Mother's Day ...

 

It's Mother's Day and I'm teasing my youngest as he excitedly holds out an envelope for me to open. 

 

"What's it say Mom?!"  he asks and I pretend like I can't read it ...

"To Mom, love Jayden?" I ask ...

"No try again!", he says.  "To Mom, love Maea?"  I question.

I run through all the kids' names and finally say ... "I'm not sure what it says."

He snort laughs and says, "It says Wesley!" as pleased as can be. 

I read his note out loud and come to the last line. 

I pause for effect, his eyes on my face, and I make a frowny face and say "How come you called me "Smort", that's not very nice."  And he giggles ...

 

Then he hands me one more envelope and I unveil the necklace he made at school (Thank you Mrs. Sanderson!) and proudly clasp it around my neck.

 

 

We finish lunch and off the kids go, tummies full, without a care in the world, to play with friends and do the carefree things kids do on a sunny day ...

 

I take care of a few emails, catching up on questions from sponsor families, looking through photos to find a picture of a specific child for a new sponsor family ...

 

And my eyes pause on a photo and I think of these moms in Ethiopia ...

 

The difficult choices they have had to make.

 

The fear, gnawing at their hearts like the hunger gnawing in their bellies.

 

Some who have had to make the most difficult of choices ... to give up a child, choosing life for them by giving them up.

 

And others who have watched a child waste away from an illness that could have been cured by a basic antibiotic ...

 

or from malnutrition that has wasted their bodies ...

 

Sometimes when we meet the moms of the kids who attend Kind Hearts or Trees of Glory CarePoints, they weep openly as they recount their past fears.  Babies withering away, single moms alone in the world, no hope for their future and the future of their precious kids.

 

They want what all moms want ... healthy kids full of hope.  Opportunities for a better life.  A good education.  A care-free childhood without fear, without hunger, without hopelessness ...

 

And because so many moms and dads here have chosen to come alongside moms and dads there ... the kids at Kind Hearts and Trees of Glory CarePoints in Ethiopia,

 

all four hundred of them ...

 

... can finish lunch and off the kids go, tummies full, without a care in the world, to play with friends and do the carefree things kids do on a sunny day ...

 

and these moms smile with confidence because they have hope for their children's future.