It’s such a great privilege for me to bring you this guest post by my friend Jen Gash, President and Founder of Sweet Sleep. Jen’s ministry began because she saw a need and answered God’s call to meet it. I’m counting on the Faithful Provisions community to do the same thing when it comes to this month’s Giving Challenge.
Do you know what the deadliest creature on the planet is?
A shark? No. Lion? Nice guess, but no. Rhino? Also no. But if you answered the mosquito, then you’re correct. As small as the mosquito is, it wins for deadliest creature, with an estimated 2-3 million deaths attributed to malaria each year.
Sweet Sleep’s mission is providing beds to children in orphanages. When our work in Africa began in 2009, with it came the awareness of malaria’s deadly plague. But by simply providing beds and mosquito nets, we are making a difference. Just months after receiving the beds, the caregivers at the first orphanage we helped said they were able to change the children’s diets and give them meat and fruit each week. How does an orphanage with 138 children save enough money to give meat and fruit to its children, every week? They stop spending their scarce resources on testing and treating their children for malaria, that’s how. Also, the children’s grades began to improve. The effect of the beds, Bibles and nets on the children’s lives was profound. We were so pleased. (The picture below shows the dirt floor these girls were sleeping on, and the bed–with a mosquito net–they have now.)
Then, one day just a few months later, I found myself standing with our Ugandan staff and partners, perplexed by an extra bed we had after a bed distribution. We knew we had carefully counted each item when loading the trucks that morning.
Suddenly, a woman came up and spoke to one of our partners; it seemed there was great murmuring. I asked our regional director what was happening. Slowly she turned to me and said these words I’ll never forget:
“Mum, this extra bed belongs to a young girl who died last night from malaria.”
Even now, those words bring tears to my eyes. My heart was broken. I remember waking in tears during the middle of the night. What, really, was this thing called malaria? And, who was this precious little girl? I needed to know more.
What I learned changed my heart, and the efforts of Sweet Sleep’s work. This sweet child was named Liberty, and she was just 8 years old. Her mother had passed from malaria when Liberty was a toddler.
Liberty’s blind grandmother gave me one of the most precious gifts—a dress Liberty loved to wear. The zipper is broken and its light blue fabric is covered with patches of Uganda’s red earth. You can still smell the distinct fragrance of the charcoal fires where they cook their meals.
Liberty, lost to malaria at an age when she should have been running down those red dirt roads and laughing with her little friends, has left a legacy. In honor of Liberty, Sweet Sleep determined we would advocate to raise awareness and support to provide nets so that every child our ministry came into contact with would be able to sleep safely at night.
Our Giving Challenge: Fighting malaria is an enormous task; 320 children die every single day in Uganda. We have a lot of work to do. But, at just $8 per net, you can easily provide for a child waiting to receive a net. How many lives can you help save today? I’m honored that the Faithful Provisions readers would consider joining Sweet Sleep in this month’s Giving Challenge.
Article by Jen Gash, President and Founder of Sweet Sleep. Learn more about Jen and her ministry.
Donate Now
Can you believe that $8 could make such a difference in the life of a child? It really can. If you would like to donate, go to the Giving Challenge project page on Pure Charity HERE. You’ll notice the widget in the sidebar of the blog–that’s new! We’ll be able to see how we are doing with our giving, spread the word, and be sure we get this project fully funded! (Be sure to check out my Pure Charity Page to discover why we’re teaming up with them for our Giving Challenge projects!)
The Giving Challenge is a team effort of Faithful Provisions readers to provide for a need at a a different ministry every month. Learn more about what we’ve done so far this year.
