Thank you for helping us make the Sweet Sleep Dream Gala a huge success! It was an honor to spend the evening sharing stories about how something as simple as a bed can so dramatically change the life of a child.
Our hope was to take you deeper into the lives of the children we serve. Many of you have asked for an update on Lillian — the child with the spinal cord injury that has left her crippled and incontinent. We actually visited her in Uganda just prior to the Gala and learned that a widow has taken Lillian into her home permanently! In addition to that, Sweet Sleep was able to provide Lillian with an additional vinyl covered mattress and a six month supply of hygiene products and catheters. Our hope is to provide for Lillian on a continuing basis, decreasing her incident of infection and improving her quality of life. When I return to Uganda this summer, I will replenish Lillian’s supply of these items.
Because of these provisions, Lillian is now able to attend school and she sleeps in more sanitary conditions.
And of course, she no longer roams the village looking for a place to take her in at night. She has found a home! We are so grateful for you! We could not do this without your support. Below is the full story of the time I first spent with her, and what an incredible journey it’s been. Thank you for your trust and faith in Sweet Sleep.
Lillian is why we give beds to orphaned and abandoned children.
She represents silent children around the world whose stories are waiting to be heard. The children we give beds to don’t simply lack a comfortable place to sleep, they have been through, seen more, and have known more loss than most all of us would experience in ten life times. In these communities, be they east Africa, Eastern Europe, or even here in the United States, beds are a luxury; a possession worthy of only the most elite. However to the children who receive a Sweet Sleep bed and their own Bible, it is an outward expression of the perfect love and unconditional grace their Father has for them. It shows them they are worth it. This week, we’re providing 400 beds at $50 each to be handed out personally from our team on the first mission trip to Uganda in 2016. These will be received by kids just like Lillian and her surrounding communities. Demonstrate this gift of love and hope to your friends and family by providing a bed to a child on the other side of the world who is currently sleeping on the earth, on scraps of cardboard, or in pre-soviet era rotten beds. Doing so will change the life of that child, and in doing so may possibly even change yours. We look forward to an impactful 2016!Merry Christmas, Madelene Metcalf President, Sweet Sleep
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A Day in the Life of Lillian
[av_video src=’https://www.youtube.com/embed/VTSQPNu8_CU’ format=’16-9′ width=’16’ height=’9′ custom_class=”] The air was heavy with a mist that hung over the cold packed clay earth. I arrived while a ten year old girl named Lillian slept — completely alone – dismissed to an unfinished mud hut because the tinge of urine filled the air and the other children did not want to be near her. Lillian was one of the disposables. She wasn’t worth the LRA killing her five years ago when they slaughtered her parents and brothers. The rebels left the five year old girl to die alone. She is the least, the last. She’s part of a community of throwaways left behind in the wake of a civil war, physically unable to resettle, and with nowhere to go and no one to go home to. A spinal cord injury left her crippled and incontinent which prevented her from going to school. Each night she roamed the village looking for someone who would take her in, to sleep on the cold packed clay earth.
I spent a day in the life of this child. To be with these children and to experience what they experience, if only for a brief moment, changes everything. That day, Lillian received a Sweet Sleep bed. She and I made the arduous walk to a settlement camp that was once the site of brutal killings and mass graves. A site that was now being used to show the love and hope of Christ through the gift of a bed — something we take for granted. Step by step, I watched a determined ten year old fighting for herself, holding on to some level of dignity and dreams of tomorrow. I have never been more proud to stand beside someone as I was on those red dirt roads of Uganda.
Lillian is why we give beds to orphaned and abandoned children.
She represents silent children around the world whose stories are waiting to be heard. The children we give beds to don’t simply lack a comfortable place to sleep, they have been through, seen more, and have known more loss than most all of us would experience in ten life times. In these communities, be they east Africa, Eastern Europe, or even here in the United States, beds are a luxury; a possession worthy of only the most elite. However to the children who receive a Sweet Sleep bed and their own Bible, it is an outward expression of the perfect love and unconditional grace their Father has for them. It shows them they are worth it.
This Christmas, demonstrate this gift of love and hope to your friends and family by providing a bed to a child on the other side of the world who is currently sleeping on the earth, on scraps of cardboard, or in pre-soviet era rotten beds. Doing so will change the life of that child, and in doing so may possibly even change yours.
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