it's time for an awesome weekend...

The 30 Hour Famine is underway! No more eating until dinner tomorrow night. We have a busy weekend planned even as we're fasting--we'll be learning about homelessness, working at the Food Pantry, going Cosmic Bowling (no snacks!), clearing out a vacant house and donating what we can to a local non-profit thrift store, and searching for donations for the food pantry. We'll also watch Food Inc and worship and study the Bible and pray...it's a busy weekend!

Once that's over...time to write a sermon. Sunday we have worship at 830 as normal, but at 930 and 11 the youth will lead worship and present selections from Godspell--awesome! Then a fabulous potluck (what am I going to bring???) and the Youth Auction (live! a live auction is a fun new twist on the service auction this year)...and then in the afternoon the confirmation class will meet with the session!

Phew!

See you on the other side.

hunger

I'm not sure many of us (I mean people who read this blog, or people I interact with most days) really know what Hunger feels like. We know what it's like to want to eat, we know what it feels like to skip a meal, but Hunger (with a capital H)--the kind that is a statistic, the kind where there's no food to eat and no idea where the next food will come from, the kind that's painful--is not part of most of our everyday experiences.

The reason I'm thinking about this is, of course, that I've been sick and so have eaten basically nothing for two-and-a-half days now. And I've been trying to figure out, through that whole time, if I'm hungry or if my stomach is still upset--even the slightest hunger pangs are easily confused with other signals that actually mean "DON'T EAT!!" It's amazing to me how quickly I have forgotten, or how easily I mix up, a message from my own body that I feel every day.

Which probably means I don't really feel it every day--I get a pang and, like most people I know, I eat something. It may not be the healthiest something, or the thing my body actually needs to function well. But something with calories goes into my stomach so the feeling will go away. (I confess that often, especially when I'm sitting in my office, chocolate fulfills this task nicely.) But now, when I need to be able to distinguish the signals from one another, I'm not sure which is which. Maybe it's time to listen to my body a little more carefully before just answering the need with a want. This is what the 30 Hour Famine is all about, too, of course--giving us a taste of hunger (if you will) and helping us think about where and when and what we eat and why...and how that affects others, and how others can't just pop a piece of chocolate in their mouths whenever they have the slightest twinge. (the RCLPC 30 Hour Famine isn't until May, but I've just had my own personal 30 hour famine here and, as uncomfortable and frustrating and icky-feeling as it has been, it might have been good for me.)

Having said all of that: I think I'm actually hungry, for actual food, so I'm going to go find some real food and see how that goes this time!

30 Hour Famine

RCLPC's high school youth will participate in the 30 Hour Famine again this year--and it's only a month away!  We each have a month to raise enough money to feed and care for a child for a whole year--$360.  That's right, just $30 a month can save a life.

This year the 30 Hour Famine has the option of fundraising online, so I thought I'd try it out.  If you'd like to sponsor me as we starve for food--fasting for 30 hours to raise money and awareness of hunger issues worldwide and here in our own community--just click this link!  Thanks!

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Here's more information about World Vision and the 30 Hour Famine program:

World Vision is a Christian humanitarian organization dedicated to working with children, families and communities worldwide to reach their full potential by tackling the causes of poverty and injustice.
Motivated by our faith in Jesus Christ, World Vision serves alongside the poor and oppressed as a demonstration of God's unconditional love for all people.
World Vision serves all people, regardless of religion, race, ethnicity, or gender.
World Vision's 30 Hour Famine is an international youth movement to fight hunger. Students typically fast for 30 hours to spread awareness and raise funds to help provide food and care for children worldwide, including here in the US. Every $30 raised helps provide food and care for a child for a month (worldwide average).
For Fiscal year 2007, World Vision's overhead rate was 14%, meaning that 86% of total revenue went directly to our efforts in the field. For more information about World Vision's financials and stewardship, visit World Vision's web site.

movies movies movies

I've been previewing movies that might work for the 30 Hour Famine lock-in. So here are my basic reviews (nothing in-depth, just surface thoughts...):

The Ultimate Gift: Very good. Made me cry at least 5 separate times. Was a beautiful story. I don't recommend the special features as they remind you that the movie has "a moral point" (as you might say). There are even 12-gift-kits you can buy to practice the 12 gifts for yourself. Avoid those features. But the movie was sweet and does have a good message.

Because of Winn-Dixie: Adorable. I really liked it. The way Opal finds friends, the way they learn to listen to one another, the way the story is told--all great. The growth of the preacher, the healing of telling the story about Opal's mom, his confession to Opal, etc...all good. Plus, the dog is extremely cute.

The Girl in the Cafe: So far, so good. I'm about halfway through as I write this. It's endearingly awkward--you know, older British man, no social skills, etc...girl with no knowledge of world economics getting a crash course at the G8 summit and becoming something of an activist to end hunger. It's not a "real movie"--as in, it's made to educate people about hunger and the Millennium Development Goals, not just to entertain. But it has been rather funny so far. (I'm a little distressed, though, by the age difference between the government man and the girl--he's at LEAST twice her age!)
(update: it looks like there's about to be a sex scene, and I definitely just saw boobs, so that's unfortunate for it's use with high school youth group....)
(second update after the end of the movie: It was an off-screen sex scene, though there was a boob shot or two. The movie was good and I loved the way Gena understood that even if shew as considered a nuisance or an uneducated girl, she could stand up for what she believed and she could try to make a difference.)

