Wheaton garage sale helps rescue children from slavery

On a mission trip to Ghana in West Africa two years ago, Wheaton native Rachel Johnson met a young boy named Moses who changed not only her perspective, but her life.

She helped negotiate his freedom from slavery.

Johnson is director of project development for the Touch a Life Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping children escape trafficking and slavery. Slavery, she says, is still a very real, very harsh reality for children in Africa, Vietnam and Cambodia.

In Ghana, thousands of children like Moses — some as young as 5 — are sold by families who can’t afford to take care of them, to fishermen on Lake Volta. They work 14 hours a day, seven days a week. They are beaten, malnourished and deprived of education and family, according to the foundation’s website.

The Touch a Life Foundation has relocated more than 80 such children from Lake Volta and continues trying to rescue the many who remain enslaved there.

Johnson has been to Ghana six times rescuing children and putting them into rehabilitation programs; she says she is planning to go again in July.

“Ghana is the place where I feel the most grounded, and it taught me the most about gratitude,” Johnson said. “I need (the children) more than they need me.”

Johnson met Moses on one such trip in August 2009. He had a severe hernia and needed medical help.

“All of our rescues are conversation-based negotiation,” Johnson said.

It took Touch a Life seven months to negotiate his release.

Moses was also the first rescue of Johnson’s career. She said it was very powerful to watch the transition from the terrible conditions he was in to his safety in Touch a Life.

Johnson was surprised to see Moses was sad leaving the island at first. “It was all he had ever known; but the second he got on the Touch a Life boat his demeanor changed entirely. He knew that he was safe.”

The foundation placed Moses in one of its rehabilitation programs. He had surgery and is doing well. He is also an excellent student and a leader among the other kids.

To help others like Moses, Johnson’s mother, Wheaton resident Beth Johnson, is organizing a garage sale this weekend along with other families in the area to support the foundation.

Beth Johnson accompanied her daughter to Africa the last few summers and has seen the projects Touch a Life supports and sponsors.

“I just fell in love with the children and the program,” Beth said.

She was able to get other families to donate clothing, household goods, small appliances, artwork and more for the sale and hopes to raise enough to sponsor at least one child for a year, and more if possible. She estimated the cost for a year of sponsorship is $1,800, which pays for food, shelter, clothing, education and medical care.

In the future, she hopes to make the sale an annual event.

The sale will be from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Friday and Saturday, June 10 and 11, at the Johnson home, 10 Muirfied Circle.

If you go

What: Garage sale to benefit Touch a Life Foundation

When: 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Friday and Saturday, June 10 and 11

Where: 10 Muirfied Circle, Wheaton

Info: touchalifekids.org