the journey continues; my heart? stolen...

To me, and for many who have grown to love this country, the journey of helping orphans here never ends. It's not just because I have the privilege of serving with Sweet Sleep full-time, but God has called me, as he has all of us, "to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." (James 1:27) A few years ago, orphans weren't even on my "radar" and now, "looking after" them has literally consumed my life. And I'm so, so thankful today.

This trip has been wonderful. It was so great to meet the precious, precious, smiling, sweet and un-jaded pre-teens and teenagers that call the orphanage in Ivancea home. I'll never forget these children and I hope to be able to return to visit and maybe even provide a few more beds there soon. As we were leaving, the director was so thrilled with the beds, he mentioned that while they didn't want to ask us for so many beds, and were going to save and use the best of the worst beds, he would love for every child to have such a beautiful, comfortable place to sleep. I hope I'm a part of that someday soon. These children, most of whom have heart problems, have stolen mine.

If you're sitting there wishing you were or could be a part of this, you really, truly can. You can tell all your friends about these forgotten children - living outside villages around this country, gated off, lonely - forgotten. You can join our cause on Facebook and tell your friends to read this blog and become voices for these children. But some of you reading this right now know after reading these blog posts, God is calling you to GO. You can't possibly sit by and hear about the injustice - you must GO.

It is for those of you that God is speaking to right now, that I pray. If you feel led to join us, we're headed back to Moldova May 22-31 to build beds for some sweet children in Straseni, Moldova, who have various developmental delays. They are sent to this orphanage, out in the woods, and their beds are badly broken and need replaced. They wake up each morning in their sunken, saggy beds with back pain - unrested - trying so hard to learn and to overcome their learning delays so that they will finally be able to drop the stigma of being "slow" and moved to an orphanage for "normal" children. If this draws your heart towards this place, please visit www.sweetsleep.org/trips and read more. You can download an application and e-mail it to stuart@sweetsleep.org. Our deadline for applications and deposits is this Monday, March 16th. Let us know also if you want to go but need to mail your check, etc. We truly pray you'll join us on this amazing trip.

Tonight I pray for the children in Ivancea and the boys in Orhei who are about to crawl into their beautiful, comfortable new Sweet Sleep beds. I also pray for those in Straseni tonight - that God will keep them safe and in peace until we can bring them new beds in May. Thank you to each of you who read our blog along our journey and prayed for us. Your prayers were felt and God's mission and His purposes were most definitely accomplished here. May God richly bless you today and keep our team safe as we return to the States.