Bakhita

You might remember the story of Joseph from our zine, “The Dreamer”. Joseph was the guy with twelve brothers and a beautiful coat of many colors. Sound familiar? Today’s StoryMaker has a similar story of Joseph’s. Let’s see if you can spot the similarities.

Bakhta was born in Darfur (now West Sudan) in 1869. She had three brothers and three sisters and her uncle was the village chief. In 1877, Bakhita was out with a friend and was taken by slave traders, forced to walk over 600 miles to El-Obeid, and sold twice before they even reached the city. 

Bakhita is not her original name. She said that the pain and sorrow of her abduction caused her to forget her birth name. She adopted the name Bakhita, which was a nickname from one of her captors, in Arabic it means “lucky" or “fortunate.” 

In all, Bakhita was bought and sold five times. One of her slavers was particularly cruel and had her marked with 114 cuts that were then treated with salt every day for a month. Those scars remained with her throughout her entire life.

Bakhita’s last slaver was an Italian vice-counsel who took her to Italy with him. There she became a nanny for another Italian family. When the parents traveled to Sudan, they left Bakhita and their daughter with Canossian sisters at a convent. There, she encountered God’s story and her life was forever changed.

She had been interested in God. “Seeing the Sun, the Moon, and the stars, I said to myself, ‘Who could be the Master of these beautiful things? And I felt a great desire to see him, to know him, and to pay him homage.” So the sisters told her God’s story, that God is for us and with us and actively redeeming us. Bakhita wrote, “These holy mothers instructed me with heroic patience and introduced me to that God who from childhood, I had felt with my heart without knowing who he was.” Eventually, the sisters at the convent argued for Bakhita’s freedom and she was freed. She was baptized and confirmed and in 1896, she became a Canossian sister. 

She lived the rest of her life in Vicenza and is the patron saint of Modern Day Sudan and human trafficking survivors. One day, a student asked her what she would do if she were to meet her captors. Bakhita replied, “If I were to meet those who kidnapped me, and even those who tortured me, I would kneel and kiss their hands, for if these things had not happened, I would not have been a Christian and a religious today.” 

Like Joseph, Bakhita was the victim of injustice and sold into slavery. And like Joseph, she knew that “What man intended for evil, God intended for good.” Both Bakhita and Joseph served God who can redeem even in the worst circumstances. In Joseph’s case, he saved his family and nation from famine. In Bakhita’s case, she was able to speak out about trafficking and train several missionaries who went to Sudan to share God’s story. We can look at their stories and remember that even in darkness, God is always with us and always working on his redemptive plan.