Happy Mother’s Day!
While it is hard to find specific statistics on rural Brazil to try to give you a picture of how things are for the mothers of the children in Living Stones, here is a try: http://www.ruralpovertyportal.org/web/guest/country/home/tags/brazil.
(some of the homemade houses)
Northeast Brazil led South America (including Haiti) in infant mortality rates until the late 80s. Most of these mothers have lost children. Infant mortality was around 80% in the 70s, 60% in the early 90s, and luckily, is down to about 20% currently (http://www.ruralpovertyportal.org/web/guest/country/statistics/tags/brazil). Abortion is illegal in Brazil, but “home remedies” are still often attempted by younger girls. While the culture promotes promiscuity, and expects boys to sleep around, women are still expected to be virgins when they marry.
Unofficially, Rachel’s personal statistics, from what I have seen from working with and visiting homes for the past couple of years, is that about 60% of the mothers cannot read, or read very little. Most of them dropped out of school to become mothers. About 30% of them do not have a bathroom or kitchen in their house. I have not met one mother that had a washing machine. About 75% of them have refrigerators, but about 80% have an old TV. About 15% lived in mud/stick/various make-do supplies houses that are in danger of falling apart. Only about 20% of the children live in a home with their mother and father.
(the center of "town")
These mothers work hard to provide their children with daily food, clothes, and make sure they are getting an education (where only 28% will graduate in public schools in rural Brazil). It is a constant struggle, and most of these mothers have to work as well, leaving the kids on their own for most of the time, and never making more than minimum wage (which is less than $2 an hour). Most of the time women in rural Brazil are paid much less than minimum wage, getting jobs cleaning houses or taking care of other people’s children, often traveling an hour or two to get to work.
Living Stones celebrated with Paulo’s mother her 33rd birthday: it was her first birthday party. She had dropped out of school in 4th grade. She works to support her 3 sons, ages 16, 14, and 12. There is no father in the picture. This is a typical story. Thank you for supporting Living Stones, and enabling us to bless these mothers this Mother’s day.
Mussurepe Mothers:
We made handprint cards with a heart in the middle:
And, of course, presentations and presents:
In Cajueiro Claro, we also had cake and other goodies:
From the two celebrations, we had over 30 mothers come to celebrate with their children the work that God is doing!
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