Bible Bed Books

This is Andy Thomas from the Masculine Journey Podcast where we discover what it means to be a wholehearted man. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just seconds. Enjoy it, share it, but most of all, thank you for listening and for choosing the Truth Podcast Network. Together we explore the stories of men and women who take what they love and let God turn their passion into kingdom pursuits. Now, live from the Truth Booth, your host, Robbie Dilmore.

Good morning. Robbie couldn't be here today because he's suffering up in Ohio on a trout stream. He's catching some steelhead salmon, which is actually a type of trout, I believe. Anyway, I hope he's having a great time. So this is Scott Barton filling in for him, and we have so much to be thankful for. And one thing that I am so thankful for and have been my whole life is that I've had a nice warm bed and plenty of books. And today we have an exciting guest here today, and she's going to talk about her ministry, and it involves books and beds. And her name is Annalisa Wall, and she's going to tell us all about this ministry, and it's a local ministry, and they actually have locations all throughout the state, and I think they're heading west. Is that correct, Annalisa? Hi. Good morning, Scott.

Yes, that is correct. We started here in Forsyth County, Winston-Salem. We are now a triad chapter with Greensboro and High Point included in that.

We're in Boone, Watauga, Ashen, Avery County, North Wilkesboro, Mecklenburg, Raleigh, and yes, headed nationally soon. So what exactly is a bed and a book? I know what a bed is and I know what a book is, but what do you guys do and how do you impact the lives of young children? Well, Scott, two to three percent of children in America currently sleep on the floor.

Wow. And tomorrow, many of them will wake up and they'll go to school tired. And lack of sleep during these critical points of development carries an emotional and physical impact that lasts beyond childhood. So a bed and a book is on a mission to create safe and warm spaces for children to have of their own. Well, how are you funded? How do you put all this together?

I mean, it's an excellent concept and idea, but who came up with this idea and quite frankly, how does it work? I identified a need three years ago of three children that were sleeping on the floor and the original mission was just to try to find a way to provide beds for these three children and began to pray about it and ask friends. And some of my friends said, unless we want to help you get these three kids beds. And so we provided the beds, delivered them, and I thought, you know, I had answered the calling that God put on my heart. But then, sadly to say, you know, again, two to three percent of children are sitting on the floor. So the calls kept coming in and I kept saying, I don't know how I'm going to do this, God.

I'm a single mom myself. There's no way I can make this happen. And I almost kind of said to God, I really I can't do it and kind of said no to him. But it was he was faithful to wake me up at two in the morning every night and say, you are going to do this. And and so I just finally gave in and said, God, here I am, your faithful servant.

That is amazing. So do you guys build the beds? Do you have a warehouse?

Do you have suppliers? How are you funded? And if somebody wants to get involved, if they want to participate and they don't really have a lot of money, they say, well, maybe our men's group at church, we can devote a Saturday or or our church doesn't have any time.

But we we might have some resources to write a check. Just tell us a little bit about that for the people that are listening today, that how they can get involved and how they can pray for you and how they can bless your ministry. So how it kind of works just to get the best of the children is we provide a clean, brand new beds, brand new mattresses, brand new bedding for children ages zero to 18. We work with refresh professional referring agencies, and that's how we identify the families that are most in need. And once they're identified, we go into the home and we deliver the beds to the children. We assemble them in the home and we work with Wake Forest athletes have come the basketball football team. We've had new churches come.

We have the bed build days where we build them into kits to get ready to take them to the home. And the fire department's helped us with that. The sheriff department. It's been really great to have the sheriff's department come with us because with that, we're changing the dialogue at a young age of kids in impoverished communities and that interaction being positive with law enforcement, law enforcement actually being in the community and meeting the children and kind of building that sense of community. We call it building a community one bed at a time. And yes, and so it's so wonderful to go into the home with those people and to these children. It's like celebrities to have, you know, a sheriff there to have the fire department there.

And so it's it's really, really great. OK, first, anybody out there that has any questions or would like to get involved, please give us a call. 866-348-7884. Once again, that's 866-348-7884.