The Famine begins tomorrow--we'll be going without food, we'll be making a labyrinth on the floor of the Fellowship Hall using 29,000 pennies (as a visual for how many children die of hunger each day), we'll be playing games, we'll be learning about hunger, we'll be doing a scavenger hunt for the food pantry, and we'll be finding out how much food you can buy on a week's food stamps. And, of course, we've got some movies to choose from. (Watching a movie on Saturday afternoon really hits home the whole not-eating thing. We are so conditioned to eat whenever we're not moving that watching a movie with no popcorn, candy, or Coke is brutal!)

more about food...

so it's no secret that I love food.
Mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, pizza, gardenburgers, stir-fry, pad thai with tofu, grilled cheese with tomato, ice cream...mmm.....and now I'm part of a CSA co-op here in my area. A local organic farm sells 50 shares of its produce every summer. Each week, beginning in a month!, I'll go out to the farm and pick up a 5/8 bushel box of veggies, which I'll share with my lovely friend Sherri (and some of which might get frozen for winter). mmm, local fresh organic veggies. yum.

It's also no secret that justice is important to me. And it makes me sad how many people are hungry in the world, and right here in my own town.

At the 30 Hour Famine, RCLPC youth collected enough money to feed almost 9 children for a whole year, and they collected 70 pounds of food for our local food pantry on our one-hour scavenger hunt.

If you're looking for a way to help, try this out. Just put canned items next to your mailbox on Saturday and your mailman (mailwoman) (I think "letter carrier" is the newly appropriate term) will take it away and it will go to feed hungry people right there in your own community. Pretty awesome, pretty easy. Just do it. Hungry people thank you. Cuz hunger isn't just a winter issue. and not everyone can afford the $500 co-op.

stuff

I am feeling frustrated right now but can't blog about it.

Instead I will blog about the 30 Hour Famine!

7 youth participated and we had a great time. Oh, we were hungry. And there were times of extreme tiredness, especially as Saturday afternoon wore on. But overall, it was great! We had Bible Studies about hunger and about fasting and about temptation. We had temptation experiences. We drank quite a bit of juice...

We gathered 70 pounds of food during a 1-1/2 hour food pantry scavenger hunt, and we took it to the Crystal Lake Food Pantry. Good times!

Then came the mean part...around noon on Saturday, the 24 hour mark, we took the youth to the grocery store and had them try to feed their "family" (one group was three and one was four) for a week on the weekly food stamp allotment for their size family. It was tough, but they think they did it. I'm not sure they actually did--I think they might have been hungry around day 5 or so--but they definitely gave it a good effort, and they learned about how hard it is to be poor in our area. They also learned about grocery shopping when they were both hungry and on a restrictive budget.

We talked a lot about how we use food in this culture not to meet our needs but to take the edge off our boredom. If there's food around, we'll eat it--not because we're hungry, but because it's there and there's nothing else keeping our hands busy. We discovered that we were hungriest during the times we didn't have any activities planned. We also discovered that watching a movie with no snacks is brutal.

Everyone who participated met the fundraising goal (and then some) so we raised enough money to feed 8 children for a year and 1 for half the year. Excellent!

It was great.

busy again

back from vacation, finally. (I only waited 9 hours at JFK...oy)

Note to self: do not come back from vacation one day before major event at church. It results in lots of work to do very quickly.

Thirty Hour Famine starts in one hour. Many thanks to all of you who helped me reach my fundraising goal! Now I just need prayers not to be irritable when I get hungry....

...and for the kids, ditto.

Must make shopping list for the afternoon event....ta!

my next-to-last plea...

Thanks to the several of you who have helped me out with the 30 Hour Famine! You're helping feed hungry children AND saving me from the embarrassment of being the one who doesn't reach the fundraising goal....(this embarrassment involves challenges, activities, and a hat during the lock-in...please keep helping me!).

I have $145 to go to meet my goal of feeding a child for a whole year. Can you help?
The Famine is this Friday!!

Thanks!

30 Hour Famine

Our senior high youth are participating in WorldVisions 30-Hour-Famine at the end of April. Between now and then, we are collecting sponsors to help feed hungry people. Last year the youth and their leaders--600,000 of them in 21 countries--raised enough money to feed 29,000 children (the number who die each day from hunger and hunger-related preventable disease) for a WHOLE YEAR. That's pretty awesome, and we're excited to be part of it.

If you would like to help our youth group meet our goal of feeding 10 kids (one for each of us participating in the famine) for a year, you can sponsor me by clicking here! All the money goes straight to WorldVision, and most of it then goes to feed people. None of the money stays here or goes to us. We'll be fasting 30 hours on April 27-28, and the money we save on snacks/food for the lock in will be added to our total as well.

Please help us help others by donating! Here's the link again, in case you need to copy and paste: http://www.firstgiving.com/rclpc.

Thanks!