Jenan Taylor
1 December 2023
Matthew Clarke and Annabella Rossini-Clarke have always believed in lifting people up and never lowering them down.
The two ordinary Christians from the Anabaptist tradition run social enterprise initiative Turning Teardrops into Joy to help make the world a better place.
They spoke to The Melbourne Anglican’s Everyday Saints podcast about their experiences, in a newly-released episode.
From aiding midwives in Ghana to orphans in South Africa, the couple’s professional and voluntary efforts have given them plenty of insight into poverty around the world.
But they were troubled to learn how so many young people in these communities were unshielded from slavery, and longed to confront the worsening global problem of human trafficking.
The couple were visiting in Fiji when their friend’s prison rehabilitation program there gifted them the idea for a dedicated anti-slavery ministry.
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Prisoners who were being visited by their fathers and had their support, especially in the final six months of their sentence, were unlikely to reoffend.
Inmates who continued to be ostracised and shamed by family and friends, in contrast, usually ended up back behind bars.
Their friend worked with the villages the prisoners came from, encouraging the sense that mercy was something that needed to be put into action.
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That conviction threw a light on how the couple might confront modern slavery.
They started their Freedom Keys project to crack open the issue and find effective ways of stamping it out.
The ministry was also the impetus for the couple’s book, Disrupting Mercy, about biblical mercy.
To probe the problem properly, the couple believe they need to be able to ask tricky questions.
It’s why they keep the project independent of funding sources and large organisations where they’d potentially be restricted by set procedures.
That can make finding partners to work with a challenge, Ms Rossini-Clarke says.
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It also means the anti-slavery ministry has not had a huge number of wins at the front line of human trafficking.
But as they share in the Everyday Saints podcast, the project isn’t about success stories at the front line of human trafficking.
Instead, it’s about applying the idea of biblical mercy to create changes in the way modern slavery is approached, and break the problem altogether, Mr Clarke says.
The couple are encouraged by the few signs of change they’ve seen.
And, they’re confident their ministry can change the world.
To hear their story on Everyday Saints, see here.
Everyday Saints is a podcast from The Melbourne Anglican which features the faith stories of those from Melbourne and beyond.
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