Welcome to Breakpoint, a daily look at an ever-changing culture through the lens of unchanging

truth for the Colson Center on John Stone Street.

Josephine Biquita died on this day in 1947.

She was a remarkable believer who reveled in the love of God and lived her life and service

to him despite years in which she suffered under abusive slavery.

Born around the year 1869 in a troubled region in Sudan, she was kidnapped by Arab slave

traders while still a child in about 1877.

This began herrific, 12-year ordeal as a slave.

Not only did her captors forcibly convert her to Islam, they also forcibly marched her

600 miles to the city of El Obeyed.

She was so traumatized by the kidnapping she forgot her own name.

Biquita was in fact the name given to her by her slavers.

It means lucky.

During the march, Biquita was bought and sold twice.

In other words, she was sold a third time to a wealthy Arab merchant who assigned her

as a maid to his two daughters.

For the most part, they liked her and treated her pretty well.

At one part, when she accidentally broke a vase, the merchant's son beat her so badly

she couldn't leave her bed for days.

Biquita was then sold to a Turkish general tasked with serving his mother-in-law and wife.

Both treated Biquita with extreme cruelty.

They whipped her daily, scarred her body with deep razor lines and even rubbed salt into

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