When I married my husband and first began visiting his family’s home in Southern Africa, I realized I was posing a problem. In our rural village, the polite way to address someone is to refer to them as the parent of their oldest child. For example, if your firstborn is named John, the community will call you “Mama John.” Because I haven’t given birth, people there weren’t sure how to address me. 

Mother’s Day is another time when I’m reminded that I’m not, personally, a mother. And yet, this week I heard a message from Rev. Otis Moss III that shared how God’s family contains roles beyond mother, father, son, and daughter. One of those roles is the midwife—not the one who bears the child, but an essential participant in the work of bringing new life safely into the world. 

That’s part of what I see in World Renew’s maternal and child health programs. Community Health Volunteers (CHVs) are trained to support families through the first 1,000 days—from conception to age two—because healthy practices in that window can shape a child’s development for life. In places where a clinic might be hours away, CHVs become trusted guides: visiting homes, sharing health and nutrition education, and helping families connect to care they otherwise couldn’t obtain. In many ways, they are like midwives. 

Consider Miriam, a 27-year-old CHV in Kenya. She explained why she volunteered: “I wanted to help my community… Before the project, pregnant mothers would hardly go to the clinic.” She also described what was at stake when mothers gave birth without support: complications could lead to the death of mother or child. Miriam’s story is not just inspiring; it is a justice story. Access to care, information, and safe birth should never depend on geography, income, or class. 

Across the world, midwives and community-based health workers stand in the gap between vulnerability and hope. Their work is both practical and holy ... and it carries real power. 

Exodus 1 tells the story of the Hebrew midwives, Shiphrah and Puah, who defied Pharaoh. Though they were ordered to kill the baby boys at birth, verse 17 tells us: “The midwives, however, feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them to do; they let the boys live.” 

In To Alter Your World, missional leaders Michael Frost and Christiana Rice invite the church to recover this midwife-like identity. They write that “in Christ, a new world is being born and the new creation is unfurling all around us,” and that God is directing history toward “restoration, repair, and renewal.” The invitation is to show up where new life is struggling to be born: serving, listening, advocating, and staying close. In other words, biblical justice can look less like “taking over” and more like attending carefully to what God is bringing to life. 

The church’s call is not to manufacture change by force, but to join God’s work with humility, like attendants who recognize that life is a gift, not an achievement. Midwives do not “produce” babies. They prepare, protect, and accompany. They know when to act, when to wait, and when to call for more help. That posture—strong, skilled, and non-dominating—looks a lot like the way Jesus describes greatness: serving, not grasping. In the same way, midwives leverage skill and authority on behalf of someone else’s safety. 

Exodus 1:20–21 shows how God honored Shiphrah and Puah for leveraging their courage and calling for the sake of life: “So God was kind to the midwives and the people increased and became even more numerous. And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families of their own.” 

I’ve experienced something of this “midwives’ blessing” in my own life. God has allowed me to share in the lives of my stepchildren and their children, and granted me nieces and nephews whose parents entrust me with a supportive role in their growth. I’ve heard it in the words of younger friends who’ve told me that my leadership in church life has encouraged them to serve in similar ways. I’ve felt it in the voices of the children who participate in our rural village church’s annual day camp, shouting “Auntie Naomi!” And, after nearly a decade of welcoming me as a guest, even our traditional chief has begun to address me as “Mama.” 

Our great calling to step into the midwife’s role of support, service, and accompaniment is a beautiful and challenging one. In my work at World Renew, I read stories of these midwives every day. The community is large, and it is doing tremendous work in the spaces of mercy and justice. How can we, too, attend well to what God is working out in creation?