Sweet Sleep

Sweet Sleep is a Nashville, Tennessee based non-profit organization whose mission is to share God's love by providing bed to the world's orphaned and abandoned children.

Currently, Sweet Sleep is working in Moldova, a third-world country between the Ukraine and Romania - the poorest country in Europe according to a report last year from the United Nations. The CIA World Fact Book estimates that 80% of the population lives below the poverty line.

Moldova has struggled greatly since its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. The victims of this impoverished young country are its children. More than 14,000 children (birth to 16 years) are growing up in orphanage institutions. The government does not have the money to sustain the needs of these children and, as a result, closes the doors to most of its 62 orphanages each summer. This leaves children who must somehow find suitable food and shelter for months at a time.

Beds in these state-run institutions are typically between 40-50 years old. Constructed of metal, it is common for bed springs to have "sprung" -- leaving gaping holes in which the thin cotton mattresses fall through to the floor. Children will usually use shoestring or rope to tie the holes together. The mattresses are heavily soiled and stained from decades of children who wet their cotton mattresses. Orphanages experiences large breakouts of lice and scabies due to poor sanitation and children are only able to shower once every week or two.

Due to the dire need of beds and bedding in orphanages and the inability of the Moldovan government to provide these resources, Sweet Sleep was granted permission to work in the orphanages from the Minister of Education's office.

Sweet Sleep is now beginning to look outside the borders of Moldova to the world. Sweet Sleep's first project outside of Moldova is providing beds for an orphange being built for the children of Darfur.

Due to the war in Sudan, there are thousands of orphans in the southern part of the country. These children currently sleep outside -vulnerable to weather and wildlife. The death rate of un-housed orphans is very high due to this exposure. This year alone, more than 280 orphans have died at night in one Southern Sudan community directly because of not having housing.

Sweet Sleep, through a partnership with African Leadership and Make Way Partners, will provide beds, bedding and mosquito netting to the New Life School and Orphanage in Sudan which is completing construction and is need of Sweet Sleep.

Children who will live here are orphans and Darfur refugees who have lost their parents to persecution. These children will receive much personal love will be cared for, counseled by and discipled from indigenous Christian leaders through the school’s discipleship program.

How Sweet Sleep began:
In 2003, Jen Gash, who was serving as Executive Assistant to Nashville's Mayor, Bill Purcell, went to Moldova on a mission trip with her church to Chisinau, Moldova. Her first image of the orphanage was a pile of mattresses stacked in a corner. They were about an inch thick and the smell was overwhelming. These mattresses were between 17 and 47 years old and the 700 children in this orphanage alone shared just 430 beds.

In the days which followed her arrival in Moldova Jen's heart grew heavier as she sat with the children on their beds each day. Their exhausted metal beds were the size of a cot. The tired metal springs were sprung and almost every bed sagged in the middle, making it much like a metal hammock, which was shared by two children. Many of the children did not even have mattresses and used old wool blankets as a barrier to the harsh metal springs. As she devoted time to prayer, she sensed herself being called to action as God created an urgency within her to somehow provide a warm, clean and nurturing place for the children to lay their heads.

One evening during team prayer time a member prayed for the children to have "sweet sleep" and Jen began to cry as she sensed God confirm this call in her life. In her own prayer time that evening, God brought those words back to her as He continued to affirm His intentions for His children to sleep sweetly on mattresses and beds which would no longer harm them. This scripture verse guides the work of Sweet Sleep and is their prayer for each orphaned and abandoned child. "When you lie down you will not be afraid, when you lie down your sleep will be sweet."
Proverbs 3:24

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