I should preface this post by saying that I am not a mother.

I’m simply in a stage of life where baby showers outnumber bridal showers – at an almost frightening pace. Last Sunday I congratulated many friends on their first mother’s day. I couldn’t help but smile at the little children so proud to be clutching their mother’s hand on their way to church.

And yet all that sweetness made me wonder:  what is motherhood like for a woman living in extreme poverty?

Every day I read about the difficult choices women in poverty are forced to make. Compared to how I live in America, their choices are stark. Hunger is persistent, malnourishment so consistent, and yet a mother must work, must find a way to provide. Minor ailments can be debilitating, and even the smallest debt crushing.

Last year, Mission of Mercy asked for financial gifts for the Children’s Crisis Fund, which is used to offset the cost of necessary and sometimes emergency treatment on behalf of children in our programs. One beneficiary of the CCF last year was a Bangladeshi boy named Shohidul, who bitten by a rabid dog and quickly developed a high fever.

Shohidul’s mother took him to the local hospital for treatment, but she could not afford the vaccine Shohidul needed to survive. Faced with such urgency, Shohidul’s mother took out a loan from her fellow villagers to pay the fee.

When our staff in Bangladesh appealed for help from our Children’s Crisis Fund, they reported that Shohidul’s parents earned such a meager wage that they could not repay the large sum.

The total amount needed to repay the loan was $44 dollars. Did you gasp at the total? I know I did.

How could such a small amount be so burdensome? What must Shohidul’s mother feel when she looks at her son, grateful that he survived, but wondering if the debt could ever be repaid. Without the grace available in the Children’s Crisis Fund, young Shohidul would likely have dropped out of school to help work off that debt, a necessary choice that would have repercussions long into his future.

Still, many women shoulder similar burdens every day; with their family’s average income hovering around $1 a day, they find a way to pay rent, put food on the table, and send a child to school.
The burdens may be tremendous, but the motivation is the same: the power of a mother’s love and her desire for a better life for her child cannot be calculated. She will make a choice with a terrible cost to herself if it means her child has a chance.

I think that’s why I love the image at the beginning of this post so much. Too often I focus on the challenges these children and their mothers face, and that influences my perspective. Too often I forget the depth of a mother’s love is stronger than the worst forms of poverty. Too often I overlook the daily sacrifices made by the parents of children in our programs.

Extreme poverty may force a parent to make a choice we don’t understand, such as leaving her child with a relative or neighbor so she can search for work elsewhere. Whatever the outcome, in most cases it is safe to assume that her motivation was to provide for her child in a better way.

I know that yesterday we encouraged you to say a prayer for your sponsored child’s mother. I know that Sovanna, my sponsored child in Cambodia, asked me to pray that her mother would come to know Christ, and I will pray for that right now. I’ll also lift up Munni’s mother in Bangladesh, that she would feel encouraged and that she will see Jesus’ love for her daughter and experience it herself.

How do you pray for your sponsored child’s parents? Has your child shared a parent-specific prayer request? Do you know if your child or your child's parents pray for you?