And this is Scott Martin filling in for Robbie Dilmore for Kingdom Pursuits. Jamal, did you have anything to add? I did like the piece where she brought in law enforcement to impoverished and those kind of communities. Right now, we unfortunately have had a negative image put out there about law enforcement. And to to me, that's just an attack from the enemy. God said to paraphrase that we are to respect governments. One thing I can think of is Renator Caesar's where the Caesar's and Renator God's where the God's. That's when the Pharisees were trying to trap God between serving government and serving God. And he said, well, the two can be mutually inclusive.

They'd have to be mutually exclusive. We can serve God and serve government at the same time. However, we have to put God above government. So until government steps out of line of God, then we have to follow that government. When the government steps out of line, then we have to follow God. So when we are coming out of line and not supporting law enforcement and we are not giving them the proper respect, we're out of line. So I'm glad you brought that up.

We need to have good governance. We need to have good respect for law enforcement because they're people, too. They have families also. They have to go home as well. And we have to realize they're not automatons, they're not robots.

They're people like anybody else. Thank you so much, Jamal. Do we have a caller, Nick? OK. Good morning. Thank you for your call. Who am I speaking with today? This is Alan Joines.

I'll just call and make a quick comment. I volunteer with this program and it's an amazing program that's benefiting our community in so many different ways. And I've done many, many deliveries and help with the bed build and so on. But when you see these little kids, you think Christmas had arrived every day that we brought those beds. So I just so fortunate that Lisa chose this ministry here to begin in Forsyth County and it's grown into the many locations that she mentioned.

And it's a great program. I encourage everyone to that would like to help out financially or otherwise would be wonderfully welcome, for sure. So thank you. And Merry Christmas, everyone. Thank you. Thank you for your shepherd ship of our grand city. And let me step in on a personal note.

My father, Larry Womble, has been good friends. Oh, yes. And it's a great guy. Thank you. But I appreciate that. And he used to say the greatest mayor of all of the United States.

Yeah, I'd like to take Larry with me everywhere. I can't blame you. So I thank you personally. Mayor, I love you and glad you called in today, sir. Thank you, Jamal.

Good to hear from you. Thank you. Have a great day. Yes, sir. Bye bye. OK, we're getting ready to go to break. But if anybody would like to call the number once again is 866-348-7884. You're listening to the Truth Network and Truth Network dot com.

Good morning. This is Scott Barton filling in for Robbie Dilmore for the Kingdom Pursuit show, and we have an exciting guest here, and she has a local ministry. It's called Bed and a Book, and her name is Annalise Wall. And if we have any callers that like to call in and have any questions, it's 866-348-7884.

And that's 866-348-7884. Annalise, before the break, we were talking about the needs that your ministry has and how somebody could get involved and participate and perhaps volunteer. How did how did you come up with this? You alluded to it earlier, but could you tell us about the genesis of this endeavor and your background and and how you were, you know, to take this from just a dream, a prayer to reality? This is exciting. And when I understand you're getting ready to go out to L.A. Yeah, that's correct, Scott.

We're really excited about that opportunity and the people there that's going to help us as we move that direction. But how this kind of all got going was working in the courthouse for most of my career. I was working a particular case.

It was a sadly a drive by shooting case. And whenever I was asking for the picture of the children's room that was in the home during the time of the shooting, the officer just said that they had given me the photographs and I said I don't have a picture of any kids rooms. And as they showed me the children's room, I was shocked to see that here in Forsyth County. The only thing in the room was a shower curtain laying on the floor and then towels. And when I asked what that was, they told me that was the children's beds. And I just couldn't believe that here in our beautiful city, this was the case.

This was here in Winston. That's correct. Yes. We take so much for granted. Wouldn't you agree, Joel? Yeah, I would agree. I was just sitting here thinking that as technologically advanced as we are and as wealthy as we are, as we have many conveniences, we still have a lot of people that go without.

We still have a lot of people that go without even basic necessities. And I'm so glad that people like you, Ana Lisa, are serving those needs and serve those needs on many different levels. And I could tell that this is a passion of yours. This is something to where there's some kind of ulterior motive, some kind of personal gain. When the mayor called up, you guys should have seen her. She, you know, welled up and got emotional, got teary-eyed. You can't fake that. That's genuine. So you can tell that this is near and dear to her heart.

And any time where you're serving kids, serving people that are needy, that is a good work. I remember one passage. Of course, I have to paraphrase this. When Jesus was out there speaking, some of the kids ran up to him and, you know, some people wanted to wave some of the kids away.

