It is the eve of our leaving Ghana, and I am filled with gratitude for this experience, the amazing people I have met and the blossoming of new awareness and love in my heart.
As I prepare to make the journey home, I am reflecting on all of the feelings I've had.
Today is also the eve of my mother's birthday...Happy Birthday, Mom! I've been thinking all day about my mother and about these children, about the United States and Ghana, and about the gift of life.
Without a doubt, life is a gift. Each life created by God is a gift. How it is received and treasured by the people given this gift varies from family to family and country to country.
In the United States, society would have you believe the birth canal is our passport to humanity. That before that specific moment, the cells forming inside the mother are just that, cells to be kept or destroyed. In Ghana, in some tribes, that doesn't even guarentee you a loved life. If you come out disabled, a twin, different in any way, if your mother dies during labor, your life can be destroyed. Even up to any age, if by 3 you don't walk, by 5 you don't talk, and it goes on. But something has bothered me since before I even came here, and that is: what is the difference between being aborted and being killed just after birth? There is a young boy here named John who has only three fingers on his right hand. At the moment of his birth, his parents tossed him aside and left him for dead.
The birth canal does not make us human, at the moment of birth we do not magically become worthy of love and protection. That occurs at the moment we begin life, the moment of conception, the moment we first begin to grow into who we are to become. People in the United States are horrified at the traditions certain tribes in Ghana keep. Society at large is against these practices and is charitable to orphanages like the Nazareth Home for God's Children. But how can we as a nation rebuke so strongly the life taking practices of another country, when we are guilty of the same?
Each and every life, at the moment of conception, is a gift.
Let me tell you from first hand experience: these children are worthy of love, care, tenderness, protection and education. They, as we, are children of God...each is a gift. I hope and pray that one day, all people and all cultures will treasure each life for what it is, a gift, given for us to protect and love from the moment of conception until natural death.
I thank the Lord for the gift of my mother, and wish her the happiest of birthdays! I am thankful for the gift of my grandparents, both sets, who passed their faith on to my parents. I am thankful for my parents, who passed their faith on to me. And I am very thankful for the gift of my family who is so supportive of me.
Good night! My next post will come from the States and will include art!!! God Bless You!!
Love, Sarah
