Ever attend a conference that was specifically designed to fill you with an outpouring of God’s love?  Last week, four members of the Women of Vision team attended the Love Does Stuff 2013 Conference organized by Bob Goff. It was a gathering  of “a community of friends to simply talk about who we are and what we’d like to do in the world.”

Cindy Breilh at the Love Does conference, May 17, 2013 in Tacoma, WA.
Photo: Women of Vision/World Vision

As one of the keynote speakers, Cindy Breilh shared her vision of a world with gender equity, asking “Where do we as the church fit in to this dialogue around gender?” Each of the speakers spoke about what love does in the world – here are some of those inspirational messages we heard.

Bob Goff, Attorney and conference organizer
“I’m emotionally incontinent – I leak Jesus!”

Cindy Breilh, Women of Vision National Director
“How can we be a part of removing the blindness of the world?”

Don Miller, Author, Blue Like Jazz
“As Christians we should be asking ourselves, who are we?  What do we want?  What’s our next step?  I’m willing to be wrong and willing to fail.”

Joshua Dubois, longtime spiritual advisor to President Obama
“I want the love of those who know me the best.”

John Cotton Richmond, Attorney, pioneer of International Justice Missions slavery work in India
“God is not a vending machine where we insert our blessing of obedience expecting to take a token of choices.”

Celine in her shop.
Photo: World Vision

This month our country of focus is Rwanda, where World Vision’s Strong Women, Strong World initiative is assisting women, particularly those impacted by conflict, AIDs and HIV, with vocational and business training. The following story was contributed by Charles Rwomushana.

While access to education is considered by most people as one of the ways to alleviate poverty and the door that opens up many dreams, often financial constraints hamper those dreams in poor families such as Celine Kanzayire’s. Celine dreamed of becoming a lawyer until she was forced to drop out of school due to lack of sufficient resources.

Shortly after her marriage, Celine decided to overcome poverty by starting a microenterprise, and she started a market in 2007, in her home town of Kabuga, Rwanda. Celine’s business, like many others in her town, struggled to establish itself. “I started my business with very small capital and things were difficult,” she said. However, when she learned of Vision Finance Company – a microfinance institution of World Vision Rwanda in her town in 2009, her hope was rekindled.

“When Vision Finance Company came, I decided to go there and apply for a loan, which they gave me and I expanded my business.” She received a loan of US$ 1,000 which nearly tripled her business capital. With the new capital, she expanded her business and added new products, including selling phone cards for two telecom companies. Today Celine’s business is not only helping the family to survive, but also gain new hope and dreams. She is able to contribute to the family’s medical insurance and send her 3 children (two sons and a daughter aged 13, 10 and 9 respectively) to school. “The profit from my business helps me to buy food, medical services, and pay school fees for my children.”

Celine’s estimates her monthly profit at US$ 200, and with the business continuing to grow she sees her dream of becoming a lawyer reviving soon. “I dropped out of school with a dream to become a lawyer, so I am currently saving money to be able to resume my studies and keep my business running at the same time.”

In Cambodia, Salay is 13 years old. He works hard in the brick factory to help his family repay a debt to the brick factory owner. He is also an outstanding student.
Photo: ©2011 Vichheka Sok/World Vision

I have 26 slaves working for me. At least that’s what a website is telling me. The website, slaveryfootprint.org doesn’t tell me who picked the cotton of the sweater I wore today; who mined the minerals to make my cellphone; or who picked the grapes that I ate for lunch. I certainly don’t know the conditions they worked in. For the last several weeks, I have been reflecting on this. On April 24^th, I, like many Americans, was once again confronted with the uncomfortable reality that my purchases have consequences—both good and bad. After the tragedy in Bangladesh many wondered, “How do my shopping choices impact others? And how can we as consumers influence employers to pay a fair wage, provide safe work conditions, and ensure there is no exploitation or slavery in supply chains?”