He said, no, no, no, no, no. Bring the kids to me. So Jesus loved kids. He loved children. One of my favorite passages is what you do to the least of these. You do them to me. And our kids are some of the most vulnerable people out here.

I'm just going to toss a little thing out to Lantern Rescue. They go out and they rescue kids from traffic. And I learned that from Truth Network. You probably hear this from me a lot of times, but I love Truth Network. They serve a lot of needs. And I'm glad we have Annalisa here, right here, to tell us about her work. So tell us how we can support you, Miss Annalisa. I just want to say what you had just spoke on, Jamal, is my verse I always like to say from the Bible. It says, Suffer the children to come unto me and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of God. And that's why we're doing what we're doing and why I'm here today, because I'm kind of the voice for them, because they can't speak on their own.

And I'm going to tell you how to support, but I just want people to understand how important this is. It's like the mayor said, you would think we were bringing a playground or a Maserati when it's something every child should have, which is a bed. And it doesn't matter if we delivered at 12 o'clock or 2 o'clock in the afternoon, the first thing they do is take their shoes off when they're ready to go to sleep because they're so excited to finally have somewhere to lay. I've had a 10-year-old boy who was sleeping in a crib.

They had taken the front off of it. And at 10 years old, he was curled up because it was softer to lay in that crib, they had found, than to sleep on the floor. I've had children to be on their own clothes and go to school the next day and be bullied by the classmate because the classmate didn't realize that that's their bed that they were sleeping on and they also had to wear. I've had football players from our local high school who go doing that rigorous training all day long and then come home and sleep on the floor. We had one boy who had just had brain surgery where he was run over and was sleeping on the floor and we brought him a brand new bed. So these children really need us. They really do.

Again, God said they're the kingdom and they're our future and the future needs us. So the ways to help is we have corporate sponsorship opportunities where you can step out of the office and get together with a group of people, sponsor the beds and do a bed build day to build them into kits to get ready for the delivery team. You can do, and all that's on our website, you can do donation packages. There's ways to do that. You can donate bedding. We only use twin size bedding because the homes that we serve in are small and sometimes we have four children in one room so we need to make sure it's twin size bedding.

So we're always looking for new twin size sheet sets, new twin size comforters, pillows, mattress covers. One of the big things has been a huge prayer and anytime I've prayed, God has made a way. He makes a way when there's no way. The Bible tells us that.

I can tell you I've seen so many prayers answered and if God is in this so much and I know now 100% this was a calling from Him and He does still call people today. But we need a sponsorship. We do have Target who helps us with bedding, but we pay full price for our beds and mattresses right now. So anyone out there who knows someone in manufacturing or a contact with Walmart or Amazon or some way, that would be a huge help where we could furnish more beds. Also, we're currently looking for warehouse space where we're at is free.

It doesn't cost us anything, but the building's up for sale and it is not the most safest place. So anyone out there who knows a warehouse space that we could use, please contact us through our website at bedinabook.com. So is there a phone number as well or would you rather them just go online and do it that way, email you? They could go to abedinabook.com on our website or they could also go to abedandabookatgmail.com.

Okay, abedandabookatgmail.com for anybody out there listening. We could always use volunteers as well. We have delivery days.

It's on Sign Up Genius where we go into the home like I was telling you to deliver the beds to the children. And so we always need people for that as well as these build days to build the kids. With a small group Bible study, and I'm currently in a couple of those, if we wanted to take a day and bring the kids and all, we could go on to that Sign Up Genius and sign up for a Saturday morning to go and help. Is that what you're?

Absolutely, yes. You can send us an email through volunteer. Let us know you have a group that would like to do a build day or a delivery day. And we can certainly set that up because, sadly to say, we have a waiting list just here in Forsyth County of 42 children that I need beds for, that I need to be delivered to. And we're booked all the way through January. So I have kids that's having to wait till January.

And that's the worst part about this is having to tell them that they have to wait to get that bed. So when we have volunteers that can step up and we can do extra delivery days, that helps that weight go down and we can push those children forward. How much does one volunteer make a difference? Like, for instance, if you have one or two or five volunteers, does that increase your output by a few days, weeks, or how does that work? For one delivery day, we would need at least four volunteers and that would potentially help one family. So that would make a big difference because our current delivery set days here are the first Friday, the third Wednesday and last Friday for our triad chapters.

