peepers...

look who showed up this morning to peep in on little mister pratt...



when we walked downstairs, he immediately spotted it. elf is that freaky. freaky enough that a 14 month old child sees him.

we read the book yesterday...and he appeared this morning. bi.zarre.

bed blog monday.

hi everyone.

when i was a kid, my dream was to go to africa. and work with the kids over there. nothing upsets me more than thinking of all those children. hungry. sick. without parents. why not work here, you say? well, because i really like black kids better. really...specifically...black kids from africa. i don't know why. maybe because i think they are all really sweet. i'm sure i'm wrong. who cares.

it's still my dream. i've yet to do it, but someday, i will. maybe that will be pratt's mission in life. to go to africa. let me say this...i'll let him. i promise i will. if that's what he is called to do, then i'll let him go. i'll need to be reminded of this...i'm sure.

my friend jon merryman works with an organization called "sweet sleep". here is a link to their blog.

http://sweetsleep.blogspot.com/

jon emailed me this weekend and asked me to do something for them. i just remembered...so i'm hoping i'm not too late.

every christmas, i try to find things for family and friends that i think they would like. a few years ago, i made a promise that most (if not all) of my gifts would come from ten thousand villages. it's a non profit organization and the money goes back to the people who make the goods. what an excellent idea.

christmas has become about giving gifts. soooooo not what it's supposed to be about. and so i felt like maybe this would help with that. maybe i could give...and give back at the same time.

this year, it's sweet sleep. so here is a little info...

oh, if you have ADHD, and can't read the entire thing. here is what they are asking for.

notes for some of the kids. love notes. notes to take to them. things that they don't have. notes, people. how hard is it to write notes. or have your kids write them notes? draw pictures. write scripture. etc.

people to pray for the people traveling and working with these children and parents and leaders over there.

mosquito nets. in 26 days, over 8000 ugandans will die of malaria. 8000 people! the nets are 8 dollars a piece.

mattresses to sleep off the ground for the first time in their lives. these mattresses are 50 bucks a piece. pretty sure my mattress was around 2000 dollars. i should be ashamed of myself. believe me, i am.

blankets. BLANKETS!!!! 30 dollars a piece.

okay. read on...

For nearly 22 years northern Uganda has been in a war-- a war which I have never known about until a few years ago. I had vaguely heard of “invisible children” or child soldiers or night commuters. Really all I knew was that a crazy evil man attacked villages at night, killing as many as possible and kidnapping children to be in his rebel army. I knew that each day, at dusk, children would walk long distances to sleep in safe shelters so the rebels could not get to them at night. This was all I knew. Recently this war entered into a time of peace. I’ve been trying to learn about the plight of the children in this area. This rebel army, the LRA (Lord’s Resistance Army) would attack villages during the night. As they attacked, LRA soldiers would kill as many adults as they could and they would force the children of these villages to kill their parents or be killed themselves. From there the children were kidnapped into the LRA army and forced to become child soldiers. These children have lived through tremendous atrocities.

Earlier this year God called our organization, Sweet Sleep (www.sweetsleep.org) to work in Uganda . In March, Sweet Sleep was contacted by an organization working in the Gulu region of northern Uganda ---the center of the impacted region. 10 huts had been burned down and there was an urgent need for beds for the children. We responded to this need and in July, while working in other orphanages in Uganda , I had the opportunity to travel to Gulu
to see what Sweet Sleep had provided and to understand what more we could do. What I saw and learned that day has changed my life, and the ministry of Sweet Sleep.

There are far too many things to share about that day. However, I do want to tell you one story: In Gulu I spent the day with 5 teenagers who had either been child soldiers or who had lost their parents, they took me from camp to camp showing me huts and some of the beds Sweet Sleep had provided. I had never been in a hut before and focused on taking in everything I could. Actually, it was a little crazy to think I was in a hut in the middle of nowhere in east Africa . At one point in the afternoon we ducked through the doorway into another small hut. I looked around and saw it was just as all the others: a hard dirt floor, curved walls made from mud and little rays of light coming in at the top where the wall met the simple straw roof. I stood there and looked at the contents of this hut: one little bed with a pink blanket and one toothbrush somebody had woven in and out through the straw of the thatch ceiling. That was all. I asked a question I’d not yet asked, “Who lives here?” The answer that followed rocked my little world.

The teens told me that a 14-year old girl and her five younger brothers and sisters lived there.

I heard their answer, but I didn’t understand it. So, I asked, “Where are her parents and why have we only given them one bed?” The answer that came was dumbfounding to me. I learned that in the Gulu region there are still one million displaced people—people who have lost their homes and everything they owned---because of the war. I learned that three-quarters of those people are children living in child-headed households. Yes, read that again. That’s about 750,000 children with no parents or grandparents or even orphanage to protect or care for them.

