Mother's Day: Praying for Women Around the World

I'm sharing this morning at my parent's church here in Plattsville. Here's what I'm going to say. I always get worried that I'll be schmaltzy or something like that, but really all I want to do is build awareness, call people to pray, and send their friends, maybe themselves to get trained and serve the global poor.

I’m Beckie Wood. I’m a midwife. My family and I have just returned from a year in the mega city of Manila in the Philippines where we helped to establish a charity birth centre in a large slum of the city. My husband and I work with a mission organization called Mercy In Action a ministry of the Vineyard Christian Fellowship. Our mandate is to offer free quality health services with kindness and prayer to families living in poverty while training missionaries, national and international midwives and primary health medics.

On Mother’s Day we declare how important our moms are. We are so grateful for their health and their life. We know that the likelihood of any of us, or our friends and family to face death in childbirth, while becoming a mother, is so small. For this we are so grateful to God for our health and for the wealth of our country.

We also need to know that:

Every minute of every day a woman dies in childbirth. 99% of these mothers are in the developing world.

For this fact we stand in prayer for women around the world right now, that they would have someone trained to be with them in labour. Most of these maternal deaths can be prevented by having a skilled attendant present at births. Yet so many women in the third world are alone in childbirth. They can’t access care because of lack of finances, drugs, transport difficulties, lack of midwives or a distrust the services that are available.

So today, we stand in intercession for mothers globally. We pray for women everywhere who are bringing new life into this world, becoming mothers. Each of these women have a family, they have friends, just like us. We want them to live and to mother their children with love and health.

Also, if you know of any Christians interested learning how to serve the poor through health care, tell them about Mercy In Action.