An answer to a quiet prayer and YOU...Letters from Gulu

Dear Sweet Sleep,

My name is David. I am 14 years old and am in primary four. I would like to thank you, Sweet Sleep for giving me the mattresses and mostly the Bible.

Now days I know more about God than I did before because I read my Bible and after I go for a sleep on my soft mattress. Am very happy this days because I start sleep right when I got on to my bed till morning without feeling any pain.

So I again thank God for that special gift which I was not even expecting in my life and not forgetting to pray for you and also the organization called Sweet Sleep.

Thank you so much from David.

God Bless You.



Friends, I'm so incredibly excited to tell you that God has answered the prayers of David and so many others, including myself! Sweet Sleep has just received enough matching funds to double EACH GIFT you make for our current immediate need in northern Uganda.

Yes! You read that right! Sweet Sleep has received matching funds for half of the entire remaining need for our unexpected (and amazing) project in Gulu this November! E-V-E-R-Y gift matters, every day, but right now EVERY gift is TWICE as important! A mosquito net is just $8. Now when you provide one net, you actually provide two! An entire bed (mat, mattress, bedding, mosquito net and Bible) is just $50!

All week I've been sharing letters from children who have already received Sweet Sleep beds and have had their lives changed as a result. These children have gotten beds through our partners, ARC (American Refugee Committee), who estimated they'd resettle no more than 600 children the entire year.

more than a thousand children, like David, who never thought they'd have their own bed, net or Bible before have now asked to be resettled. ARC was shocked, Sweet Sleep is praising God and responding as fast as we can!

Thank YOU, sweet friends. You are answers to prayers....so, so many prayers.

Sweetly,
Jen

Snoring rushes my body....letters from Gulu

Dear Sweet Sleep,

I am glad to send to you my congratulations through this letter. I am very happy with you to have helped me with a mattress, Bible and blanket. I never afforded money to buy these things but God helped me through your kindness. Now days I sleep on mattress. Now my snoring rushes on my body. Even though I am an orphan my friends like to come and sleep with me because of my good things.

Sweet Sleep may you come again?

May God bless you.

I am Mornea, primary 6, age 14 years.

I'm a fan of orphans. I love them. Maybe because Jesus loved them so much. Maybe just because they're so vulnerable. Maybe because it's amazing to be able to bring hope and love into their lives.

She asks, "Sweet Sleep may you come again?"

Yes. In 32 days. Help us bring a bed to Mornea's friends. They too can experience what it's like for snoring to "rush their bodies". I love that.

An entire bed in Gulu is just $50. Give one. Give two. Give just a net for $10. Don't forget we have a match gift right now. Whatever you give will be doubled. Talk about helping orphans and their friends.

Sweetly,
Jen

40 Days of Prayer for the Orphan...begins TODAY!

40 Day Prayer Guide for Orphan Care

Today marks 40 days before National Orphan Sunday, November 7th. Over the next 40 Days Sweet Sleep invites you to be a part of a global movement to become advocates of children who are most vulnerable, the orphaned.

Pray daily. Pray alone. With us. With your kids. Your family. Friends. Bible Study. Church. Whatever you do, just pray for orphans!

This is only a suggested guide. You can add, change, or take out parts to have it
better meet the needs of your church and community. Use the simple suggestion
as it is or expand upon it as you feel led. Let us know what you change or add and help us respond to this better in the future. The most important part is to commit
to 40 days of praying!

Matthew 18:20, “For where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am in the midst of them.”

1) Today, pray that the Lord would give you a personal sense of responsibility for the next 40 days (and beyond) for praying for orphans, your pastor, your church, and your community. Ask Him to break your heart for the orphans. Ask that He would help
you to see orphans with His eyes and His heart. Ask Him to use this 40 days of
prayer to change you and your church.

2) Today, pray for your Pastor to have guidance and provision as he seeks to
follow the Lord’s commands to care for the orphans.

3) There are 2 billion Christians in the world. If 7% would show hope to a single orphan, looking after the child in their distress, there would effectively be
no more orphans. Ask the Lord to convict the church around the world and show His followers of what we are capable of doing. Together, we are stronger.

I'm praying for YOU as YOU pray for the orphan!

