I mean this is the woman that carried me for 9 months, has raised me for 22 years, watched me cross countries and lands. I can talk to about anything and can also fight with about everything and yet still loves me. If there is anyone that represent unconditional love, this woman is the epitome of it all. Yes sometimes she drives me nuts and I'm sure I drive her crazy too. Sometimes we don't see eye to eye on things, but this woman no matter how many hurtful words I have spit at her in the last 22 years of my life continues to hold me tight and love me despite of it.
She has become one of my best friends and has taught me strength and courage in ways she couldn't even imagine. She is one of the reasons I leave this place, this home, this comfort in my mother's arms to fly half-way around the world to the kids I love. Because I want people feel the warmth of my mother's hugs through me. Because I am extremely blessed with not only a mother, but two amazing parents. And most of these kids don't have any parents, let alone one. And the burden on my heart is to be a mother, a sister, an aunt, a whatever they need. To be Jesus.
God has blessed me with my amazing mother, here with me. And He has also given my mother a burden for vulnerable children, which makes our hearts that much more connected. It's amazing how God can put people directly in front of me, like my own mother, who share similar burdens.
So I appreciate my mother. Everything she has done, continues to do, and will do in the future for me. From carrying me, to bringing me into this world, to teaching me about Jesus, to listening to me, talking with me, fighting with me, encouraging my dreams. Just everything. I thank her and I thank God for blessing me with one extraordinary woman I get to call my mom.
These days make me think about those beautiful faces across the ocean. About the villages I walked through in Tanzania and how many of those families, how many of those widows, those mothers had taken in kids that were not their own. So many made huge imprints on my heart. My mama that I lived with was one of those. Esther, but she was known has Mama Caren to me. She allowed me and my ministry partner to come and live and become a part of their family. To teach me Swahili and how to cook over a coal stove. To teach me how to gut chickens and properly wash my clothes in a bucket. To letting me love on her children.
She was amazing, her heart and her love. Her unending ability to teach me things even when I didn't want to be taught. The fact that three of the six children that lived with her were not her own. Yet she took care of them, fed them, and loved them like they were. No complaining or tossing them away. But radical love, taking in these three beautiful kids that were orphaned or unwanted. It blew my mind.
It never stopped there. So many of the woman we would visit had similar stories. Even if they could hardly provide for themselves they took in these kids when no one else would. They were literally Jesus to these children. To the least of these. My heart ached with joy and sorrow. Joy for the way Jesus can be found in a a tiny village in Tanzania, but sorrow for the conditions and how hopeless they seemed. Yet they loved with a love that's beyond words. To take in a orphaned child, an unwanted child, when they barely had nothing themselves. that is love in the greatest description. Doing something for someone who can do nothing for you in return.
That is my heart. That is my burden. That is my calling. To go. To reach. To be a mother to those who have none. To be a sister an, aunt, a friend. To be Jesus. Wherever I go, whatever I do, whoever I'm with.
And though I worry constantly about these widows and these families and these children. I have an amazing Lord who is a Father to the fatherless who says in His word "I will not leave you as orphans, I will come to you." (John 14:18). And in that I find strength, in that I find peace and comfort for my worries. Because I know that even when I'm not there, and even when they feel lonely, God is covering them with His robe, holding them in His hands and loving them with His heart.
I am blessed beyond measure with a mother and a father who love me and support me in all I do. I'm also blessed with knowing that I have a God who watches over me and all those I love here and overseas. That He is calling me to be like Him. It's a hard task, but one I will spend the rest of my life doing.
Happy Mother's Day!
HIS and yours,
Cami
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