In the days and weeks after the tragedy, many asked “what went wrong?” and “how should the fashion industry respond to prevent disaster in the future?” These are important discussions. But in the midst of the shock, anger, and calls for action, one story captured my attention. On May 5^th, the New York Times told the story of Shaheena, a 32 year-old, single mother who worked in a factory in the Rana Plaza. She was trapped in the rubble for two days before workers found and launched a 20 hour, ultimately failed, attempt to rescue her. “For women like Shaheena, the garment industry has been a source of empowerment as well as exploitation. Before, few rural women worked outside the fields…Now the industry has given many women a first step out of rural distress, with some becoming outspoken labor leaders or managers in their factories. But more often, a factory job has meant a daily struggle to subsist on low wages consumed by rising rents and living expenses.” Shaheena’s story reminds me that there are no easy answers to these questions. But we also can’t throw up our hands amid feelings of helplessness and declare it impossible to do anything positive. Together we can make an impact through engaging companies, supporting and empowering communities, and making informed decisions with our wallets.

Verité is a Massachusetts based non-profit that works to ensure that people around the world work under safe, fair, and legal conditions. This includes working with companies, like Apple, to assess their supply chains for labor exploitation and slavery and create policies that lead to better conditions for workers. In 2007, Verité convened the International Cocoa Verification Board to ensure that data collected on child labor and forced labor in West Africa’s cocoa industry was independently verified and accurate. This has led to greater cooperation between governments, the cocoa industry, and non-profits to address child labor and forced labor in cocoa production.  Verité also conducts research on forced labor in commodities like shrimp, cotton, fish, and rice. If you’re interested in learning more, you can explore their Forced Labor Commodity Atlas.

Verité, along with World Vision, is a part of the Alliance to End Slavery and Trafficking (ATEST), a diverse coalition of U.S.-based human rights organizations working to end modern-day slavery and human trafficking in the United States and around the world. ATEST works together to advocate for lasting solutions to prevent labor and sex trafficking, hold perpetrators accountable, ensure justice for victims and empower survivors with tools for recovery. The members of ATEST work to combat modern-day slavery domestically and internationally, they work with children, men, and women who are victims of sex and labor trafficking. ATEST member organizations include Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), Coalition to Abolish Slavery & Trafficking (CAST), End Child Prostitution and Trafficking – USA (ECPAT-USA), Free the Slaves, International Justice Mission (IJM), Not For Sale Campaign, Polaris Project, Safe Horizon, Solidarity Center, Verité, Vital Voices Global Partnership, and World Vision. This coalition allows members to leverage each other’s expertise and speak with one strong voice to create lasting solutions in U.S. policies at the national and state levels and in corporate and government supply chains to ensure they are free from exploitation and slavery.

As consumers, we also have the power to use our voices and our wallets to create lasting solutions and change. You may not have extensive knowledge of the inner workings of the garment industry or know how agricultural products get from the fields to your supermarket, but by working with others, we can all make a bigger impact. That’s the beauty and importance of bringing people together from different backgrounds and talents with a shared vision of world without exploitation and slavery. Not for Sale Campaign, another ATEST member, created a useful mobile app and website called Free2Work that grades companies based on their efforts to address child labor and forced labor in their supply chain. We can’t throw up our hands and say changing markets or changing “the system” is too hard, or worse, impossible. We are called to wrestle with tough questions and work together to transform ourselves, communities, and the world. We’ve already seen how raising our voices in unison can impact the U.S. fight against slavery. How can we impact the market place together? Let’s start finding out.

God calls us to proclaim good news to the poor, bind up the brokenhearted, and proclaim freedom for the captives. Why have many of us lost our sense of urgency in this? How do we get it back?

In Unfinished, Rich walks us through the meaning of life (yes, that’s ambitious!), the history of what God has done to date (again, ambitious), the obstacles that stand in our way (aka the lies we buy into), and the on-ramps (as unique as you and I) to the greatest adventure of our lives.

Unfinished invites us out of the shadows and into the life that is truly life.

