30 hr. famine/fast for kids in Haiti

30 hr famine

Leading up to the 30 hr famine, i was a bit nervous because I had never done this before.  I was wondering whether I should have signed up for it. 

When Friday morning came around, I wanted to go in on a full stomach, so we went to Jimmy John's and had a big sub sandwich. YUM! :)

So daddy dropped me off at Grace and my friends arrived soon after I did.  After everyone got there, the leader had us pick from pictures of children on a table who were in the World Vision program.  

I chose a girl name Silira Francisco who is from Mozambique and also my age.  We made a mini-collage out of their picture, a Bible verse, and their story, and laminated it.  Then we put a string around it and wore it like a necklace.  

Next we decorated the white t-shirts that we brought from home.  That was fun.

But it wasn't all fun and games - next we had to clean out the middle schoolers closet - it was full of all kinds of stuff (even a fake toilet!).

That took us the rest of the day...when it started getting dark, we went out to a field with a BUNCH of boxes and made houses out of cardboard and duck tape.  We called our cardboard house "Scottsdale" because ours was the biggest. :)

Then we went back to the main building and we had posters that had stuff like "Haiti" and "hunger" written on them and we drew or wrote anything that we thought about on those topics.  After that, everybody got ready for bed and went to the field to sleep outside. Of course my friends and I didn't go to sleep right away.  We talked, talked, talked some more until it was probably 12:00AM then we decided that it wouldn't be good for us to stay up all night long, so we went to sleep. We were not hungry at all, which surprised (and relieved) us.

When my friends and I woke up, we were all super COLD!!!! After all, we did sleep outside in a cardboard box/house in the middle of March.  Anyway, we went back to the building, and we got changed and everything (we were still not that hungry yet).    

Then we were greeted with some more  lovely news(I am being sarcastic, just so you know) we had to clean out all the little rooms in our middle school church building.  We vacuumed and threw trash away.  After that all of us were exhausted so we took a little nap.  Then, we watched a video about a brother and a sister and what they did when their mom died.  The video was very sad, and some people almost cried.  By now we are all feeling the hunger pains.  My stomach was hungry, and I was kind of dizzy and sleepy.  I think our leader noticed this because she let us take a short little nap.  

When we woke up, we were drowsier than before and definitely hungrier too.  For the last few hours, we just sat there, praying that we would not die of hunger!

I was looking forward to 6pm because that is when the 30 hours ended. We were gonna have a spaghetti dinner and cake!! It is sad because kids in Haiti and Africa and all over the world don't have a choice to become hungry and they normally don't have a big feast waiting for them at the end of not eating.  

When 6 finally rolled around, the dinner was not ready yet so my friends bought skittles at the vending machine and each skittle was like a bite of heaven!
I don't know if I'll sign up next time, but I'm glad that I did it this time - Thanks to all of you who supported me! :)

WE DID IT!!!

30 whole hours without eating... I was getting icky feeling during the final 5 hrs or so...

I stopped by the church to see Aila a bit after 6pm (the finish time) and they were having a celebratory dinner and I asked her how she was doing and she said that she was starving....but she did it!! 

I'm proud of her.  After dinner, she's back to her cheerful self...

I decided to break the fast with 2 hot dogs and a sloppy cheeseburger.  For future reference, I recommend something lighter next time...then after that settled, I overindulged with my neighbors in some Ben & Jerry's "coffee coffee buzz buzz" ice cream.  WOW!

Here's a pic so you will recognize it on your grocery shelf when you run out to get a pint.. ;-)

So I still have one final post to write on this blog...coming up next - what they did during the 30 hrs and what Aila's experience was like...

t minus 15 and counting...

headachey, tired, and probably would be cranky but the prospect of GSP whuppin' on Nate Diaz is keeping my spirits up...

t minus 12 and counting...I'm gonna be typing until the end.  I know fasts are supposed to be times of spiritual edification, but I don't feel like it has been (at least not in the sense that I expect - which may not be a bad thing).   This was by far one of the easiest fasts I've ever done and the fact that I made it (well 11 mins away) has increased my hit ratio considerable...

I'm gonna walk over to see how Aila is at 6:00.  Of course Cocoa misses her so she'll be trotting along.  I kind of can't wait to see her, but I don't want to break the magic...  I'm thinking there may be some magic - and if there is, I don't want to break it.  Parents can be such a drag, right?  Maybe I should let her bask in the after party...

NAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWW!!!
I wanna see the little squirt and hear about her adventures... AND be back in time for the fight!! lol
6 mins to go...
ahhh...back from Yahoo - I didn't have the brain power to come up with anything remotely interesting or pithy, so 1 min to go...
WE MADE IT!!!!
YAY!!!!!!!!!!

2 hrs and 20 mins to go!!! :)

but, again, who's counting??


