Deliverance from Mental and Physical Slavery

Deliverance from mental and physical slavery is a desperate need in our world today. The enemy of our life and our love would like nothing better than to enslave us. History is full of people who needed deliverance from mental and physical slavery, and the world today continues in that pattern. Slavery takes many different forms. For people who have experienced the bondage of worldviews like Communism in their country the slavery begins in their minds, causing them to make choices that may enslave others or continue to enslave themselves.

God created us to be cherished, valued and loved. But if we don’t see ourselves as having any value, that will lead us to make decisions that can lead us to further emotional slavery, as well as physical slavery. In countries all over the world mindsets like this lead to circumstances where men and women will make rash decisions in an effort to feel value, or take advantage of someone that they see no value in. This mental enslavement leads people to make decisions based on very little thought or information, or to use people like items to use and sell.

A young girl with this mindset will quickly trust a stranger promising a great job in another country, and only later discover she has really been enslaved. The rest of her life will be spent working endlessly for little or no pay, or being forced to deliver her precious body to a daily string of men. It can all start with that despair and slavery of her mind. She feels she has no value and the first chance she sees she grasps at. But a woman who knows that she is cherished and adored by her Heavenly father will offer Him her trust and know that He will take care of her. She doesn’t need to act rashly in desperation.

Pray for deliverance from mental and physical slavery for Bulgaria and the world. Pray that these strongholds and damaging mindsets will be broken through the brilliant power of Christ. Pray that He will refresh them with the knowledge and understanding of true value and purpose a plan He has just for them!

Human Trafficking, Sex Slavery, and Poverty

Human Trafficking, Sex Slavery and Poverty can be overwhelming and excruciating topics. Just bringing up the epidemic of human trafficking or sex slavery tempts us to feel despair and hopelessness. When we hear a statistic such as 27 million people are in slavery around the world today we want to throw up our hands and breathe sadly, “Well, what could I ever do to change that?” But what are we looking at? The number of people in poverty or human trafficking around the world? Something like sex slavery that seems “bigger” than we could ever comprehend much less attempt to tackle? So our focus is on something big. This brings us to a simple shift in focus to something even bigger: God. Yes human trafficking, sex slavery and poverty are tragic, massive, and mind-blowing. But the God we serve has a history of taking “big” things and dwarfing them with His love and greatness.

What it requires from us is faith. Faith welded to action. We are not called to be God and make the change. We are called to obey in what He has put before us and watch Him take our faith & action against slavery and poverty to make a miracle. I believe that Bulgaria is the next launching pad for a great miracle from God. Compared to many countries in the world, Bulgaria is not very large. But the darkness and strongholds it faces are looming over it’s future with ravenous intensity. Human trafficking. Despair. Poverty. Lies about self worth. Sex slavery. Worldviews that inflict hopelessness and bondage on the lives that it preys upon. These may all seem like giants. Especially to those who have lived in countries that enjoy wealth and freedom. But these giants are particles to God. And what would seem to take ages to change or improve can transform with one breath from God, or one person sent in His name.

Don’t let facts or circumstances grow to be larger than God in your own mind, whether they are the heart-breaking issues in your own life or gruesome injustices like sex slavery in the world. Remember that He is bigger, and then take a step to activate your faith with action. It could mean changing the course of your career and joining yourself to a Kingdom pursuit. It could mean surrendering the money God has blessed you with (from the job HE has blessed you with) to feed and clothe those in rags of poverty and despair. It could mean sacrificing time to pray and rally behind someone who is fighting for the orphans, widows and slaves. Decide to take action today, in whatever way God is calling you, to be a part of the big miracle He has brewing. I dare you to let God transform you through your obedience to help transform the lives of others.

Child labour

Modern Day Slavery and Human Trafficking.

Modern day slavery and human trafficking. When we think of slavery, we usually think of the past, not today's society. However, modern day slavery and human trafficking remains a shockingly present, if not hidden, part of our global world. In fact, according to the extensive research done by the Polaris Project on modern day slavery and human trafficking, "actual statistics are often unavailable and sometimes may be contradictory due to the covert nature of the crime, the invisibility of victims and high levels of under-reporting." As I researched slavery in modern day, and sought to compare statistics, my heart felt stabbed by the amount of human trafficking that occurs; even at its lowest estimate, the numbers are high. With this article, I set forth the definition and general global impact of modern day slavery and human trafficking in hopes as to bring awareness to the problem.

Abuse of others is considered human trafficking when an individual uses another for forced labor, prostitution, debt bondage, slavery, forced marriages, and child transfer for various exploitive purposes. Trafficking often involves recruitment or transferring of the human beings through such means as abduction or fraud. Modern day slavery involves the practice of forced labor and/or confinement. Both modern day slavery and human trafficking takes an unwilling individual and thrusts them into inhumane and often horrific conditions.