Sandy Grubb joined the Columbia-Willamette Chapter of Women of Vision in 1999. She has held a leadership role with them for 14 years and traveled on nine vision trips. In January 2013 she began serving on the Board of World Vision, U.S. Sandy lives in Vancouver, WA. She and her husband Jeff have three sons and one daughter-in-law.

And yes, these prosthetics do change people’s lives – legs help amputees run marathons, arms are made both functional and to look “natural” and facial features are made (like ears and noses) to complete a face that either was born with a deformity or had parts of it lost for some reason. That is truly amazing! No doubt about it. However, in reading about Aesha Mohammadzai, I was reminded of the other part of the story – the “before the prosthetic” part, the “wait, that was never supposed to happen” part, the WHY she needs nose and ear prosthetics.

Aesha Mohammadzai’s worth wasn’t taken from her the day her Taliban husband and in-laws hacked off her nose and ears four years ago. Her worth was taken from her since the day she was born. In a culture where women are commonly seen as property and girls are often oppressed and cast off at birth, her worth was determined by how much she was bought for in marriage at age 14. Furthermore, her years of abuse, being beaten like a dog, she was told how much she was worth when she dared to escape – resulting in her sentence of face disfiguration by the Taliban. Her face shocked the nation as a profile of Taliban control on Time Magazine.

It has been four years of emotional and physical turmoil ever since, and fortunately, some slow healing. Aesha’s prosthetic nose is almost complete. Seven surgeries are required to rebuild her nose, as new skin is growing along with a new life. Ear operations will begin after that. A day will come when people who don’t know her, won’t know anything ever happened to her. That is truly AMAZING. How wonderful that is… but let us never forget…

We can’t just let the beauty of women be cut off, piece by piece! It starts by what we allow to happen in their souls and everyday lives: what worth is demonstrated in how they are treated, what opportunities they have, what violence or oppression they are expected to put up with. I am in awe of this woman’s courage and beauty. Her voice has risen up out of this tragedy from a culture where she could die for it.

Most of us have a voice, without fear of death of mutilation. But, have we used it? Let us echo the hopes of Strong Women, Strong World as we support “sustainable change in some of the most difficult places in the world to be a girl or a woman.”

Let us hope we can help change it for the next girl, for her face and heart is worth it.

by Anna Goodworth, WOV Hartford, CT

Jacqueline with her children.
Photo: ©2009 Jon Warren/World Vision

This month our country of focus is Rwanda, where World Vision’s Strong Women, Strong World initiative is assisting women, particularly those impacted by conflict, AIDs and HIV, with vocational and business training. The following story was contributed by Kari Costanza.

World Vision sponsorship changes lives as children are provided with educational opportunities, better health and nutrition, and access to clean water. But sometimes parents need an extra boost to provide for their children. In Rwanda and many countries around the world, microfinance is the answer.

Like millions in Rwanda, Jacqueline Makamusoni’s life fell apart in April 1994. Jacqueline was living in Kigali, Rwanda’s capital, where her husband worked as a nurse. The couple had 3 children, a girl and two boys, all under 5. They were happy.

The events of April changed all that. On April 6, 1994, the plane carrying the Rwandan president was shot down over Kigali. That night, the killings began—an incomprehensible slaughter of men, women and children. In 100 days, nearly a million people, primarily Tutsis and moderate Hutus, were hacked to death—machetes the weapon of choice.

Jacqueline’s husband was one of those people. She tells the story of his death with no details.

“My husband had gone to work in the hospital. When chaos started up,” she says, “he died.”

Jacqueline gathered her three children and went back to her home—Nyaruguru in southern Rwanda.

“When I came back, many houses were down. They were destroyed. Some people had died,” she says.

“I went to live at my father’s house. It was very small. We decided to come and look for somewhere to stay. We actually went to sleep at people’s houses.”

Schools were destroyed. Water systems wrecked. Health care was practically non-existent. And worst of all, the fabric of neighborhood had been ripped to shreds.