So we could do some in between. And again, our Sheriff's Department goes to every one of those. In the fire department, they've been really fateful, but we always need those other volunteers in between.

Okay, good, good. Does anybody need any experience to help out? Do they just bring themselves a hammer and a bag of nails? I mean, what does somebody need to help out? We have all the toolkits, everything you need. And we have an easy instruction booklet. Again, the beds are already assembled into kits for those delivery days.

So it's super simple. We usually try to always have a build lead, somebody who can kind of instruct you if you have any, you know, mishaps, but no, just bring yourself and we can get through and figure it out. Okay, real quick, go through those days again, those build days?

The first, the delivery days is the first Friday, the third Wednesday and the last Friday of each month. All right. And to fund one bed, just so everyone understands, is about $380. Good point.

So that's a lot of need with 42 children on the waiting list. Okay. Well, thank you so much.

I did have a question. Where does the book part come in? Do you do classics or children's books or? And I'm so glad that you asked that part because that's so important and I always try to mention that.

So thank you, Scott. Bookmarks here locally in Winston-Salem. They're a wonderful store and for every child we give a bed to, they give a book bundle to that child. So they are our partner so we don't have to worry about the book portion and it's not just any books. We let them know the kids age, diversity and their interests. So that book matches the kids so they actually want to read it. I've seen so many moms say, I cannot believe he's reading this book. But thanks to bookmarks, they love that book selection.

That is so cool because I love books and I grew up as a lover of books and I always had so much exposure and I realized that a lot did not or do not. So we're getting ready to go to break here. But if anybody has any questions or if anybody would like to call in and ask how they could get involved in this wonderful local ministry, it's 866-348-7884. Once again, 866-348-7884.

Truth Network and truthnetwork.com. Good morning. This is Scott Barton filling in for Robbie Dilmore for the Kingdom Pursuit show.

And I hope everybody had plenty of turkey and they're back to normal. We have an exciting guest on here today. Her name is Annalisa Wall and she is the founder and brainchild of this exciting ministry.

It's local here in Winston-Salem, although they are growing like crazy. It's called A Bed and A Book. And Jamal had a question about if somebody maybe had a need and they might have several kids and might want a bed or something.

Yes, Barton. So we've heard about the website, the build days. So the average person that's walking the street or who wants to get involved, how do they know how to contact somebody or what would be some flags? To get on the list. To get on the list or how would they identify somebody that's in need or are there any kind of questions or is there anything that might stand out to somebody to where they would recognize somebody that's in need?

Because not everybody's going to everybody's bedrooms and seeing what they're like. So how can somebody find out if somebody is in need? So mostly we work with referring agencies. So it is agencies that are in the home, like the fire department, if they have a medical call. We had one time they seen that and showed up and let us know right away there was nothing in the home at all.

And we went that night late and delivered beds. But for the average person, if you suspect someone, we've even had teachers who could tell the kids were falling asleep during the day in class and would kind of gently pull them to the side and ask if they had a bed and let us know. So, you know, anyone can identify someone and go to, again, our website, AbedAndABook.

It's A-N-D, AbedAndABook.com. And there is a reform there to refer a child. And you can simply say I heard about it on the Truth Network. We would definitely use you guys as referring agency now being here today. And get them on the list and then our referral coordinator would call them up.

Do keep in mind, again, I don't think we've touched on this portion, but it's ages zero to 18. We work with Atrium Health. For any pregnant mother that comes in to the NEST program, ask the mothers if they have a safe sleeping space for their children. If they do not, we immediately, as soon as we get that referral from Atrium and Novant for steps, we go out and we deliver a portable crib to the family. Because before we started partnering, Katherine, who was over that program recently, had told me that it was over 200 children that were demised dying each year from not having a safe, or a couple years from not having a safe sleeping space.

And since our partnership, that number's gone from, yeah, and so since that partnership, the number's gone from over 200 children to two. So just having that safe sleeping space is making a difference. So also, if you know someone who doesn't have a safe space for their baby, please do not let them lay the baby in a towel or somewhere unsafe.

