It's Bed Blog Monday! Sweet Sleep

This was supposed to publish yesterday. Through some technical error it didn't publish yesterday. We can just pretend this happened on the day it was supposed to and also we'll count it as a Thing I Like, because I do. (See second-to-last sentence). 




I love my bed. Seriously, some days I feel like I could just stay in it all day. It's cozy and warm and soft. My bed isn't even that great, comparatively. It's a bed that I got at a discount furniture store and the second-cheapest mattress set available at Sam's Club. I don't have Egyptian cotton sheets, just some discounted ones I bought at a kiosk in the mall.
Earlier this year, I spent a night without my bed, without any bed, outside. I had a tent and a sleeping bag and some sort of inflatable yoga-mat type thing the backpacker in the group had brought along. I was miserable. I don't consider myself high maintenance, but I did not enjoy that night. I was cold and uncomfortable. I wanted to be in my bed.

The next morning, during my inner-dialogue rant about how awful my night had been, the thought occurred to me that I was not the only one who didn't rest easy that night. There were children around the world, orphaned, cold, and without a bed. They have never known the comfort of my cheap mattress and sheets, but the misery of my cold night on the ground is a reality they know too well.

An organization that works to help these children is Sweet Sleep, whose motto is "A bed for every head." They provide beds for orphans in countries around the world. They build sturdy bunk beds that will last many years and outfit them with blankets and mosquito nets. They want kids to have a good night's sleep and the ability to have pleasant dreams. And for some kids, having a bed and mosquito net is literally life saving.

Orphans in many countries have no choice but to sleep in beds that are broken, bug-infested, or soiled, if they have beds at all. For these children, this can mean being susceptible to disease, bone and joint trauma, and even learning problems. Sleeping without mosquito nets can mean exposure to malaria.

Sweet Sleep has been able to provide more than 3,000 beds for children in Moldova, Uganda, and Haiti. Right now, Sweet Sleep is partnering with the American Refugee Committee (ARC) to help hundreds of thousands of children living in child-headed households in the IDP (Internally Displaced Persons) camps in northern Uganda. Sweet Sleep provides children returning to their home villages each with a bed, a mosquito net, and a Bible. These three simple items have greatly helped the children transfer from the camps to their villages. Many were reluctant to leave the camps, because they have lived there so long, but once they saw that children were receiving beds, nets, and Bibles, they were lining up to leave!
Sweet Sleep has a special need for the month of November--they need money for 700 beds, nets, and Bibles for Gulu, Uganda. Each resettlement kit--including a straw mat, mattress, blanket, mosquito net, and Bible--is just $50. Thanks to some friends of Sweet Sleep, any gifts given toward this project in October will be matched 100%! Today is Bed Blog Monday (not a real holiday), a blog campaign to raise awareness about this organization and specifically the Gulu project, so I thought I'd blog about it, too. I like Sweet Sleep because they are taking one simple thing that is often overlooked--a bed--and using it to share Christ's love with kids. To find out more about their work and the Gulu project, go to their website http://www.sweetsleep.org/ or their blog sweetsleep.blogspot.com.