There’s a famous old story in Asia of a princess who chose to marry a beggar. She helped him get an education and supported him and his blind mother financially. The former beggar eventually became a famous soldier and general who saved the country in a huge battle. This woman’s unlikely marriage changed her country’s trajectory. She’s called the Peace Princess.
This Asian princess lived 1600 years ago, but we tell her story to help other women in unlikely marriages reframe their own life stories. “You could be the peace princess of your family, your village,” we say. But how? These women aren’t coming from a place of privilege and power like that first peace princess. On the contrary, they are victims of human trafficking, refugees who’ve been forced into marriages with poor farmers who don’t even speak their language. Many of these women have given up all hope for their lives. How can they become agents of change and transformation? Only through God’s redemption of their tragedy. I have witnessed him raise up ambassadors of the gospel among these women, giving them Kingdom purpose in dangerous places where other believers can’t go. This is the story of one of these women, a modern day peace princess we call Esther.
I met Esther a few years ago at a secret house church meeting. It was an illegal gathering, composed of just five refugee women and the female missionary who was teaching them about Jesus. There were many other refugee women in that Asian village, but so far only these five had responded to the invitation to learn about the Bible.
The situation these women were in was devastating. In that village and many others around the country, men needed to pay a substantial amount of money to the bride’s family in order to marry. Since this was a very poor farming village, many men couldn’t afford the bride price. This meant there was a huge demand for “cheap wives.” Hundreds of miles away, women were fleeing desperate situations in another country and entering this one in hopes of a better future. Recognizing the demand for women of marriageable age, traffickers started connecting with these vulnerable refugees, building trust with them and then tricking them into traveling to these poor areas where men were ready to purchase a “wife.”
It is estimated that there are 100,000–200,000 female refugees in this one country alone that are currently in this situation—sold into marriages that aren’t really marriages at all, but rather a form of slavery. They are treated like merchandise, just a thing to be bought and sold. In fact, it’s common for a husband to sell his “wife” back to the broker after six months or a year. “I don’t want her,” he’ll say. And she’ll be sold into a new marriage in another part of the country. There is often much abuse and violence in these forced marriages. Many women try to escape, but most are caught by local authorities and returned to the husband.
The women at this little gathering shared their personal stories with me. One of them told me she had actually been married in her home country and had two children there. She and her husband had been desperately poor, and since she had extended family in this country she decided to visit them and look for work, something both countries allowed her to do. The plan was for her to return to her husband and kids after a short time with money to meet their needs. As she was travelling toward her relatives, she met a woman who spoke her language. The woman was very kind to her: “Where do you want to go?” She showed the woman the address of her relatives. “Oh, I know that area. Let’s go together!” She was grateful for the help. But the woman was actually a broker, who led her hundreds of miles away from her family, to an area where no one spoke her language (so there would be no chance of finding her way back home), and sold her into a second marriage. She told me she’d always had strong morals and never drank alcohol, but after she was sold she drank every day for a year, screaming in her grief. When I met her she was 55 years old. It had been 20 years since she’d seen her children and they had no idea what had happened to their mother.
Every woman had that same kind of story. It broke my heart.
But there was something in every story that was also powerful and moving. Because of their situations, these women understand the power of the gospel at a deep level. For those of us in a free nation, Jesus is just “one of the options.” But for these women, there is no hope, no future, no security, no person around to help. They come from a background where no one even believes there is a God. But when the gospel is presented to them they easily open their hearts and accept Jesus with tears of joy. The gospel is truly gospel (good news) to them!
Shortly after I left Esther’s village, all missionaries were kicked out of the country, including the traveling missionary woman who’d started and led the refugees’ house church. This missionary had routinely visited their little group for two or three days at a time to teach them the Bible and encourage them. But then she was gone. The church was less than a year old and no outsiders could visit any longer. We lost all connection with Esther and her little church. Since there were no other churches in the area, we had no idea what would happen to these brand new believers.
The plight of the trafficked women continued to be heavy on my heart. I’d had a burden to pray for people in Esther’s home country and a desire to bring them the good news ever since I was a boy because my parents were from the same country. I knew I had many relatives there. Now, in addition to our prayers for Esther’s home country, my wife and I often prayed for her and the other refugee women we had met.