Please have them contact us. And this goes to other realms, other topics. If somebody's in school, how well can they perform if they don't have a safe space to be in, if they don't have a bed? And if you don't have a bed, I can only imagine you don't have other needs. So when it comes to succeeding in school and succeeding in life, if you don't do well in school, that can have implications on getting a job later on. So just having a bed could have implications later on to you being successful and being more independent. So this move, this effort that you have right here, you probably don't even know the depth of your impact. The trajectory that you're taking somebody off of and putting them on to where their life could went askew, you're putting them on a good track just by providing a bed.

I don't want to say just by because I don't want to belittle it. But by providing a bed, that can lead to so many other major implications. And then we might find out that there might be other needs that they can be serviced and we can call some other people. And that's how we create a Christian culture right now.

Good point. So when we talk about where's the church, the church can step in on many different levels right here. So a bed and a book, we're talking about a safe space, a place to lay your head and you get a book to help feed your mind as well. Now, I don't want to assume, but how much of ministry is infused into this effort right here?

So we have one project that I really enjoy. Our church recently worked on it, the children in our church at Haines Baptist, where they took plain pillowcases and they decorated the pillowcases, but they didn't just decorate them anyway. They wrote Bible scriptures on them.

Oh, that's great. They wrote words of affirmation, how God loves you, you're never alone. No matter how hard it is, God will always make a way for you, how you're never alone with God, how he is our mighty savior and he is the king and how he loves you. Just beautiful Bible scripture. I mean, so many about God's strength and how you can do anything through Christ who strengthens us. And so we, even though we have brand new sheet sets to put on the bed, we just put the pillowcases to the side and put those pillowcases on as a reminder every night when that child lays down that they have a mighty friend in Jesus, our savior.

Amen. We, the owner of the station, Stu Epperson, he has a little saying, Bible for breakfast and Bible for bed. So I'm pretty sure having scripture on your bed, on your pillow was something that he would really be all for right there. So if you could talk about other kind of needs that go along with the beds, sheets, pillows, cases and whatnot. And also those portable cribs, you know, that I was mentioning, we will take donations of those as well. However, they have to be new because of safety recalls and things like that.

We are trying to provide a safe sleeping space. And so as much as we would like to take that one that's passed down, we would have to get one that's new. But that's a big need as well. Oh, yeah. Good. Good.

I'm glad you mentioned that. Well, Annalisa, Jamal alluded to earlier about those that are in need, those that want to get on the list. Could you please tell the people that may be listening today how, without getting too discouraged, like how long? I mean, if you have to start at the back of the list, how long it might take or what their chances are if they're like really in need. So currently our waiting list is very long and we are all the way through the end of January.

That's not too bad. Yeah. So it doesn't sound bad, but when you're having to be the one to make that phone call and tell those children that they have to wait longer, that's the hardest part of all. So, yeah. So anyone now that would be signing up as a new recipient, it would be going into February before we could get those beds. But, again, our God is mighty.

He can do anything and he can change that. People that are listening today could say, hey, we want to do that big push. We do have a big delivery on December the 6th. It's going to be amazing.

The sheriff's office, the Winston-Salem PD, our mayor, Richard Childress Racing, Sugar at Homes, and a big group of people. We're going to deliver 16 beds in one day. Amen.

That's amazing. So that's going to take a lot of it down in my prayers. We're going to see a big difference in that list just after that day. That's exciting to hear. And, let's see, December 6th you said, right? That's correct. December 6th from 1 to 3.

Okay. So I know there's a thing going out that says Giving Tuesday. Now, this is going to be on a Wednesday. Now, folks, you can say your Giving Tuesday could be for that Wednesday.

So we can try to tie that in there. So December 5th will be that Giving Tuesday. So people out there who are looking for a charity to give to, looking at ways to get involved, and looking to have that Giving Tuesday to be something, that could be something that you can do right there. And this could be $300 that you could use to buy a bed for a child this Christmas.

This could also be used for a Christmas gift. So there are many different ways of people to get involved right here. Okay. That leads into a question that I had, Jamal, is for those out there that are wanting to make some year-end contributions right now for maybe some tax purposes, a write-off or whatever, what would be the avenue that they would pursue?

Okay. We're getting ready to go to break here, but right after break, we'll be talking about that year-end giving. If we have any about there, we'd like to call.