The most shocking statistic comes in the fact that an estimated 27 million human beings are trapped in modern day slavery. In Europe, human trafficking is the second largest global organized crime today, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. In fact, there occurs one sale every 47 seconds, according to the same statistics. The nature of slavery occurring from human trafficking varies from country to country but on average, 70-90 percent of females trafficked end up in the commercial sex industry, while most males endure forced labor and abusive slavery. Many of these are young children; those that aren't should be considered "children" still, averaging between the ages of 12 to 14.

Modern day slavery and human trafficking is just coming to the forefront of awareness in today's world because, as mentioned at the onset, the crime is generally hidden. Those trafficking keep actions highly secretive, are often seductive individuals, and threaten victims with death which in turn causes the trafficked to hesitate to cry for help. However, the greatest reason that the mass amount of slavery in modern day has been hidden for so long is that money speaks, or, in this case, it gives the incentive to keep quiet. The total yearly profits generated by human trafficking as an industry comes to 32 billion dollars! And, $15.5 billion of this total is made in industrialized countries – countries that should be leading by example and respecting all humanity. I have to agree with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton when she says that human trafficking and modern day slavery "is an affront to our basic values and our fundamental belief that all people everywhere deserve to live and work in safety and dignity."
Especially as a Christian, we are called to "speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute" (Proverbs 31:8). Those stuck in modern day slavery are being denied their God given right to speak out, and the trafficking is leaving in its wake lives destitute and hearts broken. The first step to speaking out comes in being informed, then partnering with others taking action. Ceitci Demirkova Ministries interacts with children and families touched by the various forms of slavery and human trafficking, especially in Bulgaria and Uganda, highly impacted areas of this crime against human beings created by God. In fact, Changing a Generation may be rescuing a child every day, for the programs are providing food, education, and hope, which helps keep families from selling their children into slavery, and children from agreeing to any "opportunity" in a desperate attempt for survival.

Speech Lessons and Skills for Improving your Communication and Life.

Speech lessons and skills for improving your communication and life. There are many books available that offer speech lessons and skills for improving your communication and life. However, it remains interesting to me that the Bible rarely counts among those referenced for improving communication skills and life. After all, if we want to maximize the potential of our speech skills, I think we can learn lessons from the God who used speech to bring the universe and life about in the very beginning! Perhaps we can't create physical universes with our words, but I believe we can gather speech lessons and skills for improving your communication and life from the scriptures, which allows you to impact the spiritual realm.

Before we move to highlighting the practical steps of learning speech lessons and skills for improving your communication and life from the Bible, I would like to point out the important connection between the heart and effective communication. Proverbs 4:23-4 speaks of the heart being the wellspring of life, and I believe that is because "the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart" (Matthew 15:18). The most effective lessons to improving communication, and hence life, are those which also focus on the condition of the heart, because otherwise words just become empty adornments on your lips, and do not create impact or change in life. Once we understand that surrendering our heart to the purification and purposes of Jesus remains the first step, we can implement the practical speech lessons and skills for improving your communication and life.

The first of the lessons to improving communication and life comes in the fact that we are told we are not to live feeding our mouth on just bread, but we also are to feast on the words and truths that come from the mouth of God. Not only are we to allow our speech to communicate praise to God, but also we are to approach our interactions with others as an opportunity to implement truth. This does not mean we have to preach each time we open up our mouth, but that we allow the Biblical principles of love, truth, faithfulness, self-control, and the list continues, to saturate our communication skills.

This brings us to the next of our speech lessons and skills to improving your communication and life found in the Bible – keeping flattery out of our skills-set. Proverbs 26:28 reminds that a flattering tongue "works ruin." Often, people resort to flattery to persuade others or get in their good graces. Perhaps using flattery in communication improves life temporarily, but eventually leads to discrediting the flatterer and causing his/her words to turn lies.

Finally, the last of our speech lessons and skills to improving your communication and life which is scriptural comes in the form of wisdom. The Bible talks endlessly about a life which uses wisdom in communication. A wise man is to use his lips to promote instruction, and a wise woman should allow life-giving wisdom to govern her responses in life (Proverbs 10,16). Wisdom means we pause before allow speech to come forth, we pray, we reflect. We are quick to listen, and slow to communicate frivolously.

To guard your heart from corruption, to make truth and love the base of all communication, to keep flattery from your lips, and to listen and instruct with wisdom are all speech lessons and skills you can gather from the Bible that will improve your communication and life. For your personal studies on this subject, see the following scriptures: Psalm 19:14, 71:8, 141:3; Proverbs 4:24, 10:11, 26:28; Ecclesiastes 5:2; Isaiah 51:16, 59:21; Matthew 4:4, 12:24, 15:18; Luke 6:45.

