Dear Tyler,
Please consider using your congregational gatherings near Mother’s Day (May 13) to make a powerful statement on behalf of women and girls everywhere with the Rachel Sabbath Initiative. Participation is as simple as reading the prayer provided at the right during your time of worship. (Other prayers are available here.) Voicing concerns for mothers worldwide during a time of prayer, lighting a candle on behalf of women everywhere; all of these raise up the needs of women this Mother’s Day as part of a Rachel Sabbath.
No woman should die giving birth to the next generation. Yet more than 350,000 women and girls die every year as a result of preventable complications of pregnancy and childbirth, most of them in developing countries. Improving maternal health and universal access to family planning could prevent up to one third of these deaths.
We need you to speak up for the world’s women and children. Our faith traditions call us to justice and to caring for the most vulnerable among us. Women in the
developing world should have the same access to lifesaving family planning information, services and supplies as those in the
developed world.
ONE LAST THING: Click here and tell us how your congregation will lift up the needs of women this Mother’s Day. The more people tell us they are participating, the better we can demonstrate strong religious support for the needs of women everywhere.
Paul Vargis
Ty
A Monk's Musings 