Many hands work behind the scenes to make these trips possible. David Ward, Sweet Sleep Board Chair, helps guide the Sweet Sleep team to reach our mission of providing a clean, comfortable, healthy place to sleep for orphans across the world and change their lives in the process. David shared his heart with us last week in staff meeting. We want to share that with you.
FAITH: Observations on faith and mission
• I have been involved with Sweet Sleep for over two years now and I have come to realize that we can’t accomplish any of our goals. They are two big, too bold and too hard to get our arms around. The only hope we have is to step back each day and allow GOD to show us a path that he wants us to follow. The successes we have achieved and the miracles that have occurred in the lives of these children have been a result of moving in faith and staying close to his will. Many of the unexpected turns in the road to us may look like coincidence but are a part of a plan that is slowly revealed to us. I don’t think that GOD thought it a coincidence that we ran into Health Alert or Open Door. I think that the more faith we have the greater the revelations that occur because of our obedience.• I think that one of the most difficult things to do when working for a mission like Sweet Sleep is handling the daily details of our individual roles with as much joy, enthusiasm and faith as we do when we hold an orphan in their own country.
• While the importance of both are the same the daily grind of doing the necessary to reach the important is more difficult
• So I want to challenge you to keep to the picture of just one of these orphan children who has touched you fixed in your mind each day.
• Over the last two years I have watched Sweet Sleep grow and change. We have made our share of mistakes because of our humanness, but we have pushed forward and achieved great successes.
• I believe that faith is a walk manifested most clearly by action. So many say that they believe but don’t follow through. So faith is a commitment to keep walking.
• In the New Testament, when talking about faith Jesus seemed to deal with two kinds of people. One set were those who exemplified too little faith and Jesus called them about out that like he did those who were in the boat with him during the storm. They seemed to cry out with fear not faith. Yet he calmed to waters and quieted the wind. The other set were those people, who not always named, showed such visible and undeniable faith they knew Jesus would answer their prayer, such as the one who knew if they just touched his garment they would be healed. I wonder which camp our faith falls in.
• There are two verses in the New Testament that I would share with you today
• For we live by faith, not by sight. 2 Corinthians 5:7
• Jesus replied, “Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and it will be done. Matthew 21:20-22
• I also think that it is belief that GOD’s power is transformational and that if we are focused on his will in this ministry we can overcome our shortcomings to overachieve for these children.
• I have told Jen on a number of occasions that I am not interested in just being a figure head for Sweet Sleep, I want to leave Chairman’s role in Oct knowing that we have meet our strategic plan; that we have exceeded our funding goals and that the organization is running like an efficient business so we can reach the number of children in GOD’s plan for Sweet Sleep. Knowing, for example, that we are the only organization in Uganda providing beds to orphans is an overwhelming piece of information that shows how we have been singled out by GOD for service. What an opportunity, what a responsibility… it takes faith.
• As we prepared for our mission journey to South Africa last November several times I heard the prayer that the names of the children are already known and that GOD is preparing the way for us. Did you ever think that somewhere in the world there is a child who already knows one of you and that if you are faithful both of you will be blessed because of your faithfulness?
• My prayer for each of you is that you will look at your responsibilities at Sweet Sleep as an important part of this master plan GOD has for Sweet Sleep and your life and that you will make this a transformational ministry.
• I want to leave you with a quote from Patrick Overton “When you have come to the edge Of all light that you know And are about to drop off into the darkness Of the unknown, Faith is knowing One of two things will happen: There will be something solid to stand on or You will be taught to fly”
David Ward, Sweet Sleep Board Chair
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