Pure Joy
August 11, 2008 | 8 Comments
I set out this past April for Nairobi, Kenya. A much anticipated trip! I went there pursing a passion and returned with a confirmed calling. I lived and worked along side a wonderful group of people for ten days. I met some of the displaced women and children that had been affected by the post election violence. I talked with them. Danced with them. Smiled with them. One thing that I did not expect to witness was their pure joy. These women had it radiating from their souls. In the most devastating time they found it.
How does that happen?
We need to ask ourselves that. We here, as Mothers, have our share of trials and pain. But we have more resources than one can count. The resources on the continent of Africa are limited. In some areas they are nonexistent. I believe, we will never see the level of “poor” that they will see. That they have seen. My hope is to continue to assist with efforts to help.
The one thing that will always ring true to me, is that though they are poor in a monetary sense. They are far more rich in spirit. They have the biggest hearts and largest smiles that you will ever see. I hope we catch the spirit and help change their circumstance.
Aids, Malawi and over 500,000 orphans
August 11, 2008 | 2 Comments
Sometimes I marvel at life and the amazing way that important and life changing people and events come our way at just the right moment in time.
The other day, one of those “amazing connections” came to me in the form of an email from a doctor I had worked with many years ago on the board of the Pasadena Community Non-Violent Resource Center. Since then I have moved to North Carolina and my personal focus has expanded to helping Mothers Fighting For Others and our dear St Monica’s Orphanage in Kenya.
When I received this email I immediately forwarded it to Rocky, feeling there must be something we could do. She said….write about it on Mothers Fighting for Other!. As I was re-reading the email I realized I could never capture the essence of it and so will share the email with you all as it was written: The Children of Malawi
“As you know, Mary and I have been spending about two months each summer for the past 7 
years in Malawi, one of Africa’s poorest countries. The Malawi people are among the finest, warmest and most loving people we have ever known. Many of them have become family to us.
Poverty, malnutrition, limited medical resources and inadequate clean water dominate the lives of many of them.
When we are in Malawi we volunteer in rural clinics and hospitals. We work with rural community based projects organized by the Malawi people as they deal with the disease and hunger and death that are part of their everyday existence. Many of these efforts are supported by the Global AIDS Interfaith Alliance (GAIA) which introduced us to the needs of Malawi’s people. We also organize travel for friends from the U.S. who come to learn from and to be in solidarity with the people of Malawi. Through careful listening and respectful observation, our U.S. travelers discern how they can best serve in order to bring hope to Malawi’s orphans, to their guardians and to the sick and dying. The good news in all that is not in the unbelievably poor conditions that our Malawi friends face every day, but— that they are rising to the occasion, helping one another in the most remarkable ways. And, with the help of caring people in the U.S., resources are made available to help them tackle their problems. Individuals and congregations and non-governmental organizations are all helping in these efforts. I know of many great organizations, but I know of none that makes every dollar given accomplish as much as GAIA does, nor of any that works any more closely with the Malawi people, utilizing their leadership skills and vision and commitment to invest in lasting and sustainable changes in their communities. When I am so fresh from seeing how effectively your gifts are helping the children and their women caretakers and in helping reduce the spread of HIV/AIDS in Malawi, I cannot let the opportunity go.I must ask you once again to consider helping these people with your prayers and with your dollars. Please go to the GAIA website right now and see if you are not moved by what your gift can do: The GAIA You can give immediately on line or put a check in the mail —or even make an ongoing commitment, as some of my friends do, by having a set monthly donation authorized through using their credit card.Now—here is some other good news. And now I am not asking you for money. I am asking for your voice.
Senators Tom Daschle and Bill Frist are about to meet with the committees that write the governing agendas for the Democratic and Republican party. They are going to ask the political leaders who make up these committees to add anti-poverty planks to their platforms, making ending global poverty official party policy.
And they need our help. I just took action with the ONE Campaign and signed their petition to the platform committees. Senators Frist and Daschle will deliver our signatures and send the message that Americans want a strong commitment to ending the suffering caused by extreme poverty and global disease.You can take action too, here: http://www.one.org/platforms/?rc=platformstaf Our nation and other nations need to keep the promise we have made to the world’s poor. Let your voice be heard. Shift the use of our tax dollars away from waging war to waging peace by ending the suffering of the world’s poorest people.This is a time of hope! Join me as an active ONE member and let our voices be heard by our leaders.”Wow, we have a lot to do! I hope my sharing this letter with you will energize you to take action…whether for St. Monica’s or Malawi or helping the global effort to help the world’s poor. We CAN make a difference!
Child Slavery…Did You Get Your Chocolate Bar For Free?
July 16, 2008 | 4 Comments
I’m a recovering chocoholic. I broke my one chocolate bar a day habit while I was pregnant for my 2nd child. By a strange course of mercy, I developed a strong dislike for chocolate while carrying that baby. In fact, chocolate tasted like quinine. I call it mercy, because aside from that change in my culinary tastes, I would have gained another 30+ pounds from my continued indulgence.