Once again, it's 866-348-7884. And we'll be right back. Good morning. Once again, this is Scott Barton filling in for Robbie Dilmore for the Kingdom Pursuit show. And we've had a great show today. We've had a local guest here.

Her name is Annalisa Wall, and she has this exciting ministry. It's called A Bed and a Book. And during the break, I just had an epiphany and I thought, there's so many people today that are tired of stuff, the stuff. I don't want any more stuff. Give me a gift card or a vacation or let's spend time together. Let's spend time together.

I don't want any more junk or your kids don't need any more junk, quite frankly. What a brilliant idea to spend some time together volunteering for this wonderful ministry, or better yet, writing a check. You have a chance to impact your children, to impact your family, to show them the love of Christ, to be involved, to share with them what other children are less fortunate.

This is a wonderful, wonderful opportunity to mirror your love of Christ. Annalisa, one more time, if you want to tell our people out there that are listening a little bit more about your ministry and how they can get involved and how they can replace their stuff with a benevolent, wonderful gift for their children this holiday season. You know, again, Scott, we like to say building community one bed at a time. And that word community means all of us. You know, they say, the saying, it takes a village.

It does take a village. And every child deserves a place to dream. And when they lay in that bed at night, they can dream about their future and the things that they want to do. I had one mom who said, just honestly to me, my son doesn't go out at night and lift door handles and still change anymore because he has a nice bed to sleep in. So he tells his buddies, y'all can go out and roam the streets.

I have somewhere to sleep. His grades have changed. A lot of things have changed in his life. And she just hugs me and thanks me and thanks God for what he's doing for this ministry. But we need everybody, again, that word community. We need everyone involved, you know, so many ways to help bless these children. They need us so badly, whether it's through showing up, as you said, Scott, as a family. It's such a blessing to see, you know, and it always makes me tear up, as Jamal said.

I'm just very passionate because this is a ministry that God put on my heart. And to see those kids who are the age of the recipients that are receiving the bed, building those bed into kids to get ready for the other children is so amazing. And to tell them, when you go home tonight and get in your bed, how blessed you are. And they see how they can change the world just by simply doing a bed.

So if it's coming out to volunteer or if it's, you know, giving that gift, you know, as you said, the day of giving for Christmas, your end of year contributions, please, for $380, you can make a huge impact in the life of a child. Those rooms are completely empty. They have nothing in their room whatsoever. And to have that brand new bed is something they are so proud of. Life changing. Yes, they're so proud of.

And it's only $380 to change the life of a child and to make this large impact and to show them God's love. Absolutely. Did you have another question there, Jamal?

No, no, you probably was reading my face there, Barton. I was just sitting here going through the Bible, just trying to find a scripture that... One that comes to mind to me is Galatians 6.2. And it's so important that we carry our brother's burdens. Amen. And everywhere we look, we need to lift one another up.

Most definitely. The one that I found right here is 2 Corinthians 9. But this I say, he that soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly. And he that soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully. So folks out there, you want to give and you want to give bountifully, you will also reap bountifully. Now, this is not a prosperity gospel right here. This is just showing the goodness of God. This is just showing how impactful your giving can be. But Miss Annalisa, when you talk about people not having beds, to the listener out here, how would it be if you went back to your place and you didn't have a bed?

I think that's kind of the part of the passion that you have, Miss Annalisa. Can you just speak on that a little bit more about how important this is? Again, these rooms are completely empty. These children have nothing in there whatsoever. Children sleeping on shower curtains, their own clothes.

So this is so impactful. It's a brand new bed. It's a brand new mattress, brand new sheet set. It's something they would like if it's a boy who likes basketball or a girl who likes unicorns or ballerina, Spiderman. Yes, exactly. And they're so proud because it's the one thing that's theirs. And that sense of pride changes so much in them. How they hold their head that next day at school.

How they're holding their head up for the lack of sleep. And this is only $380 to provide that brand new bed, brand new mattress, sheet set, and pillows. Please go to our website, AbedInABook.com, or email us at AbedInABookAtGmail.com. Amen. Thank you so much, Annalisa. And thank you, Jamal, for being on our show today. Yes, thank you. My pleasure.

Once again, this is Scott filling in for Robbie Dilmore for The Kingdom Pursuits. And thank you so much, Annalisa. Thank you, Scott, and the Truth Network. This is the Truth Network.