When I was 15 I went on a church trip to Guatemala (with many of you that read this blog!). It was an amazing experience. We all worked on different teams doing camp for the kids, construction, etc. For the most part I spent my week helping in the clinic. It was so humbling to see what these people were dealing with. Mothers brought babies in that were clearly “failure to thrive” but these moms were doing their best to provide for their children. Moms were breastfeeding babies when they had hardly a bite to eat themselves. Kids were sick with diarrhea almost permanently from drinking amoeba-filled water and parents were unable to mask their deep needs with fancy clothes or even a smile to convince us that everything was okay. At the time I wasn’t a mom yet but I could see that their maternal instincts weren’t enough to make their socio-economic situation any better or their children any healthier.  They wore despair in their countenance.  The clinic had a newly acquired ultrasound machine. Now in the US we would have fussed that it wasn’t 3D and that it didn’t even offer a visual but for these mothers the concept of hearing their babies’ heartbeat nearly knocked them off the examining table. We saw them smile and regain hope that they were a part of growing new life!

One of the mornings we heard that there was a pregnant woman coming down from the mountains nearby and that she was ready to deliver her baby.  I was so excited and certainly naive at the thought of experiencing the miracle of birth. I remember riding in the bed of a dirty beat up pickup truck down the road to the clinic.  The road was so uneven that we banged against the metal sides as we rode. While we made our way in the truck a young mother made her way down the mountain. I imagine the rocky path while in labor was far worse than our jostling ride on the mud road.

I stood back as the nurse and my friend prepped the mom for her baby’s birth. I remember the look of terror on the mother’s face like it was yesterday. It wasn’t just the anticipation of sleepless nights and the loss of being alone as a couple with her husband, it was a matter of life and death for her. I am certain she had many friends and family members who experienced births that were a far cry from a sterile hospital. While I prepped my camera and anxiously fidgeted this mom worried that something terrible might happen in childbirth. I imagine she was completely overwhelmed at the thought of taking care of another family member when resources were scrapings from the dirt floor. The birth went smoothly and soon the mother and father were cuddling their sweet boy, beaming with pride and relieved with his health. And for a couple of days they remained there in the clean clinic with cheerful turquoise walls, but after those days they had to hike back up to their mountain hut and carry on with life as they knew it.  She didn’t dream of giving her cupcakes with sprinkles on his first birthday or a shiny new tricycle; I imagine she hoped to be able to feed her boy and help him grow into a strong young man. Isn’t that what we all hope?

Nearly 15 years later I find myself with 2 little boys of my own and living in Switzerland. I have experienced miscarriage, having a sick baby and many a medical procedure but all with the best medical care and resources at my fingertips.  Sometimes living in Switzerland I fail to see any need. It’s clear that providing meals and clean clothes here is not the primary struggle but I bet there are moms that struggle with Postpartum depression, have babies that don’t breastfeed like they had hoped and struggle with sick children that they can’t make well. Moms around the globe have the same heart to have healthy, happy children. I am reminded of the quote from Ravi Zacharias’s book “Recapture the Wonder”, “To think that he was once a baby, held in the arms of his mother while she dreamed great dreams for him”. What would it look like for moms around the globe to have their dreams become a reality instead of losing their little ones to preventable diseases?  Zacharias goes on to write, “A baby throbbing with life is embodied promise. The birth day gives birth to more than a life-it gives birth to new hopes”.

ABC news has launched a Million Moms Challenge in conjunction with the United Nations Foundation. World Moms Blog Bloggers are getting involved to spread the word.  They are looking to raise awareness for mother’s and children’s health around the world. It is super easy to sign their petition and for the first 100,000 that that sign up Johnson & Johnson will donate $1. This money will be used to provide for the needs of mothers and children to give them things like vaccines. (The vaccines I cringe about but save my children’s lives!)  I often feel like there isn’t much I can do…this seems like a simple way to help! Just click here to sign the petition and read more about the situations of mothers and children around the globe.