The Ship That Was Stopped

“We escaped like a bird from a trap. The trap is broken, and we are free!” — from Psalm 124

In Lagos, Ajayi was bought by Portuguese slave traders. He was kept with other boys and men in a dark room with no windows, chained together by the neck. For nearly four months they waited there.

At last, one night, they were taken out to a ship. There were 187 people packed inside it. The ship was going to sail across the ocean to the Americas, where slaves were made to work on big farms.

But on that very same evening, two British warships came and stopped the slave ship! In those days the British navy sailed up and down the coast of Africa to stop slave ships and set the people free. Their ships were called the Myrmidon and the Iphigenia. It was 7 April 1822.

Ajayi and five friends were taken onto the Myrmidon. There they saw something scary: meat with white skin hanging up, and rows of round iron balls on the deck. The boys thought the sailors had eaten the other prisoners, and that the balls were their heads! But when they looked closely, the meat was a pig, and the balls were only cannonballs. Ajayi laughed about this for the rest of his life.

The sailors were kind. They gave the boys food and clothes. After about two and a half months at sea, the ship brought them to Sierra Leone, a place where rescued people could live in freedom. The people there told them, “You are free!” And very soon, they believed it.

Jesus came to set people free, too. He said he came “to proclaim release to the captives.” Ajayi was set free from a slave ship. One day he would learn about an even greater freedom.

Dear Jesus, thank you that you came to set people free. Thank you for people who help others who are in trouble. Help me to be one of them. Amen.