Day 1

This picture is from yesterday afternoon right before we left from Jackson. We are now in Frankfurt, Germany and the first leg of our trip is over....a great big woohoo! Our next connecting flight leaves for Johannesburg, South Africa this afternoon and then we have to hop one more flight to Durban and should get to Sweetwater sometime on Tuesday...I'm so confused by the time difference :) All I know is that I am ready to be there!

Yesterday was so emotional for me. There is something very unsettling about being so far away from my children. We were out at Jason's parents for the wedding so my mom and sister came out there to pick up the kids. Before we left, all the women in the family migrated to the kitchen and we had a pitiful crying fest. There is something so fragile about a mother's heart...how we are called to love our children so deeply but yet hold on to them loosely...I find this almost impossible. After watching my mother-in-love let go of her youngest son this weekend and then my added emotions of being separated from my own children, it solidifies how precious our time is together and how quickly our lives go by...how precious and fragile life is and how we are not guaranteed even our next breath. I wish I lived day to day in that realization...savoring every last second as if it might be the last and not taking life for granted...because in reality I don't know how many breaths I have or the ones I love have left.

In thinking about this this last week, the Lord brought something else to my mind. God has already been drawing my heart to the orphan, but He has used this past week to draw my heart to the mothers of those children. I'm not trying to be morbid, but in leaving my kids I was comforted by the fact that if something did happen to myself and Jason then my children would be surrounded by people that loved them and I knew would take care of them. I cannot imagine the anguish and despair of the mothers that for whatever reason can no longer take care of their children. I think about the mother dying of AIDS that doesn't just have to face the reality of death but also the reality of leaving her children with no one to care for them. I think about the mother that has children that are literally starving and she lives in such poverty that she is helpless to meet even their basic needs. I recently read a story that has haunted me. It was of a mother in Uganda that brews and sells alcohol to be able to buy food to support her family. When no one buys her alcohol she is forced to bring the mash home and feed it to her children. She literally makes her children drunk to curb their hunger pains. My mind can barely fathom such desperation. I wonder why I was born into such privilege and why I so selfishly take my life and the things I've been given for granted when so many other people literally have nothing. I don't have an answer...But I am thankful for the opportunity that I have been given to go and love on some of these children that no longer have a mother. In some small way, I feel like in wrapping that child in my arms their mothers will be honored and I can do some small part to wrong such an injustice.