“When I came back here, people could not trust each other,” says Jacqueline. “Those who had lost people wondered if you had any hand in this. One would go this way and the other went that way. Those who fled feared to come back here. It wasn’t really harmonious.”

Jacqueline’s family began to disintegrate.

“My older children dropped out of school,” she says. “They became street children. We had nothing. That’s when I met World Vision [in 1999] and my oldest girl was sponsored.”

Things began to change for the better. “They had destroyed the schools and World Vision was constructing them,” says Jacqueline. Her children were given educational materials and went back into the classroom.

“From World Vision we got food,” she says, “and had our basic needs met. They built us a house. We also got cows and a goat.”

Jacqueline began to put her life back together, remarrying and having twins, Yve and Yvette, now 10.

And then the bottom dropped out. Again.

Jacqueline’s husband, a soldier, was sent to fight in Congo. “He went in a group of soldiers,” she says, “and he never came back.” When asked how she coped—a widow again because of war, she smiles ruefully.

“It’s really God, it’s not me who raised the children,” she says.

Her second husband killed in conflict, Jacqueline now had responsibility for 5 children—three from her first marriage—the twins from her second. She needed a way to become the breadwinner for her children. She had hopes and dreams for them that could not be realized without income.

Sponsorship had helped bring the family back to life. The children were in school. They had a house. They had clean water. But they needed income.

Through World Vision’s microfinance program called Vision Fund, Jacqueline was able to provide her children with all they needed.

“Vision Fund lent us money to start a small restaurant,” she says. Us was Jacqueline and two other widows. In 2006, they started with a small loan of $250 split three ways.

The ladies put their heads together, rolled up their sleeves, and went to work. It didn’t take long for their restaurant to become the best restaurant in town—serving 50 customers a day. The ladies branched out—beginning to cater events in Nyaraguru—growing their business and taking on even more loans. Their children were able to go back to school. Jacqueline’s oldest children—to college.

Life began to return to normal as Jacqueline was able to dream again for her children’s futures. It is only fitting that she would name the restaurant Ituze, A Place of Peace.

“Because of the loan my children have food to eat,” she says. “They have clothes. They go to school. Our community is really happy. They love the restaurant. We serve good meat and chips. We can make our own mayonnaise. If there are any guests, any big person who comes to this area, they have somewhere to take the person.

“And how have things changed for me? I have a good life.”

Through sponsorship and micro-credit, facing seemingly insurmountable odds, Jacqueline and her neighbors have been able to recreate the life they once had.

Mothers in Bangladesh.
© 2013 Gloria Das/World Vision

This week we celebrated Mother’s Day in our home. We celebrated my grandmother, my mom, and also me. It feels strange to be a mother. This is only my second Mother’s Day ever, having given birth to my son Ryan last February. The first Mother’s Day was a blur of diapers and sleeplessness. My mom and my mother-in-law made an adorable gift for me by painting Ryan’s feet purple and imprinting them on a card. I have no idea (and don’t really want to know) how they managed that with a three month old. It did explain why I found purple crust in between his toes one night at bath time. I was relieved when they presented me with the card because I had been concerned he had contracted some strange skin disease.

It has been one of the best and most challenging years of my life. People don’t really tell you all the ups and downs of the first year of being a mom. It’s miraculous. It’s exhausting. It changes every single part of you. There have been plenty of days when I have wondered if I’m doing a good job, if I’m feeding him the right foods, if I’m being too strict or too lenient. There have been days when I’ve wondered if he even likes me. And he can’t even talk yet!

But the days are filled with moments that have forever shaped who I am. Like tonight when I was spinning him around in the kitchen and he was laughing so hard it sounded like he was gargling mouthwash. Or the moments when he looks at me, points his finger, smiles and says, Dada! Ok, so he’s still a little confused on that one. I love how whenever the song, Old MacDonald gets played anywhere, from a toy or the TV or even if I am absent-mindedly singing it, he stops in his tracks, drops whatever he is doing and starts bobbing at the knees to the beat. Coldplay, Bublé, even his daddy who is also a musician, have no such effect on him. He appreciates them, yes, but they are no Old MacDonald.