Sweetly,
Jen

"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

Letters from Gulu

As you probably know, soon Sweet Sleep will soon be providing 700 beds to orphans in northern Uganda (Gulu). If you're not sure about what I'm talking about, than check out the blog post just below this.

All week I'm going to share letters from children with you. They're treasures of mine. Enjoy them. Pray for each child and then pray for the others who'll receive beds in November.

Dear Sweet Sleep,

My name is Brenda. I am in primary 5. I like playing. I am an orphan without a mother and father. It's my first time to sleep on a mattress and also cover myself with a blanket. Am so so happy. Every morning most children gather at our door to see my blanket and the mattress. It's so soft and big. I pray that it never grows thin. Amen.

May God bless Sweet Sleep.

Brenda

Be a Part of History this November

Hello friends….

As I’ve probably shared with you on Facebook, Sweet Sleep is doing some amazing things in Gulu, Uganda--where the country's history is being made. If you’re not especially familiar with that, here’s the skinny:

Sweet Sleep has partners in northern Uganda (Gulu) which include World Vision, American Refugee Committee (ARC) and the Child Protection Office. There are still 1 million people living in IDP camps (Internally Displaced Persons) and an estimated 750,000 of those are children in child-headed households. Our partners are working to trace their family name back to their home tribe and then working with the village tribe leaders to determine what land their family owned. They’re then trying to relocate the children into their home land and give them a new chance and hope at life.

The million people in the camps are referred to as EVI’s (Extremely Vulnerable Individuals). They are the poorest of the poor: the disabled, the poor, the elderly, the sick, the widowed, the orphaned. They have no possible way to leave the camps…without outside help. However, even with that outside help, many of them are still greatly fearful of leaving. They’ve been living in the camps for 20 years. These children have been born into the camps, so even as horrible a place to live as it is, it’s all they’ve ever known. They’ve lived with endless experiences and stories of what the rebels have done and are fearful of leaving the “safe” camps to return home. The camps are hardly safe as completely awful things happen to them there.

Our partner, ARC, has shared with us that it has been hard to resettle the last million people from the camps, even though the Government is shutting them down and forcing them out. They fear for their lives and don’t want to move---even with the prospect of getting a new home on their family land. Until….

As I met with World Vision, ARC and the Child Protection Office this past December, they collectively shared with me they hoped to resettle approximately 700 children this year----a number that was higher than what they resettled in 2009. ARC had the bulk of that with 600 children. By the end of June 2010 Sweet Sleep had already provided them with the full amount they’d imagined they’d need for the year. As I sat across from ARC leadership in Gulu this past June they shared with me their amazement over this happening. Other organizations have come to them and asked how they’ve been able to get so many children resettled and they’ve shared with them…..beds, nets and Bibles from Sweet Sleep have motivated them to leave the IDP camps for home. Amazing. Simply amazing.

I’m blessed beyond words to be a part of a ministry which is impacting lives in ways I can’t even comprehend. This is one of the most powerful and incredible experiences I’ve been able to have in the 7 years I’ve been working for Sweet Sleep. You can share in that experience with me.

Because of the tremendous response they’ve gotten with our bedding and Bibles, ARC is going to resettle another 700 children this fall. I wouldn’t miss it for the world. You shouldn’t either.

Join me in this November for a once in a lifetime opportunity to help reintegrate orphaned children into their family's land with their new home...their new beds, mosquito nets and Bibles. Trip dates are October 30-November 8, 2010. Pass this along to others who might like to go on the trip. If you have questions, let me know.

And, if you have people who might like to contribute financially to this need, please forward this post as well. Sweet Sleep hadn’t expected to provide an additional 700 beds to Gulu this year. If these children are willing to leave behind their old lives for the hope of a new beginning, then I think I can ask every person I know for $50. $50. That’s what it takes right now to provide one child with a bed, net and a Bible. We need $35,000 total. I know we can do it.

Thanks friends.
Jen

New Sweet Sleep Video -- Pass it on!

Changing Lives Through Our Partners in Gulu, Uganda

Over the past few months, one word has come to mind: Impact. Everywhere I look I see the impact of the work God is doing through Sweet Sleep, the impact Sweet Sleep is able to make, thanks to you. The love, hope and beds we’re providing are making a life-changing physical, spiritual, emotional and eternal impact!

