Mother's Day

So Thursday was Mother's Day for Thailand because it is the Queen's birthday. The Thai staff at our children's home, along with Ajan Lana/other Life Impact women staff members attended the children's school ceremony. When we arrived, we were surrounded by many other women and their children. Once the main ceremony came to an end, I noticed that many of the children at the school were in tears during a song so I asked Knot (thai translator) why the children (not including our Life Impact Children) were so sad. Though some of the kids were crying because they had no mother or their mother could not be there, most were crying because Mother's Day in Thailand is made to be very discouraging and degrading. The first song spoke of a mother's care for her children, and how all the children ever do is disobey and make their parents' lives difficult--- continually the song speaks of the children being of little help/worth. The second song is what got me and it said something like this: "In my class I have a teacher and she asked us to write a letter to our mothers for Mother's Day. However, I have no mother for she is dead and I am an orphan so my teacher told me to write about being a lonely orphan." As the song progressed the child sang of how she was an orphan; alone. How depressing it was to see the children so sad at that moment. One of the younger (17) staff members came to me crying and when I asked a translator what was wrong, she was crying because she did not have a good relationship with her mother. The next day when our Children's Home celebrated Mother's Day, Ajan Lana spoke to the children about how they didn't just have one mother, they had 22! She said that there are belly mamas' and heart mamas': though we are heart mothers, and the children were born in our hearts, we love you just as much as a belly mama would. Praise the Lord that we are able to speak truth to them!