Yeah, I'm officially hungry now.  But its not nearly as bad as I thought it would be.  Keeping myself busy at AZ Mills and Tempe Marketplace.
I found someone to go watch the fight with - and I'm super excited about watching GSP beat some sense into Nate Diaz... though, I don't think there's enough beating in the world to knock sense into that boy.  I digress... so I'm SUPER excited about the fight, but I'm also super excited about being at a sports bar where I can eat something....
buffalo wings...mozzarella sticks...pizza...french fries... it really does make me happy to know I'll be eating in less than 3 hrs.
I can't imagine what it would be like to 1st of all go this long or longer without eating, and NOT KNOW that there is an end in sight.
I hope and pray that I wake up to the reality that I and everyone I know is rich.
ok, gotta go for now.

morning...8:30am

Woke up feeling lighter and not hungry at all - kind of weird, but I'll take it!  I'm hoping that Aila is having as easy of a go of it... she doesn't quite have the extra 'energy reserves' (aka belly fat) as daddy... lol

Took the pup for a long walk - its beautiful out today. Low 60's, light breeze. Perfect. On the way back I resisted the urge to stop by the church to see how Aila's doing.  They might now want parents popping in TOO much.

 I need to find something to do outside today. Thinking either to head Sedona-ward or check out the Japanese Friendship Garden in downtown Phoenix.  Never been there....

I'm really glad I'm not starving...

until next time...

-the TermiNATE'r

lol

4 thumbs up!

just visited over at the church to drop off her hoodie sweatshirt...the kids were in the music auditorium all working in groups on what looked like some art projects they'll be sending to Haiti... they were really into it...I got to sneak up behind Aila with Cocoa - she was thrilled and so were the girls in her group.  I got to ask her how she was doing and she was like 'really good' and then they all proceeded to tell me how they built a house out of cardboard and tape in an adjacent lot...it sounded like they were having a really good time.  

Sweet!!

8+ hrs and counting...

the family k9 and I are about to head over to the church to drop off a sweatshirt jacket thingy for my girl...I'll get the update on how much fun she's having...
:)
I imagine she's hungry by now (cuz I am)...but its not that bad. Its only been 8 hrs after all...

time for a new post...

4 hrs down, 26 to go...
right about now, I'd be having my pre-dinner bowl of cereal.  I wonder how Aila's doing...
I'm SURE the kids are having fun at Grace Church.  They're supposed to do lots of fun stuff with them today.
oh well, i'll just be trying to keep myself busy tonight...
I've been trying to find out when the GSP/Diaz fight is tmrw... but its seems like more of an art than a science to figure out how UFC communicates their scheduling.
oh, totally off subject, but my favorite book growing up was "The Phantom Tollbooth" and they're celebrating it's 50th anniversary by doing a documentary on it.
check out the trailer!!

45 mins in...

So the 'last meal' turned out to be Jimmy Johns...JJ's Gargantuan or something like that.  Yummy as all get out.  So she's going in on a full tummy at least! :)

Then I dropped her off at the church and both her friends arrived within a few mins...there was a kind of summer camp excitement in the air (mini-style cuz its only one overnight) but all the bags and pillows and sleeping bags created the summer-camp ambiance...

I hope they will have fun and have their eyes opened to whatever God wants them to see.

YEAH BABY!

I'm off to chill - until next posting... 

51 minutes down and 29 hrs 9 mins to go...

but who's counting??

lol

1 hr til lift-off... or kick-off...or whatever...

we were walking back to the apt after running around all morning and my daughter (who is never far from her iPod and texting her buddies) was like "YES!" - she just got a text from her bestie that you ARE allowed to drink juice during the 30 hrs.... she is very pre-occupied about how difficult its gonna be and this was a HUMONGOUS relief.
I'm glad to - it does make it easier...
57 mins to go!
I just asked her what she wants for her 'last lunch'...but it sounded kind of ominous, like "The Last Supper"..lol
she is currently consulting our doggie on what she should eat. She's funny.
OK, I'm trying to create an electric environment of the melo-dramatic and it just ain't happenin'.

signing off until I have something good to report

countdown continues...

4 hrs and 20 mins to go... my daughter is nervous cuz she's asking me a lot of questions like 'what if I'm going to die from hunger, will they let me eat then?' and other typical melodramatic stuff like that... but even though its half joking, I can tell she's nervous - so we'll pray before she goes in and hope its a good experience for all the right reasons.
ok, this was just a quickie post cuz we gots ta splitsky...

Its coming up in 24 hrs....

So my daughter signed up to do a 30 hr. 'famine' with a local church - its thru a program that World Vision does where they encourage young people to go 30 hrs without eating food (they can drink water, of course) to feel what its like to be hungry, realize they have millions of brothers and sisters around the world who struggle with hunger and related issues, AND that they (the young people) can actually do something to help.
To that end, they solicit sponsorships where people can give them like a dollar per hour (or something) of their fast.  She is close to raising $400 so far, and there are a few others she's gonna hit up...
Well, I should clarify - my brother is sponsoring her for $3.33 per hour, so assuming she can go the whole 30, there's $100 bucks....and, just to make it interesting, he said he'd sponsor ME another $3.33 if I go on a sympathy fast with her... so there's another $100...
Now, I hate to fast.  I'm as American as they come when it comes to my own comfort and food is a BIG part of that.  But what could I say?!?!?  I mean, its for the kids, right??  So a large part of that $400 is from one very generous brother and based on the assumption that we will both successfully go the whole 30 hrs.

So, normally, we're not supposed to talk about when we fast, but this is a bit different, since its a big production and everyone knows what its about...

So my plan is to blog about the fast leading up to and during the 30 hrs, then have a post-famine talk with my daughter and get her thoughts, etc... should be interesting to see what God does!