COTONOU, Benin (Mennonite Mission Network) – Exaucée Toffa grew up in a well-developed tradition of spiritual prophesy. So when God used dreams to tell her to leave the security of her job as a midwife at Bethesda Hospital, she obeyed – eventually.
Since 2008, Toffa has ministered to minors behind bars in Benin. In that time, she estimates that she has helped about 700 youth get out of prison and into apprenticeships or school.
Every morning, she prays that God will provide for the needs she will encounter that day.
Helped to launch health ministry
Toffa has dedicated her life to alleviating human need. From 1974-1989, Benin was a Marxist state with socialized medical care. In the chaos of transitioning to a democratic government in 1990, health services were interrupted. Only the wealthy were able to pay private doctors’ fees. So Mennonite Mission Network joined 30 denominations in Benin to provide health care through Bethesda Hospital for people who couldn’t afford it otherwise.
The health care center began small, in a few rooms of a rented house, with dedicated Christian personnel, like Toffa, who volunteered their time. Over the past 24 years, Bethesda has grown into a multi-building complex with a reputation as one of the best hospitals in the nation.
Initially, consultations and prescriptions at Bethesda cost 30 cents. Although prices have increased slightly over the years, they still remain affordable to most families.
Toffa contributed to the sacrificial giving, hard work, integrity, and Christian love that produced this growth. But after 18 years, God called Toffa to a new leap of faith.
Gift of spiritual prophesy and dreams
Hearing God speak was nothing new for Toffa. In her youth, she attended an African-Initiated Church called The Eternal Sacred Order of the Cherubim and Seraphim. She became a visionary in the church and channeled God’s messages to members of the congregation.
During her studies at Institut Biblique du Bénin (Benin Bible Institute) – another institution created through partnership between Mission Network and the churches of Benin – Toffa encountered Jesus in a new way.
In 1996, Toffa left the Cherubim and Seraphim Church and joined a church that placed more emphasis on Jesus’ teaching and less on an Old Testament understanding of the relationship between God and people.
Twelve years later, Toffa began having a recurring dream. She would find herself in a vast open space with a crowd of teenage boys who were calling her “Mama.”
She didn’t understand what it all meant. By day, she would push dreams from her mind. Then, one night, things changed. Toffa was in the same place with the boys, but all she could see were their backs. They were walking away from her without saying a word.
Deeply troubled, Toffa could no longer ignore the dream. In April 2008, she went to see a Christian psychologist, who told her that she was resisting God’s call to a new ministry.
Through prayer, Toffa began to understand that God was calling her to evangelism in Benin’s prisons. A month later, she handed in her resignation as a midwife at Bethesda Hospital.
Holistic ministry
After working with a prison ministry organization for three years, Toffa wrote a proposal for her own nonprofit organization, Jette le Filet (Cast the Net), in 2011. Although it can normally take up to 10 years for the government to finalize paperwork for nonprofit organizations, Toffa had her approval documents within 10 days.
Benin’s 10 prisons offer little to inmates, but Toffa, as president of Jette le Filet, tries to provide for all aspects of young people’s needs – their spiritual well-being, food, clothing, health, and education.
Families can bring food and clothing, but the reason many of the youth are in prison is because they lack family support. Also, there is no guarantee that provisions will get to the intended prisoner.
Some of the most appreciated aspects of Toffa’s ministry are the three- to four-day seminars that include Bible studies, life skills, and literacy classes. Certain prison officials even send their own children.
Seminar participants make meals together, learning to cooperate and to cook nutritious food at the same time. They are given a medical check-up, and provided with medicine if needed.
At the end of a seminar, Jette le Filet offers a meal to the prison guards and administrators to thank them for their cooperation and to assure smooth collaboration in the future.
The young prisoners are also taught skills – how to create macramé shoes and shopping bags, or knit hats and blouses. Materials cost about a dollar and the finished product is sold for $2.50. These earnings help the prisoners pay for food.
“I see so much suffering,” Toffa said. “Sometimes I come home crying when I don’t have the means to help people in such desperate need.”
Funded by faith
The income for all these programs comes through prayer and people responding to God’s nudging.
Pascal Agossou is a businessman, who was impressed with Toffa’s ministry. He was attending a meeting in Canada when God awoke him one night and told him to be Toffa’s first financial partner.
Jette le Filet’s vice president, Alan Hougnon, operates an agency that cleans office buildings. He gives generously of his income and uses his car for trips to prisons in the northern part of the country.
The family of a national government minister pays Toffa’s monthly rent.
Rehabilitation after prison
Jette le Filet serves as an intermediary between offenders, their parents, and judges.
When prisoners are freed, Toffa works to find a place for them in a rehabilitation center. In the past six years, she has helped about 700 children get out of prison and reintegrate into society – 400 of them in apprenticeships and another 100 in school or working in family businesses or farms. About 200 of the released young people have returned to prison cells.
“This makes me so sad,” Toffa said. “Poverty and the problems in their lives devour [the young people] so easily.”
Toffa said that finding rehabilitation placements for the young people when they are released from prison is her biggest problem. She dreams, and this is a wide-awake-brick-and-calculations dream, of building her own rehabilitation center that will provide apprenticeships with Christian businesspeople who will mentor the young people as well as teach them a trade.
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For immediate release
Mennonite Mission Network, the mission agency of Mennonite Church USA, leads, mobilizes and equips the church to participate in holistic witness to Jesus Christ in a broken world. Media may contact news@mennonitemission.net.