Mission Trip to Bulgaria

Mission trip to Bulgaria. What, a mission trip to Bulgaria? Africa, South America, even Russia remain common destinations to go on a mission, but who thinks of Bulgaria? Yet, the country cries out for people with loving hearts to make their mission trip to this place that is shrouded in the pain of brokenness and abandonment. In our last article, we spoke of donating used items to charity to help children in Bulgaria, but perhaps God inspires you to do more. On a mission trip to Bulgaria, you would find children wasting away, literally, for attention and the loving touch of Jesus.

In 2007, BBC released a documentary entitled Bulgaria’s Abandoned Children, which gives us an example of the need for mission trips to make Bulgaria their next destination. Keep in mind, as you read on, that Bulgaria is not a third world country, it is a part of the European union! In the BBC documentary, the host made her own “mission” trip to Bulgaria to cover a social care home, housing seventy-five children, in the village of Moniligo. Of all the European countries, Bulgaria has the highest number of physically and mentally disabled individuals warehoused in institutes; one in fifty children are institutionalized in such social care homes. Most of the children enter the homes at the abandonment of their parents because of minor afflictions, such as being blind, deaf, or, perhaps mildly autistic. The conditions of the facility in the film are horrendous, but the conditions of the children are worse. The documentary gives heart-wrenching accounts of neglect and abuse, for it seems the mission of the institute simply remains to house the children until they’re old enough to make the trip to a different home, or they die. Not only are the limbs of the children gnarled like sticks from malnourishment, but most of them are never taught to talk and receive no therapy or special care for their disabilities. There are no organized activities or field trips outside, there is no one to hold the children in a loving embrace, and most the staff refuses to even make eye contact with the children. Without stimulation or education, children with the potential to live a relatively normal life, despite their disease or disability, are left to rock the day away, muttering unintelligible noises and waiting for the next spoonful of gooey porridge to shove into their mouths. Bulgaria’s Abandoned Children shows us why making a mission trip to Bulgaria is needed, for Jesus inspires His followers to love and care for little children because it is His heart.



We must not forget that, when everyone else pushed the children away in the Bible, Jesus reached out and took the children in His arms and blessed them. Today, we are Jesus’ arms, and our mission is to embrace the children others push away – to embrace children like those orphaned and abandoned in Bulgaria. James 1:27 claims this is what makes our religion real, or pure and faultless: “to look after orphans and widows in their distress.” If looking after children in need makes our faith faultless, it can never be “wrong” to make a mission trip to Bulgaria. The next step is to seek information on such a trip, and perhaps make the ministry to Bulgaria’s abandoned Children our next mission.

Donate Used Items to Charity to Help Kids in Bulgaria.

Donate used items to charity to help kids in Bulgaria. I have an excess of slightly used items sitting around my house which I would love to donate to charity to help kids in need in Bulgaria. It’s a great thought, but how does one donate used items to charity to help kids in Bulgaria? After all, shipping items to the country, just as shipping items to Ghana, is not a good option because of theft and inadequate postal services. Money is the best thing to donate to get kids the items they need because it can be safely wired, but in times like these, I don’t have extra money. My heart cries out, however, that there must be a way to donate and bless kids with the excess of things we have in this country, for I would rather give to charity than throw away my used items. As I was thinking and praying about this, God began giving me a few ideas of innovative ways to gain a return for these items go help His children. The following gives several ways to donate used items to charity to help kids in Bulgaria.


Donate used items by recycling and use the money for charity! With the recent push to “go green,” what better way to join the movement than to make the good of the environment translate into helping the poor and orphaned kids in Bulgaria? Search online for recycling centers that pay for glass or metal, and announce that you are collecting in your church and neighborhood. Also, look at sites like http://www.cash4cartridgesusa.com to donate old ink-cartridges, and http://www.yourenew.com/ to recycle electronics for cash. It doesn’t cost you anything, and it gives you that extra money you’re always wishing was around to help charities reach kids in places like Bulgaria.

Secondly, a good way to donate used items to charity to help kids in Bulgaria, through getting a return for them monetarily, is to hold a garage sale. Determine before-hand that all the proceeds you make will go towards charity, and promote your sale thus. This will draw more people to come, as well as encourage further spending. People often become willing to spend more if they know that all the cost is going to help kids in need.

Finally, get cash to give to charity to help kids in need by donating used items to places like the Goodwill. True, most second-hand stores do not give money for the things you bring in, but they will give you a receipt you can file and get a tax-rebate from. If you track the taxes that these donations saved you, and use the money you would have had to pay as an offering to help kids in Bulgaria, it’s similar to getting money for those used items to donate to charity. Also, look into high-end second hand stores that actually pay for slightly used, quality clothing. In Seattle area, there’s a place called Plato’s Closet that gives cash for brand-named clothing.

Now that you have a way to get money out of those used items, you can give the aid to the Bulgarian children Changing a Generation supports that you thought was not financially possible for you previously. With a little innovation, it’s easy to donate used items to charity to help kids in Bulgaria, and in Africa, and it doesn’t cost you anything!