One specific example of our impact was shared with me in Uganda by the field manager of World Vision’s “Uganda Children of War Programme.” She had visited a teenage boy who had been rescued from Joseph Kony’s LRA army and was receiving treatment in the hospital. She saw a Sweet Sleep Bible in English next to the boy’s head near his pillow. Generally, we give Bibles to the children in their language however, there were not enough Bibles in print in this region and so we have had to place an order which will be filled this month. World Vision chose to go ahead and give our English Bibles to those who would be learning English.

Click here to watch World Vision share about the impact Sweet Sleep made in the life of one teenager.

While all of the children we meet, and all of the projects Sweet Sleep is a part of, truly move me and touch my heart, there is something incredibly special about the children in northern Uganda. These boys and girls have seen and witnessed such atrocities, being forced to kill their parents, being left alone, abandoned – orphaned. Their need is great and urgent because the government is closing the IDP camps that 1 million people call home, 750,000 of those children in child-headed households. The simple huts they’ve called home for many years in the camps are now being bulldozed and it’s time for these sweet children to finally find their new life in their, now safe, home villages.

Sweet Sleep is partnering with World Vision, the American Refugee Committee (ARC) and Uganda’s Child Probation Office (the governmental office in charge of overseeing the care of all the children in the North) to provide beds, bedding, mosquito nets and Bibles to these children to help them settle into their new homes. If their homes were destroyed in the war, our partners are rebuilding their huts. If they have a home and some family left in their old village, our partners ensure that their re-entry is safe and healthy.

During my latest trip to Gulu I was able to be a part of one of our bedding distributions. Children walked miles and miles and waited up to 8 eight hours to receive their beds. The director of ARC shared with us that they were having a hard time getting the children to move from their shelters in the camps. However, once they heard and are now seeing that they will be receiving a Sweet Sleep bed, the number of families they’ve been able to reintegrate has risen dramatically. The reason? The children say they could have never imagined owning their very own bed, mosquito net or Bible. Can you imagine? Sleeping on the ground every night – not having a place to pray, to dream or sleep sweetly – not being able to fathom having your own healthy, comfortable place to sleep…

At the Child Probation Office we were told that the impact our ministry is making there is truly holistic. According to the Probation Office, “Many organizations have come here to help meet physical and psychological needs of the children but no one is meeting the spiritual needs by giving them Bibles. If you don’t heal the spiritual part, you do not heal the whole person.” With your help, Sweet Sleep can continue to meet these needs and help resettle 700 more children this November. Wouldn’t it be great for 700 children to be in their new homes with their healthy, comfortable new Sweet Sleep beds, reading their Bibles under their life-saving mosquito nets just in time for Christmas?

Thanks to those Sweet Sleep works with to provide beds and bedding in northern Uganda, right now we’re able to provide a Sweet Sleep bed, net and Bible to help resettle one of these children for just $50!

To make your gift, click here and put “Gulu” in the comments box. You can also fill out the enclosed card and mail it back to us.

Thank you for your continued faithfulness and support of our work to provide beds to the world’s orphaned and abandoned children. We simply could not do what we do without you.

Sweetly,

Jen

P.S. If you are in the Nashville area and would like to volunteer at our Sweet Sleep booth at the World Vision AIDS Experience at Otter Creek Church of Christ in Brentwood this week, please e-mail Jon Merryman at jon@sweetsleep.org. And if you haven't seen the exhibit, you should! It's an excellent depiction of life for children in Uganda. Information and FREE tickets available at http://www.worldvisionexperience.org/visit_ticket_details.aspx?venueid=222.

Today's a Big Day....

Today’s a big day at Sweet Sleep. Or was it yesterday? Or the day before? Well, it could have easily been the day before that. But wait, there was also the day before that or the day before the day before that.

The truth is that each day of the last week marks an important milestone in my own life, and now in the life of a ministry we call Sweet Sleep. Seven years ago today I had just returned home from my first mission trip to Moldova and received our first donation for a bed. I didn’t know what to expect before I left home for the tiny little country I knew nothing about. I don’t usually tell people this, but I almost didn’t go on that trip. My life was so busy then and my commitments at home were demanding and I thought it might be better if I canceled the trip. I’ll spare you the story, but clearly I didn’t get in God’s way.

