Reading St.Josephine Bakhita's story made me want 2 cry,
at the time when most of us had a pretty decent childhood, she spent hers as a slave.
Around 7 years old she was kidnapped by arabs slave traders (bastards)and they treated her so badly that it breaks my heart to even talk about it ...
of course as it was tradition at the time she was sold to various people during several years..
One of them an in particular treated her very poorly,
he had the never to mark heas his property by cutting her skin at various places of her body w/knive...and it's not over ..in the deep cuts they would put a bit of white flour, sand ...come on ..how mean...St Josephine has in total over 50 marks like this on her body (sometimes the tests that some of us have 2 go through in life are ...chetetetetete..very hard) I mean I don't know how she survived this....
Anyways...afterwards she got to know a bit of more of peace when she was bought by a kind Italian man , through him she met her final "master"(hate that word but ...)Augusto Michieli w/whom she moved to Italy and ended up helping raise his daughter Mimina.
In venice while the 2 of of them were staying w /nuns called the Canossian Sisters, Josephine found an inner peace that she never experienced before.Despite the fact that she was FREE, she decided to stay with the nuns when Mimina's parents came to get them.
She took the Christian name Gussipina Margarita (of course italian) she's remenbered as a hard worker within the sisterhood, but what people remenber mostly about her is that when she was the door holder she also touched people w/her smile, her kindness mostly toward children..
You know how like in life you meet some good hearted people who jsut touch your soul by a smile or a word, well she was one of those people.
Little by little she gained a reputation within her community and when she was encouraged by the sisters to writte her autobiograpy she became 1 peace figure all throughout Italy.
She's the first Sudanese, African woman to be named a Saint (that process is called canonization)after her death.
It's said that shorthy before her death ,memories of the time when she was a slave came back to her through hallucinations...however she died in peace w/these words
"Notre Dame, Notre Dame"
We Shall Always Remenber you Saint Josephine Bakhita!
Eyee Wayeee:)
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