Thoughts on Mother's Day

Mother’s Day is sometimes a bittersweet day for me. I love the sentiments and gifts from my children and husband, but there is also sadness when I remember my first child and my mother who are no longer with us.

This Mother’s Day brought a different kind of sadness. We arrived for the Namwianga campus church’s Sunday morning services just as Kathi Merritt pulled up with a busload of toddlers and teenage boys from the Eric’s House orphanage. I held out my arms to the little ones. Phillip, a handsome and very sober two-year-old, ran to me and let me carry him into the auditorium. We sat down behind a row of boys. One was a secondary student who is in the sponsorship program. Three others were teenagers from Eric’s House, and two of them were holding toddler boys, also from the Eric’s House. In a few minutes Meagan Hawley and Louisa Duke joined us, with Meagan holding another of the toddlers.

It dawned on me that all of the boys and toddlers around me are orphans. Not one has a biological mother still alive. I looked down at precious Phillip on my lap and mourned for the mother who cannot trace his little fingers with her own, who cannot cuddle him on her shoulder, who cannot kiss him on his shiny forehead. I looked at the handsome young men in front of me and thought of what their mothers have missed in not getting to watch their boys grow up. And I looked around me at the auditorium full of young people and wondered how many of them have no mothers. My best guess is that at least one out of four or five is motherless.

I fought back tears, overwhelmed with the sadness of knowing that so many children have no mothers. May God help us at Namwianga as we seek to care for and educate these precious orphans. May he bless those of you who so generously give to make it possible. May we never take the blessings of motherhood for granted.