The Mom Quilt {Guest Post}

Happy Monday, friends! Today we are so excited to feature a guest post from Kelly Bingham. When she told us the story behind The Mom Quilt and the significance of the work The Mercy House is doing in Kenya, we were immediately on board. We love the ebook, the mission, and the love and care for others Kelly so clearly displays. Here's more from Kelly:

In a sleepy fog at 6:30 this morning, like every morning, I made my way down the stairs to prepare my son's bottles of formula for the day. I lined up five bottles, turned on the faucet, filled them with water and set them aside to add powdered formula.

Photos courtesy of The Mercy House

I take for granted sometimes that I don't think twice about giving my son water from our tap. We don't worry about clean water for drinking or bathing or laundry. We have it so well, in fact, that we often buy plastic water bottles to drink.

Water is not so easily available for young mothers and girls at The Mercy House in Kenya. The Mercy House provides safe refuge for young pregnant girls and new mothers in a place where women don't have many options. About 21,000 women are hospitalized each year from having illegal, unsafe abortions in Kenya, according to the Center for Reproductive Rights. Young females face a harsh and often unforgiving or even violent road, where abortion is a volatile topic, families often force females into the sex trade to provide food, and rape is common. The World Health Organization reports as many as 1,500 women die in childbirth every day in Africa.

At least some of these women and girls have alternatives thanks to The Mercy House, where they find safe shelter, prenatal care, healthy food, counseling, ministry, education and livelihood skills. Sadly, even here, water is precious. The House has no water source, and so water is trucked in several times a week, making it one of the most expensive monthly costs for the nonprofit organization.

The Mom Quilt project was born out of this need for water. The Mom Quilt is an e-book sharing the perspectives of more than 60 women on motherhood, hope and love. All proceeds from sales of the e-book go toward the $40,000 goal to build a well—a source of water—for The Mercy House.

As a contributing author, I don't receive anything for my contribution other than the joy of helping someone else. All of us contributed pieces of ourselves in the form of stories—chapters in this e-book that we hope will raise enough funds to establish a permanent source of water—and hope—for young women facing the already tough road of motherhood in a place that isn't always kind to mothers.

This morning, I imagined the joy, relief and wonder on the faces of these women at The Mercy House when their well is finally built. I imagined how excited they would be to no longer worry about conserving every last drop of water because of its scarcity. I also imagined the incredulity I’d see on their faces if I told them we pay for plastic bottles of water to drink every week. I realized this is an extremely significant project and that I would do anything I could to ensure it succeeds.

The Mercy House has beds for 16 mothers and 16 babies. While the need is so great (much greater than only 16 girls and babies), I know that all progress begins with a first step. For the 16 women and 16 babies helped by The Mercy House, their lives will be forever changed—and perhaps even saved —by the efforts of kind and generous individuals with nothing else to gain.

I hope you will support this cause. {To purchase the book, go to this page and you'll see a box that says "Click Here to Buy This Ebook."}

"Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me." Matthew 25:40 

Kelly Bingham is a writer and editor with more than a decade of experience. She is a Christian wife & mom of one son, one dog and one cat. A Florida native, Kelly now lives in Georgia and loves college football. In case you missed it, you can check out The Mercy House here, The Mom Quilt here, and Kelly's personal post on The Mom Quilt here.