A Mothers Love

Naewa made her way down to the river to fill the water containers. She hopes she will make it back before the rain starts again. It is the long rainy season in Uganda, the the trip takes about an hour each way and being 7 months pregnant and wearing her 10 month old on her back was not making the task any easier. As she was walking she thought over the events of the day. Her neighbors small child had died from typhoid earlier in the morning. She often wondered if one of her children would also die.

 Naewa arrived at the river, she set down the containers and swung the baby around to the front so that she could nurse. It was better to take care of the baby now than to have to stop on the way back. While nursing she feels the contractions again, she knows that will not be able to nurse much longer or it will make the new child come to soon.

Naewa finishes taking care of the baby and swings the child back on to her back. She makes her way to the water and fills the containers. The trip back will be slower because the water is heavy. Naewa often wishes that her husband could come and get the water, but he has to tend their small farm so that they have enough to sell and also to eat. When the children are older they will be able to help her with getting water and also help tend the few animals they own.

 On the way back to her small mud hut she wonders if she will be able to get one of the village women to come and help her when it time for the baby to come. The nearest medical help is 3 km away from their village, which is a long way to walk when you are in labor.

 Naewa is finally home after the long walk from the river. She starts a fire outside the hut and starts to prepare her family's evening meal which consists of tilapia (fish) and ugali (a stiff maize porridge) and maybe some matoke (a cooked plantain/banana mash). She also has to boil the water that she just got from the river so that her family will stay well.

As Naewa gets ready for bed in the evening she feels the new child kicking. She already loves this small baby growing inside her as much as her other little one. She wants to feel that there is hope for her small family to be healthy and to earn enough to be able to survive. She hopes that there will be help from somewhere soon.

 Today is Mothers Day, lets celebrate and support mothers who are living in poverty, through ongoing support of a Compassion Child Survival Program or by making a one time donation. The Child Survival Program helps save the lives of babies and mothers in poverty by utilizing local churches to assist mothers of at-risk infants and toddlers. Mothers can give their children a fighting chance for healthy development with the supplies and training provided by the donations to this program. Will you help a Mother like Naewa have some hope for the future?

Matty the Mosquito

Poverty is hopeless and depressing. 

I’m Matty the Mosquito an agent of poverty—in the preventable disease division. 

I’m effective too. 

Every 30 seconds a child dies from malaria, and I get the assist.

 It’s enough to make a caring, God-fearing soul see red.

But who cares? Red is just a color, like the color of a blood cocktail with 50 thousand plasmodia, a genus of protozoa, several species of which cause malaria, transmitted to humans by the bite of an infected Anopheles mosquito,

swimming in a drop the size of the period at the end of this sentence.

Image courtesy of Compassion International

Fifty thousand is overkill when it only takes one determined 

plasmodia to do what needs to be done.

I look for people that are not protected from me so that I can suck their blood and leave them with my very own present: sickness and death.

Half of the world’s population, 3.3 billion people, is at risk of malaria.  It kills approximately 655,000 children per year; many of who are under the age of 5 and most of who live in sub-Saharan Africa.  You can help thwart my efforts to spread malaria! 

Today is World Malaria Day 2013.

 Lets do something in recognition of World Malaria Day, head on over to  Compassion Internationals's Malaria Intervention  Page and make a donation.

Donations to this fund:

• provide households at risk with treated mosquito nets
• educate family members on malaria prevention
• treat children suffering from malaria, chagas disease and dengue fever

This fund was established by Compassion because it is one of the many ways we are able to release children from poverty in Jesus' name.  A healthy child can go to school. A healthy child can learn and play and develop. A healthy child can walk to the nearby church and hear the message of Christ.

Will you also sponsor a Child? Click  to read Our Compassion story.

Times are uncertain

Times are uncertain....there are rumors of war......earthquakes.... the economy is fragile... it seems our government has let us down.......  Where do we turn? To God of course!  His Word says: But, as it is written, "What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him"-- these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.
(1 Corinthians 2:9-10 ESV)  No matter our circumstance He is there. No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:37-39 ESV).  He loves us so much. He has our best interests at heart. We can trust Him! But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. (2 Corinthians 4:7-10 ESV) I am so encouraged that King Jesus is on the throne and He is Sovereign over all things. Amen!