"My Best Friend" Letters from Gulu

Yesterday I shared a letter with you from Brenda, a girl who is orphaned and living in northern Uganda. Today I wanted to share this with you:

Dear Sweet Sleep

My name is Peace. I am 14 years old. I like God. Am cery glad to inform you that my bed is now my best friend. I sleep on it when I am tired, when I am sick and when I am hungry then I pray to God.

My bed gives me peace, love and a lot of joy. And God should bless Sweet Sleep to give more children beds.

My bed is so nice and now mosquitoes can not give me malaria with my net.

Thank you very much,
Peace

There's almost always a story behind the name a child is given, isn't there? I can't help but wonder about the story behind the name of Peace.

14 years ago, when Peace first came into the world, northern Uganda was a place of great terror. The LRA was waging a horrific war against the innocent and unprotected people who lived there. I'm sure her mother worried for her own life during much of her pregnancy. As she gave birth to her precious new baby, I can imagine her heart was filled with great love and hope. Hope for peace and hope for Peace.

When Peace was just 10 years old her mother's dream of "peace" finally came to northern Uganda, but at such a tremendous cost. Peace, and hundreds of thousands of other children like her, had already lost parents to rebel attacks and disease. For the last 4 years, Peace has been living in an IDP (internally displaced persons) camp----just as she had been during the rebel attacks over her lifetime.

Today is different. Tomorrow is even better. You have a chance to give hope to so many more like Peace. I beg you to pray for the children in this region who are living on their own with no family, no one to look out for them or to care, nurture or guide them through life.

This November Sweet Sleep will help restore dignity to 700 orphans as we provide beds, mosquito nets and Bibles to them in their newly constructed homes on their family's original land.

Peace has returned home to the place her mother once loved. Peace has experienced your love through the provision of beds from you...from Sweet Sleep.

Help change another child's life. It's easier than you think. It's more important than you think.

For more information on this, please see the story just below on this blog. And, feel free to share this with your friends and family.

Sweetly,
Jen