you are a good worker and will be responsible in payments…but with 20% interest, soon you find yourself only able to pay back on the interest each month and are incapable of paying back the capital loan.  By the time we were called,  she had taken 5 loans out and for two years she was paying back the interest equivalent to her monthly wage…She was backed against a wall.

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.  

As we met with her, we were convinced that God would use this situation to show her how much He loved her.  She heard our words with dubiousness and retorted with, “This the way God lets me know He loves me?”  It’s easy to blame God for the troubles we get ourselves into, but God enters into even the most dyer situations and brings us to Himself.    Our friend in on a new journey and we pray that she will experience the true freedom that comes from knowing the One who created her, has redeemed her and loves her.

 Proverbs 22:7 The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is slave to the lender.

The family needed money to pay for fertilizer, rice seeds, tractor rental, etc so they borrowed money off their own land from a neighbor who could loan it to them.  The interest payments were steep and if they were late on any one payment, they would forfeit their land to the lender.  Their daughter stepped in at this point and mortgaged her apartment to help pay off this loan for her parents.  Now, she was the slave to the lender.  Her monthly payments included 130% interest for two years and at month 3, she called us at 8:30 PM, with only 3 1/2 hours left transfer the payment or she would lose her apartment.  How do we counsel in these lifestyle situations that have gone on for generations?  How do we bring Christ into this picture to free these people from the bondage that holds them down in anxiety and fear? We see the fruits of decisions made but the layers are deep and we turn again and again to our Father who knows all things.

“The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law.”Deuteronomy 29:29