Winds of Change

It brings a lot of joy and gratification to witness the lives of children being changed and the Sweet Sleep ministry is committed to continue touching the hearts of the world’s orphaned and abandoned children through the provision of beds and beddings to them.

Josephine (far left) w/ some of the Kampala Team members

On June 11^th 2012, one could feel the winds of change blowing around the Good Samaritan Home as our Sweet Sleep incredible team arrived at the home to have their first day of ministering love to the children at the Good Samaritan Home amidst a lot of excitement among the 1,100 children who live there. The Good Samaritan home is located in the central region particularly in Wakiso district and was founded by Pastor Alex Mitala. The home has a secondary school attached to cater for the continued education of the children after completing their primary level from the same home.

The team was overwhelmed by the warm welcome by the children and it was evident in the eyes and voices of the children that their hope of changing their lives from the poor sleeping conditions to a sweet one had been restored. Being a Sunday, the children were so much blessed having a divine moment with our great team who made new friends.

The following morning, it was a beautiful thing to see God’s hand in providing for his children as 110 new Sweet Sleep beds and beddings arrived at the Home. Sweet Sleeps work is really life changing as we all enjoyed working together as a family of different ages but most exciting that the 110 children who were going to be blessed by new beddings were taking big strides towards getting life saving mosquito nets, comfortable beds and above all a Bible of their own which would teach them more about the kingdom of God for it belongs to them. 

In life, people always pray until something happens, but I have always continued to pray that Sweet Sleep reaches out to more and more children who are having heart breaking sleeping conditions and as I witnessed God working through our incredible team, definitely deep inside me I thanked God for answering my prayers. Children continuously kept on hugging the team members with love in appreciation for their new beds and beddings. This excitement was extended to class rooms where our incredible team divided into groups and each group had a chance to share general knowledge, Bible stories, art work by way of paintings and academics with all the children from the Nursery section to Primary Seven through rotation. 

While in classes, the children could sit and listen attentively to the team members as they passed over words of wisdom to them and this made us feel our presence there. According to the physical touches and hugs of the children with us, one could easily begin thinking and imagining that these children were feeling the presence of God’s love to them through our mighty team.

During our interaction with the children after providing them with new beds/beddings, one of the children confessed that that he used to hold feelings of sadness and envy about other children who sleep comfortably on beds of their own but went ahead to testify that such feelings are no more after Sweet Sleep providing him with one.  “Sleeping on a comfortable bed feels so different from sleeping down on the floor, so God loves me,” he said.

In this hurting world, everybody wishes to celebrate his or her birthday but it is heart breaking that some of the children at the Good Samaritan Home don’t know much and have never had a chance to celebrate their birthdays. As one of the last most memorable moments and activities for our incredible team was having a birthday party with the children. The party commenced with the blessing of over 520 children with gifts/presents and later had three big birthday cakes cut amidst a lot of cheers and singing of the Happy Birthday songs. 

This did not only make the children feel so special and proud, but the team ministered love to 40 members of staff at the Good Samaritan Home as they also joined the party and received lovely gifts.      

         

After sharing the kind of joy, dances, hugs and songs of praises with the children at the Good Samaritan Home, one can take the comfort to realize why our incredible Sweet Sleep team was there. The team was there so that the many less fortunate children at the Good Samaritan and those out there still in poor sleeping conditions can sleep comfortably at night and wake up with a fresh mind that can lead to a big turning point towards their improved academic performance and health hence a positive change in their lives.

We are so thankful to God for the way he guided, used and provided for our incredible team that has just left Uganda after ministering love at the Good Samaritan Home in an amazing way. As Sweet Sleep, we thank you all dear friends for your gift of love and giving. You made the children proud and without you, Sweet Sleep as a ministry would not have reached the so many children.

Praying for God’s hand in reaching out to more children whose sleeping conditions is still heart breaking.

By   Josephine Ssebambulide.

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