A Mother of Five and a Tumor That Has to Come Out

She is forty-six, and she is the center of gravity for a family of five.

She lives in a village in Upper Egypt. Her husband teaches and earns about 6,000 EGP a month. They have two sons in college and a younger son in junior high. She has a brain tumor, and it needs to be removed. The surgery costs about 120,000 EGP.

It is worth saying plainly why a mother's illness belongs in the work of a foundation named for a child. When the person holding a household together falls seriously ill, everyone under that roof feels the floor shift. Three sons. A husband stretching a teacher's salary across five people. And now a surgery that costs roughly twenty times the family's monthly income. A child's world does not need a hospital bed of its own to be turned upside down.

The local diocese committed 30,000 EGP toward the operation. Luke's Kids stepped in for the remaining 90,000 EGP, roughly $1,800, so the tumor can come out and a mother of five can get back to her family.