This information struck something deep inside me. Spending the day watching and studying those 5 teenagers struck something even deeper. I kept asking myself what in the world our ministry could do there. I knew we couldn’t give them back what had been taken away from them---we couldn’t give them back their parents. I knew we couldn’t take away what had been forced upon them---those children had watched as their families and villages had been brutalized. What could we do? God and I wrestled with this for weeks and weeks and weeks. One of our driving verses at Sweet Sleep is Proverbs 3:24 which says, “they will lie down and not be afraid; they will lie down and their sleep will be sweet.” Here, in Gulu, this verse just did not make sense to these children.

In the months that followed, God showed me another verse, also in Proverbs, that says, “Once our eyes are opened, we can't pretend we don't know what to do. God who weighs our hearts and keeps our souls knows that we know, and holds us responsible to act.” The answer, I realized, is that I had seen and had learned and was responsible to share their story with all of you so that you, too, would know and be able to respond. The answer for Sweet Sleep was that we respond just as we have always: we work together with everyone we can in order to find resources that will bring beds and hope to as many children as possible. This is the good news. It’s such good news that hope is coming to these children in the form of a bed which communicates to a child things about God’s promises so that peace can slowly begin to come to their hearts.

So, we are moving on to bring true sweet sleep to these tired and traumatized little ones. We face a challenge before us that is greater than ever. It is our ministry’s responsibility and challenge to connect the message of God’s hope, His love, grace, forgiveness, protection, provision and redemption, to the beds which we will provide. And, to equip those children with scripture that they can begin to learn and memorize which will enable them to push out the fear that grips them at night----the time the rebels come. If they can lie in their new beds and know they are loved and protected and then claim a verse reminding them of this knowledge, they can begin to have little victories over the fear that grips them. And, peace and hope and love can slowly come to their little hearts. This is why I desperately need your help.

My hope is you can help me find people who want to do something great this Christmas. We are providing 450 beds which will go to “heads of households” and thus, provide beds and nets for 2,000 children. Of those 450 beds we need 218 more. A bed in Gulu consists of a straw mat, a mattress, sheets, blanket and a mosquito net, for a cost of $88. Of that, $8 is for a treated mosquito net to help prevent children from being bitten by a life-threatening mosquito infected with this disease. In Uganda , malaria now kills more people than HIV/AIDS.


So, here’s what I still need, you can determine which opportunity suits you best:
· I need a team of people who can commit to praying for me and for the work I’ll be doing
· I need notes of love to give to a child I encounter. They can be notes of love, encouragement, your favorite scripture, whatever. Mailed to Sweet Sleep. I’ll pack and take and hand deliver to a child I get to spend time talking with.
· 218 mosquito nets. 8,320 Ugandans will die of malaria during the 26 days I will be gone. I will purchase these in Uganda for $8 each. Malaria kills more people in Uganda than HIV/AIDS.
· Mattresses for 218 children so they will be able to sleep up off of the ground for the first time in their lives. Mattresses are $50.
· Can you imagine not having a blanket to warm you during these chilly nights or sheets to sleep in? 218 more children still need to be able to be warm and snuggly. They can for just $30.
· If you do the math you can see 218 complete beds are $88. That’s a fun total of $19, 184. Slow and steady wins the race. Sweet Sleep is nothing if not grass roots. J


In this last home stretch it’s anything goes. Yes, we’ll welcome your donations. Yes, we’ll encourage you to bring these opportunities above to your office, church, small group, Sunday school class, college, school, running group, book club…anywhere you live your life. And, yes, we welcome your gift donations that you make in honor or memory of someone you know. We have fun card options you can choose for Sweet Sleep to send to your recipient, letting them know about the gift you’ve made on their behalf. Visit our site for more on this: http://www.sweetsleep.org/getinvolved/givethegift.html

Any checks can be made to Sweet Sleep with a note for “Gulu” in the memo line. Our mailing address is PO Box 40486 , Nashville , TN 37204 .

Thanks friends…..for changing and saving lives.