Going on that mission trip meant leaving my comfort zones--and I have a lot of zones I like comfort in. I don’t eat anything weird. That includes most vegetables, fruits not easily found at the grocery store and anything that wasn’t previously a clucking or mooing. I don’t do bugs. Or reptiles. In fact, if it’s smaller than a sunglass case, people around me are probably going to need earplugs and ice for their bruises. Most importantly, I don’t fly. Flying terrifies me—even now. Remember the show “Fear Factor”? I can tell you that my personal Fear Factor would be a plane full of bugs and doctors. If you’ve ever flown with me you know I don’t unbuckle, regardless of how many hours we have until we reach our destination. God has given me a bladder of steel.

My first trip to Moldova was full of sensory overloads. Everywhere I looked I saw something that needed to be cared for…glass instead of grass and children with bare feet. Everywhere I sat children wanted to play with my hair or sit in my lap or hold my hand or my arm. They just wanted to feel my loving touch. They wanted to be hugged. They wanted you to smile at them. And, after you shared your love with them they would laugh. Their little voices would practically sing out to each other in joy…and in Romanian. I wasn’t sure what they were saying, but their faces told the stories even when my ears couldn’t comprehend what their words were.

I’ve said before that I think my sense of smell called me into ministry. You see, my group for the week was a cabin full of boys ranging from 9-16. Each time our groups were supposed to have Bible study or prayer time or down time all of my friend’s groups would sit under a tree or on a hillside. Not my group. My boys wanted to go back to their dark musty cabin. They wanted me to sit on their bed while they sat next to me, as close as possible. They wanted to me to be in their home because then it would be filled with happy memories instead of just broken metal beds with filthy urine stained mattresses.

God changed my life forever that week, as we know. And over the last seven years I’ve had the enormous blessing to watch God change the lives of countless others. Naturally that’s been in the lives of the children and caregivers we serve, but also in the lives of team members who’ve said “Yes” to God. I’ve been blessed to watch team members come into new relationships with Christ, get baptized in frozen lakes and pools and minister in endless ways alongside fellow believers in distant lands. My world has been blown wide open by hearing Moldovans, Haitians and Ugandans sing songs of praise and worship to God in their own language, while I sang the same song in mine, and suddenly realize just how big our God is that He can understand each of His children all over the world. I’ve watched as team members eventually become adoptive parents. I’ve watched as my peers found direction for their lives in their time of serving the “least of these.” And before every trip I have prayed for those who God would call out to go and for how He would use their life to change another. And I’ve prayed for how their own life would be changed as well.

Know that if you’re reading this, you are the one I’m praying for now. Sure, you have a lot of questions about life and about what it would mean to go on a mission trip. I have a lot of answers. Jesus has even more. Say “Yes” to the opportunity He’s given you to serve and watch Him reveal the answers, and Himself, to you.

It’s been two years since I’ve been to Moldova. That’s hard to imagine, but God has taken Sweet Sleep to other countries and my time has been needed there. I’m so looking forward to returning to this sweet place this October. I’m personally inviting you to join me on this adventure. Come and see for yourself what it feels like to wrap your hands around the face of a child and realize you’re looking into the eyes of Jesus. Come and see what love in the form of beds looks, feels and smells like. Whatever you do, just come. The children are waiting.

Happy Birthday, Sweet Sleep. And, Jesus, thank you for the rich blessings you’ve filled my life with over the last seven years of ministry and for my friends who have walked this journey with me.

Love to you,
Jen

Orphan Sunday

On November 7, 2010, we will join with organizations, churches and individuals across our country and around the world to celebrate God's love for the orphaned and abandoned children in our world. "Orphan Sunday" is a visible reminder and challenge to us to explore and respond to God's heart for these children and how we can make a difference in their lives. To find out how you can be a part of this momentous day, please visit the "Orphan Sunday" website for more information!

Sweet Sleep will continue to provide resources that promote our mission to provide beds to these children. In partnership with "Orphan Sunday", we are encouraging churches and individuals to join us in various projects leading up to the big event including: Build-A-Bed, Insomnia and Nickels for Nets. We encourage you to join us on this important day!