Because their village was so suspicious of foreigners these five women were beyond my reach, but there were many women in the same situation in other places we could help. I began partnering with local believers to rescue some of them. We rescued two kinds of people: First, there were some refugees who encountered a Christian before they encountered a trafficker. These women had the opportunity to travel with us to a safe place immediately. Second, there were all the women who had been forced into abusive marriages. Many of them were hopeless and asking for help. In both cases, someone would conduct a rescue operation and move the women to a safer location. There, they would receive care for their immediate needs and had the opportunity to participate in a three-month Bible and discipleship program. Most of these women gladly accepted Jesus as their savior during those three months of learning about the Bible.
We helped all of these rescued women apply for official refugee status in Europe or the US. One of the women, whom I’ll call Lily, was rescued and came to live with my wife and me in California. As I was getting to know Lily, I showed her photos from my time in Esther’s village. It had been a few years since our visit, but I still prayed for those women almost every day. Lily looked closely at the photo and then exclaimed, “I know them! I lived there!” Goosebumps. I couldn’t believe it.
Lily had been rescued from that same village, and she and Esther had lived just a few houses apart! Esther had been a very kind neighbor, and at one point the five women had even invited Lily to attend the little house church with them. She hadn’t had any interest in God at the time, but later accepted Jesus at the discipleship school.
When Lily was rescued, she’d had to leave her children behind in the village with their father. She missed her kids a lot, and occasionally connected with Esther through video chat to find out how they were doing. Esther saw me on the video and remembered me from my visit. I suddenly had a big “aha!” moment. I couldn’t visit Esther’s village, but I could still connect with her—online! It had never occurred to me that such a thing could even be possible.
I arranged to visit with Esther over video chat and we talked for an hour. Esther had been forced to marry a man much older than her. She’d been in that marriage for 15 years and had a 7th grade son. I gently asked if she would ever be interested in trying to escape her situation. She responded, “No, I cannot go. It would be too difficult. And if I did go, what would happen to my son without a mother? He would have a terrible life. And my husband—both of his feet were severely injured a year ago. He needs my care. And so does my elderly mother-in-law. I cannot leave for myself; I will stay here.” She had such a good heart that she wouldn’t abandon her family for her own sake.
Esther told me the house church had not met since the missionary was forced out. In that one year of gathering with the church, Esther had received Jesus and learned how to pray, sing, and worship. For the past four years she’d been trying to follow Jesus, secretly praying and worshiping on her own.
As I talked to Esther, I realized she had a great reputation in the village because of her good character. I suspected that if she began to talk about Jesus with others, they might be ready to listen. Maybe Esther would be the insider to start a movement of the gospel in her family, her network, and her village, even though she’d been brought there as a kind of slave.
So I asked her, “Do you want to share the hope you have in Jesus with other women in your village? Would you consider leading the church?” Sharing the gospel was illegal, so it would be risky. If caught, she could face imprisonment, beatings, or worse. But Esther said yes.
I began to meet with Esther weekly over video to spend time in prayer and worship with her and train her in sharing Jesus within her community. She is starting with her family and extended family, and also talks about Jesus with other refugee wives in the community when she has the opportunity. Esther’s not quite ready to form a house church, but she is taking the first steps and growing and learning a lot.
Esther has made some remarkable and surprising choices—maybe even more remarkable than a princess marrying a beggar. Not only has she decided to stay in a place where she’s been treated like a slave, but also to take on the substantial risks of sharing Jesus in a place where it’s illegal, and to share that same good news with the people who’ve mistreated her. Like the story of Joseph in the Bible, she is trusting God to bring redemption out of the tragedy in her life. “You are like the Peace Princess!” I told Esther. “Just like her, you married a poor, uneducated man. And God might use you to save your whole community!”
ABOUT THIS STORY
This story comes to us from a Novo staff person who works with several initiatives in parts of Asia that are difficult to reach and with Asians in the United States. He has a particular passion to pour into the younger generation, who he believes will become the major change agents in Asia.