All my boys are out hunting this morning for a bit, so while this momma has a few moments of quiet I need to write. Writing is how I process and this morning as I sit in my wood, cowhide chair on the veranda with the sun warming me and the breeze keeping me cool, sipping my Burundi tea to keep my just the perfect temperature my mind is on another sweet mother I met. Her name is Meaditrice (post photo is her with one of her children) and in my book she is one of the strongest momma’s I have ever met.

Meaditrice has 9 children: 6 boys and 3 girls and she was widowed 6 years ago. She doesn’t live too far from where I live now, but our lives are vastly different. This sweet mother lost her husband, but has not given up on caring for her children and providing all she possibly can and more to them. When you lose a husband in Burundi you lose massive income, if not all income, and you lose value in this culture. Sometimes if your husband passes away from a disease people think the widow probably has it too or that she caused it and they want to stay away from her.

Meaditrice’s 2 older children are 22 and 21 years old now and they have gone to the capital city about 3 hours from their family in order to find better jobs to help support their mom and siblings. The other 7 children are all in school. This is miraculous. School doesn’t cost here, but you do have to have money for a school uniform and for notebooks. Can you imagine having 7 hungry bellies everyday, but seeing the value of their education as so important that you sacrifice so much to get them in school? This mom’s goal is not just to keep her children alive which is a hard enough battle for her, but to help them have the best life they can. The difficult decisions this mother has to make astounded me. She herself has to eat, her children have to eat and she makes sure she has enough to send them to school.

Blaze is her 3rd oldest and he is 20 years old, we had the pleasure of meeting him also. Blaze walks every weekday 20 km (12 miles) one way to attend technical school. Meaditrice plants crops to try to feed her family and plant enough to sell at a market which she walks 20 minutes one way every day in hopes to sell enough to feed her family that day. If she sells enough her family is blessed to eat 1 meal, sometimes that meal is her 7 children and her sharing an avocado.

This is a very small glimpse of life in Burundi for a widow. What strong women, brave and fierce mothers fighting for their children’s lives everyday. My heart was heavy meeting Meaditrice because my mind was racing, what if Meaditrice gets sick one day or one week and she cannot go to the market to sell? How will she get medicine? How will her children stay in school? How will anyone eat? Blaze would have to quit going to school in order to take over for his mom. The struggle for widows in Burundi is massive and deep.

Meaditrice was an unsponsored widow through Sister Connection, that means she is in Sister Connection because they built or repaired her house. Her house was repaired 4 years ago so for 4 years she has been praying that someone would help her care for her family. When we visited with the team that day someone in the group said they wanted to be that help for Meaditrice. Meaditrice will now be receiving monthly sponsorship money from that person. For Meaditrice she will likely go into the In3 program which is a 3 year sponsorship of $50 a month or $600 each year for 3 years. During those 3 years she will learn a trade, perhaps she will be coming to Mt. Hope (where we live) and I will have the joy of seeing her learn to sew or keep chickens or learn basketweaving or soap making. Then she will receive a loan to start her new business and she will go to that market and be able to sell her product and the extra crops she plants will go to fill her children’s bellies. That sponsorship money will be used to get Meaditrice and her 7 children at least 1 meal everyday and the children will be able to stay in school because even if Meaditrice gets sick she will have money to buy medicine. Her oldest 2 children may even be able to come back to live in the area because she may have money to provide for everyone.

This is what God is doing. His heart is for the widows and the orphans and He provides for them. Please, pray for Meaditrice and her family. Pray for strength for her in her faith and physically. She loves Jesus so much and she said I don’t know where I would be without Him. God is so good, He is working in these precious peoples lives and we feel so blessed to get to see Him at work!