We’ve changed our entire house around, from top to bottom, in an attempt to toddler-proof it, and this is only part of the bigger lifestyle changes that have come along with having our first child. Bedtime is a little earlier nowadays, and not just for the baby. We’ve made changes in our fridge, changes in the way we travel, job changes, and financial changes.

Changing one’s lifestyle to accommodate a child, however, is a luxury. This Mother’s Day, I’m acutely aware that most women in the world don’t spend their time agonizing over which daycare their children will attend or which carseat they will ride in. Unfortunately, most women worry about their child’s next meal. Or that their child won’t live to see their first birthday.

When I was pregnant I worried about silly things like which vitamins to take, but I also worried about terrible things like stillbirth. In the back of my mind, though, I was comforted by knowing that I had a great medical system to use in case of an emergency. I had skilled doctors who saw me regularly throughout pregnancy, talented nurses who helped deliver my baby. For many women all over the world, stillbirth is not just a nightmare but a reality that some have experienced multiple times. When there is no access to maternal care, there is no comfort and there is no hope.

As an obstetrician, I have been in situations in other countries where I’ve faced the excruciating realization that a baby I could not save would have been saved in the appropriate medical setting. I have seen mothers with birth complications that would have been avoided with the proper care and attention.

This Mother’s Day has so much riding on it. I am a mother for the first time, but I am also now part of a sisterhood that encompasses women of all situations around the globe. The woman I saw today in the grocery store with her three young children, keeping them all in check while I was barely able to handle my one, is part of that sisterhood. When I saw what a great job she was doing, my first thought was admiration, and my second thought was, wow, I am a mother too. What a privilege to be part of this group. The women whom I’ve coached through long hours of labor and delivery, they too are part of this sisterhood I admire so much. The woman who is sacrificing it all to get food for her family, the one who is losing blood on the operating room table without the hope of a transfusion, the one who is fighting infection while her baby struggles to survive prematurity cradled beside her: they are all worthy of admiration. But this Mother’s Day and for all of those to come, let’s not just celebrate them. Let’s prioritize them and their fight. Let’s make it ours, together.

Kate Celauro is an obstetrician based in Nashville, Tennessee. Her passion for maternal health, however, extends far beyond the hospital where she works. She has been an advocate for women’s health for many years, beginning in college when she saw first hand the differences between healthcare for women in the U.S. and in rural South America where she was working on a thesis. Since that time she has traveled all over the world with her husband, a World Vision Artist, and has become more involved in championing the causes of women.

Last month, Women of Vision Director Cindy Breilh traveled to Chicago to share about World Vision’s work focused on women and girls, specifically through the Strong Women, Strong World initiative. She shared the story of Melka, a young girl in Ethiopia who was forced into marriage at the age of 14. Today, at 20, Melka teaches young girls about their rights and has intervened in several cases of forced marriage.

What are the barriers or obstacles to fullness of life for girls in Melka’s community?

What are the visible or invisible privileges of being male in Melka’s community?

Take some time today and pray for Melka and the millions of other girls facing these obstacles around the world.

“We have old hospitals with little or no equipment, very low salaries for health workers as well as poor access to hospitals for expectant mothers. There’s no budget in the Ministry of Health,” Dr. Claude Sabwa in the DRC told Thomson Reuters Foundation. “The current conflict is also creating a lot of movement of people and with this comes the spread of infectious disease, in particular cholera, so we need to improve hygiene and sanitation,” Sabwa said.

World Vision’s Strong Women, Strong World initiative is working in four of the ten worst nations in which to be a mother: Mali, Niger, Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Most moms say they’d rather receive a gift that helps someone else for Mother’s Day. To honor a mother in your life, consider giving to Strong Women, Strong World or sponsoring a child.

Let’s celebrate Mother’s Day by praying for mothers everywhere!