Brentwood Baptist member founds Sweet Sleep to help nation's troubled teens
It started with a desire to share God's hope and to provide new beds to orphaned children in Moldova, an eastern European nation bordered by Ukraine and Romania.
Jen Gash, a member of Brentwood Baptist Church, said she feels establishing Sweet Sleep is God's calling on her life. She started the faith-based mission after returning from a mission trip to Moldova in July 2003 with other church members. Within a year, she had raised $30,000 for the Internat II orphanage to replace old metal beds made around World War II.
"What struck me during the first trip was an overwhelming sense of need and an overwhelming desire for the children to be loved," Gash said. "It was also a feeling that it was just easy to meet some of their needs. It was easy to love them, to give them a pair of socks, to show them love and to let them know that people care. I could not not do something. When I came back, it seemed like every breath I took and everywhere I looked, I saw the children."
In May, she resigned as executive assistant to Nashville Mayor Bill Purcell to work full time for Sweet Sleep, named after a prayer a mission-team member asked for the children — that God grant them sweet sleep. Sweet Sleep is a program of San Antonio-based Children's Emergency Relief International, a Baptist agency providing medical attention and shelter to orphans in Mexico, Sri Lanka and Moldova.
Life is hard for youths in Moldova, Europe's poorest nation, Gash said. That is why the ministry has expanded its mission to build transitional housing and develop an 18-month transitional living programfor youth forced by the government to leave orphanages when they are 16 or 17. More than half of the nation's 12,000 orphans are male and are at risk of joining organized crime to survive, said Gash. About 70% of orphaned girls are at risk of entering prostitution, and suicide among teenagers is another problem, she added.
Sweet Sleep bought an unfinished home in Chisinau, Moldova's capital, where it plans to provide a transitional living program for teenage boys discharged from the orphanages they assist. The ministry is raising money to construct the home and operate it. CERI is building a home for orphaned girls.
The 18-month transitional living program is designed to mentor to the country's orphans, teach them life skills, money management, health and wellness and offer spiritual development. The first home will also be the headquarters for the Sweet Sleep bed-building program.
"We started to hire the boys to build the beds and to train them," said Gash. "God put it on my heart, a feeling that we needed to do something greater than what we already did. We want to be able to give these boys a trade, other options that could change their life. It is important to give them opportunities so they can have hope for the future."
Brentwood-based Christian music company EMI CMG teamed up with Sweet Sleep to buy coats for more than 1,000 children in two orphanages and winter clothing for 250 other children. A mission team traveled to the country in January. Among those traveling was Tim Bedi of Brentwood Baptist, who moved there to work with young men this year.
Gash said the ministry right now exceeds all of her expectations.
"I never would have imagined or wished for a greatness like this," she said. "Our pastor one time asked us when was the last time God knocked our socks off and I thought every day. Every day I am amazed by his love, his compassion and the guidance he has given me." •
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