Blessings to you today,
Jen

if you need any other information, email me at hannahfielderfulks@yahoo.com and i'll be happy to email you.

have great mondays. and enjoy your warm, comfy beds tonight.

do the baby isaac.

so. i'm a huge fan of yo gabba gabba.

i don't know if it's because of the music. or the fact that no one ethnic group is portrayed more than another on there. or maybe it's because i have a crush on dj lance. i don't know. but i love it.

and pratt loves it too. for months now, when dj lance walks on the screen with that big boom box, pratt has gone nuts.

well, yesterday...was a first for us.

it was the first time pratt really payed attention and did what dj lance asked him to do. "the baby isaac dance". basically you just swing your arms from side to side and dance.



the picture below is a little bit creepy. pretty sure dj lance is talking directly to pratt. look, he's bending down and everything.



notice the twist of the arms...

and finally, look how proud he is of himself! so cute.

quack, quack.

i found this outfit at a place called janie and jack. and i fell in love with it.

there are ducks on the pants. totally j.crew. and a little ole miss. i don't know why.

bethany, does it make sense to you? something about how southern they are. southern and charming.







and here he is playing around with ornaments. and gifts. so if your christmas present doesn't have ribbon...now you know why. 'cause pratt ate it.

and my favorite.

pictures.

here are a few pictures that i've been meaning to post.

my sweet friend kim sent pratt a package. we LOVE packages. who doesn't, right? we opened it up and it was "if you take a mouse to the movies" plus the mouse!!!

needless to say, he loved it. kim did a perfect job with it. books and a stuffed animal. his two favorites. i cried when i was trying to thank her by voicemail. there is just something about seeing your best friends love your child. i don't know. just something so sweet about it. so, kim...we loved it! thank you, thank you, thank you!

the rest of these pictures are from the past week. pratt is getting so big. he doesn't even look like a baby anymore. it kind of breaks my heart when i see them. but i really do love this age. he's able to communicate with me which is great. i feel much more competent now. i really do think that maybe i should just adopt kids who are 9 months old. i'm good from that point on.

i've been using clint's canon camera. it's for his office. for veneer cases. let's just say that this camera is awesome. and it costs more than anything i own. check these pictures. you can see the hair on pratt's face. wow.

he's the skinniest kid ever. i promise we feed him. and no, he doesn't frequently walk around without a shirt. only sometimes. like some nights. or most nights. or most days. whatever...

his shoe is gigantic. and he sort of walks like otis the town drunk. you know, flops his feet out in front of him. so cute.

he's at the stage where he wants to get down. and do it himself. here he is trying to get out of his daddy's arms.

and these are my new favorite jammies. flannel. so soft and warm. he's getting stuff out of the bookshelves for us. books, puzzles, toys. etc. and he will then walk them over to you...crawl up in your lap and sit. for like 1 minute. and then he's doing it all over again.

note the tippy toes. precious.

have wonderful weekends.

handsome.

i have no idea when he turned into a 10 year old little boy. but here he is...

and if that face doesn't melt your heart into a million pieces, well...you're crazy. crazy like a fox.

oh, and this afternoon we decorated dad's office tree. afterwards, we had dinner in the car and headed to the christmas parade. downtown. we have a wonderful downtown. with a courthouse that is all lit up. and the square has all their lights out. it's just great. such a great small town. we're lucky to live here.

anyway, here are a few pictures. as i told clint, pratt won't remember what i looked like. i'm always the one taking pictures. oh well...

one more thing. last year around this time, i was driving past this church. downtown. and they have their nativity scene out front. and a grandmother (i assumed) with her grandson were out looking at it one night. i passed by and thought to myself, "wow. how great is that. maybe one day we can take pratt up there to see baby jesus. and tell him the christmas story."

little did i know that it would be our church. a church we would soon join.

so tonight we stood right beside baby jesus and watched the christmas parade. they were giving out hot chocolate. pratt was super excited. he got two big handfuls of marshmallows!

have wonderful nights.

point to the...

last night clint was reading to pratt while i sat in the chair exhausted.

i don't know why, but i'm so tired lately. no, i'm not pregnant. i promise.

i don't know what it is. wait...yes, i do. i need to exercise. but i can't find the time. i mean, it's there...i don't want to find it, i guess. yes, that's it.

anyway. i'm tired. so clint is reading to him. it's one of his favorite books. a picture book. and pratt is sitting in clint's lap. and clint does something that i haven't done. i'm embarrassed to say....

he says, "point to the butterfly, pratt."

and i'm thinking, "omg. no way. no way. how have i missed doing this!?"

and yes. the kid looks at each page...and ever so carefully, reaches down and point at the butterfly.

I FLIP OUT! like jeff lewis, flip out. start clapping and screaming! telling clint he is the smartest kid ever. all those annoying parent things.

here are a few pictures. and yes, he's clapping for himself in the first picture.







he knew deer, butterfly, cat, dog, duck. cow, horse. fish. and maybe some others. i can't remember. i'll have to get it on video. it's so cute!

have wonderful tuesdays! a great night for hot cocoa and a fire!