Happy Mothers Day

Happy Mother’s Day.

“Mom Comment” –by definition is a statement you say that after you have said it you relies it quite possibly could be something that you mom would say.

There comes a time in every girls life that you relies that in one way or another you are becoming like your mom. It could be that we have started pointing them out more on our team or that the race has matured us and forced us into saying mom comments prematurely.

After standing under the African sunset with feet an inch deep in mud and kissing the brown forehead of a child I love, saying goodbye for the last time. After walking away and listening to Nawa penda (I love you in Swahili) yelled down the red dirt road until I could not hear it any more. I know that is a strange kind of motherly love that I now understood.

A love that looks at a child I just met for the first time and know that you truly love them.
A love that is risky because you know that 30 some odd days you will have to say            goodbye again and most likely never see their face again.
A love that wants to dig jiggers out of dirty feet.
A love that see a boy sniffing glue to get high and all you want to do is feed him and take him home. 
A love that kisses cheeks despite the dirt on them because well you believe that every kid deserves as many kisses as possible.

                                                          Melvin and  Mustafa

I know what it is like to walk down the road and have a kid hear your voice run out and jump in your arms, desperate hold your hand just because they want to be with you.

 I know a love that desperately wants that kid to know that someone loves them and God cares about them, because that is really all I have to give them.

                                              Michelle Melvin and Emily from Kenya

I know what it is like to give all the love that you have and then send them home to an alcoholic and abusive father because there is really nothing that you can do. To give them hugs and then send them home to a mother that might not have food for them. I know the pain of seeing their face when the jiggers are taken out only to hear that they got them from sleeping with the cows at night. It’s a love that forces you to pray and trust God because that is all you really have.

It’s a hard kind of love to know that you can only give so much and then you have to walk away. It’s a hard kind of love when you realize that you have left pieces of your heart in strange corners of the world. Growing pains of the heart I would say.
I have fallen in love and given out more hugs and kisses this year then I could imagine.

So to all those kids out there that hold my heart, know that I love you and I may never see you again but you are a part of me because God put love for you in my heart.