People were bringing little children to Him, for Him to touch them. The disciples turned them away, but when Jesus saw this He was indignant and said to them, “Let the children come to me. Do not stop them for it is to such as them that the Kingdom of God belongs. I will tell you solemnly, anyone who does not welcome the Kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” Then He put His arms around them, laid His hands on them and gave them His blessing.
Mark 10:13-16
After Murray Dryden retired, he and his wife Margaret wanted to travel. During a visit to India in 1970, while exiting a train, he stepped down into a pile of newspapers. Assuming it to be trash he pushed it aside. A young child was sleeping in the pile of papers.
Growing up in the Depression, Murray, the eldest of eight children, left his family farm in Manitoba to find a job. In his book With God Nothing is Impossible: A Canadian Life, he recounted the perilous journey in winter across northern Ontario, riding the rails, hitchhiking when possible, being hungry with no money, almost freezing to death when no one stopped to pick him up, until a kind farmer came along. While he expected to spend the night in a barn, the family fed him and gave him a bed to sleep in. Murray described the sleep he had that night as the best he had ever had.
When the Drydens returned from their trip in 1970, the young children sleeping on the street continued to concern them and they were determined to create a few “sleeping kits” and return to India to give them to a few children. As they shared their story with friends at their church, Humber Valley United Church in Etobicoke, many asked how they could help. Indeed, Murray and Margaret returned to Pune, India and at an orphanage gave out 70 “sleeping kits”. In 2009, the year of the one-millionth kit [now known as bedkits], members of the extended Dryden family returned to that orphanage to distribute bedkits once again.
Murray Dryden believed that it was the right of every child to have a safe and peaceful night’s sleep and so he founded Sleeping Children Around the World. He left the Dryden family home to the charity as its headquarters, along with a Christmas tree farm which seeded the legacy funds for the upkeep of the house and one paid employee.
After 53 years, Sleeping Children Around the World remains a 100% charitable organization. All donations for bedkits fund the bedkits alone. As far as possible, the items are made in the country of distribution and pictures of the children who received the bedkits are sent with the charitable tax credit as a record of the donation. Murray believed in “free-will giving.” No one who travels for Sleeping Children receives any funding or a charitable donation credit. No advertising is funded.
Murray, a lifelong Rotarian, understood the power of working together with a local trusted organization in the country of distribution. This Overseas Volunteer Organization partnership receives the funding, organizes the purchasing of the bedkits, keeps detailed records, selects the children (aged 6-12, regardless of race or religion, girls and boys in equal numbers}, sets up the locations for the distribution and travels with the team when they arrive from Canada.
Each bedkit costs $40.00 Canadian. It was necessary to raise the donation amount for a bedkit from $35.00 this year due to the rising cost of obtaining the items in the countries of distribution.
Murray did not turn his back on the child sleeping in the newspapers. He moved towards the need. Today over 1.6 million bedkits have been distributed. For those of us who have had the privilege of being on a bedkit distribution for Sleeping Children Around the World, our lives have been forever changed.
SCAW is the monthly mission for Haliburton United Church for June. For further information go to the church’s Monthly Missions web page or directly to scaw.org. To donate to SCAW, visit the church’s Giving web page. Donations may be made at any time of the year.
Photo: Leslie Banner of Haliburton United Church (back row) on a mission for Sleeping Children Around the World in Kenya, Africa.
Our thanks to Leslie Banner for this devotion, one of many by various contributors posted by Haliburton Pastoral Charge. If you would like to submit a devotion for consideration, please email us.
Haliburton Pastoral Charge 