While struggling to break the habit of a chocolate bar a day..(or let’s be honest…more) I became aware of how powerful an addiction to anything can be. Anything that takes away your independent will to make a decision is a form of enslavement. I was addicted to caffeine and breaking free would require the thing I craved to become a ‘bitter taste’ in my mouth.
In reality, the dark underground that swirls around the underbelly of the cocoa trade in some portions of the west African coast is also slavery…albeit a far more destructive form of human entrapment, the horrible reality of child enslavement. Of the estimated 300,000 kids working in the cocoa plantations of sub Saharan Africa, approximately 6% of those employed in the Ivory Coast are suspected to be employed through slave labor. The actual numbers range from 12,000 ~ 15,000 kids in the nation of Ivory Coast alone.
According to this compendium of articles, Ivory Coast is the world’s largest exporter of cocoa. It’s the place where the big players go to get their supplies. A 2002 report by Oxfam indicates that companies like Argill, Cadbury, Hersheys and Nestle buy their cocoa from commodities exchanges where Ivory Coast cocoa is mixed with other cocoa and sold on the world market.
In a well researched article on CNN Money by Christian Parenti entitled “Chocolate’s Bittersweet Economy” Parenti highlights the enormity of the problem in a country which supplies about 70% of the worlds cocoa. It is a complex issue which involves the role of government, world markets, big business, extreme poverty and yes…Slavery.
But, it also involves each of us…YOU & I the consumer of these products. For in the final analysis the market determines the eventual course of most economic entities. Although slavery is not legal, the practise continues to exist because in simple terms…it can. Focusing attention and bringing the spotlight to bear exposes the truth in it’s harshest terms.
A BBC report on Child Slavery points out that the problem is world wide and includes Asia, the nation of Haiti, Africa, the Middle East and in some parts of South America. It is not that parents do not love their children; in most cases they are forced to sell their children out of the desperation which comes with abject poverty.
BUT, we err if we sit back and pass judgement and merely look on with consternation. Because, the system needs an outlet. Apart from a buyer, the entire house of card collapses. The price of cocoa on the world commodities market is based largely on the price the western world is willing pay for it’s insatiable desire for the product. When farmers are not paid a fair wage for their labor and are exploited by middle men, we become a part of the problem. When we open our eyes and determine to know WHO is behind the product that we are consuming, we enter into line with the solution.
So, every consumer and dollar is a player whether we mentally acquiesce to it or not. Our delicously sweet chocolate bars may not be that cheap or sweet at all. In fact, they may be closer to the taste of quinine than any of us ever imagined. Just a thought…
Daily Chores
June 16, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Wangu and Little Joyce are sweeping the concrete in the back of the orphanage. Everyday, the ground is swept, mopped and dried. The makeshift brooms are amazing.
This Thing Called Motherhood…
June 4, 2008 | 5 Comments
It feels a little ‘unstylish’ for lack of a better word to be writing about motherhood just as the ultimate celebration of fatherhood looms front and center. But, what can I say…this is what’s on my mind.
In contemplating what motherhood has been and continues to mean in my life, I wonder whether it is most appropriately defined as a noun or a verb? Is mothering merely a biological function which allowed me to carry life within my womb and sustain it through child birth?
Or is it more aptly described in the context of mothering? As descriptive of the ongoing nourishment of life that transforms the giver and the receiver in much the same way that the physical stretching of the skin confirms the fact that something has happened within one’s body. A process which has placed it’s one peculiar branding of ownership… guaranteeing that one will never be the same.
The success of motherhood may be highly dependent on some factors which are totally outside of a woman’s control. Take for instance….where one becomes a mother. Where one becomes a mother determines many things about the success of the process. If a woman is fortunate to enter into motherhood while living in a Scandinavian country, a 2006~ 2007 report by Save the Children indicates that she has done so in the best place in the world!
The worst place to become a new mama according to the report is the sub Saharan African continent. Incidentally, the place of my birth. In a cruelly unforgiving way, grim statistics indicate that being a mom in sub Saharan Africa, may literally entail a brush with death; either within the process of pregnancy or through the miracle that is entailed when bringing forth an emerging new life.
Every minute, someone on the planet is literally putting her life on the line to become a new mom. It is a fact. Every minute in time, a woman meets her death as she struggles to bring forth life.
The chances of survival to the one year birthday are equally stark….2 Million newborns will die on the day they are born and even more before they reach their first birthday.
But, what is most striking is that 6 of the 10 Million children who die every year could easily be saved by preventing the conditions which kill them in the first place. Prevention which involves clean water, proper sanitation and vaccinations.
This does not have to be expensive. There are many wonderful organizations around the world who are doing their part to mitigate this vale of tears which shrouds the joy of motherhood in so much suffering for women and children around the world. One such organization is Save the Children, an organization dedicated to helping people in some of the world’s most difficult circumstances.
I think that the highest use and definition of the word motherhood is in life giving action. The action of sustaining, caring and loving life. The action of fighting for the rights of those who cannot yet defend themselves. The action of giving of one’s self sacrificially for the welfare of another. Motherhood is not mere physical activity, its’ highest calling is the embrace of the enduring spirit of courage, strength and grace which resides in women from every tribe, people, race and tongue. A spirit which celebrates life even in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds.
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