30 Hour Famine

    I spent this last weekend with about 20 middle and high schoolers and several college-age leaders at a youth "lock-in" of sorts.  We participated in what is called the 30 Hour Famine, done by World Vision.  It's a fundraiser for starving children everywhere as well as a great awareness raiser, all specifically designed for youth.

    The way the fundraising side works is the kids go around and get sponsors, much like a jogathon; some donors might choose to give per hour the kid can go with out eating and others may choose to give a flat amount.  The idea is to get people to give about a dollar an hour, because World Vision can make about $30 stretch to feed a starving child for one month.  Hence, the 30 Hour Famine.

    The awareness part is accomplished with games that teach about a few different countries and their struggles, videos and clips of the hungry and the challenges they face.  Oh and did I mention we didn't eat for the entire time?  We all stopped eating at 12 noon on Friday and broke our fast with a meal of white rice, black beans and chicken at about 6pm on Saturday.  I hate white rice and I typically don't care for black beans, but this meal is one of the best I have ever had!

    The games all focused on teamwork and were all physically exerting in some way and they all related to different countries and their struggles.  One game involved protecting the crops (two socks filled with rice and secured to a designated person on each team with binder clips) and trying to steal other teams' crops.  Another focused on trying to get clean water from different sources and then carrying the bucket of water back and forth in a relay race.  One included popping balloons to put together a meal.  Another drew attention to the super preventable sickness of malaria, where teams had to find flashlight pieces and a mosquito net (blanket), put the flashlight together and, while wearing the blanket, shine the light on the malaria ridden mosquitoes (the team leaders) to expose them.

    All of the teams had handicaps for all of the games.  I, for example, along with another girl on my team had to wear a heavy backpack during all games to symbolize being weak from hunger.  Others had things like mute from trauma (tied a scarf around face), blind from fire (wore sunglasses with scotch tape over the lenses), one leg trapped under tree (had to tape one leg up), feverish from hunger (wore heavy coats, blankets or sleeping bags), hands burnt by acid or fire (taped sandwich bags over hands) and hearing loss from bombings (stuffed ears with cotton balls).  These handicaps and not eating definitely made the games more interesting!

    On Saturday morning, we got up and went to feed the homeless under the Center Street bridge.  Feeding the homeless while fasting was definitely a challenge!  But from not eating, to working as a team, to talking and mingling with the homeless, our kiddos did awesome!  I am so, so proud of all of them!  Yes, there were times when we got cranky and just wanted to go home and eat and sleep, but we pulled through it together and it was so cool to see the kids get perspective on the suffering going on in this world-especially at the hands of something so preventable as malaria or hunger!

    Also, it was a super cheap event to do...$100 was our budget and we spent about half of it on the one meal.  A super simple event to do!

Orientation =)

Introduction

Small Group Time!

Speaking Spanish with Miguel at the bridge

One of the games

One of the students with a taped up leg

This is an awesome game of sardines going on right here!

Gratefulness Walk

Worship and Communion before Dinner

Waiting...

Food! Finally!

Final Debrief

Exhaustion

   

Girls' Retreat

So, I, along with some other women took 12 middle and high school girls to Newport, Oregon for a girls' youth retreat two weekends ago.  The entire week before the retreat, I tried to prepare myself for what I knew would be an exhausting weekend--spiritually, mentally, emotionally and physically.  After all, all of my experiences with youth girls...and, well girls in general, has been DRAMA.
 
On the car ride over, I have to confess, I was glad I didn't have to ride in the big van and that I only had to ride with four other people.  Selfish?  A little, yes.  I think I had a tad bit of a bad attitude going into the weekend...I mean, I was psyched about the potential the weekend had, but trying to prepare myself for reality.  We stopped at the beach and a few of the girls got soaking wet...at the Oregon coast, in February.  They're obviously immune to hypothermia.

I made gift bags for each girl (filled with stuff like: sleep masks, nail polish, candy hearts, compact mirrors with the words "Worthy of Love" written on the inside, tissues, etc.) and took them, along with some decorations to the house while the students and the rest of the leaders did a dorky photo scavenger hunt.  We had fun decorating the house (which was huge--5 bed, 3 bath, family room, dining room/living room and a second HUGE living room) and getting dinner started.

When the girls got to the house and got settled in, I expected to hear people squabbling over beds and such, but except for the minor competitive race for space that was bound to happen, there wasn't any drama over where to sleep.  We had our second session after dinner (we had our first before we left Salem) and it was great!  The whole day had been about self image.

The schedule called for us to be in bed, lights out by midnight...which I thought would be close to impossible, but the girls proved me wrong again and pretty much went to bed right on time!  The next morning, we got up, ate breakfast (pancakes and sausage made by the lovely Netti Miller-one of my sisters), and had another session.  This one was intense.  The leaders shared their testimonies in regards to purity and there wasn't a dry eye in the room.

Of course, weeping at the drop of a hat like I do, I cried...a lot.  After we shared, we spread out and let the girls come to us to talk and pray.  It was awesome.  The girls had to pick the leader they felt they could most relate with and physically walked over to them...in front of everyone else.  That takes courage.  The girls of our youth group are lionhearted.

After much crying, talking, crying, praying, crying and more crying, we ate lunch together and then the girls and most of the leaders headed for the beach.  My sisters and I (one came to cook, one is a youth student and the other is a youth leader with a kindred spirit) went grocery shopping because those girls ate allll the food.

We reconvened, had dinner and had our second session on purity.  When we split up for smallgroups, the one I was helping to lead dealt with some really, really hard issues.  However, one of the other leaders in the group pulled that girl aside and spoke love and affirmation and truth into and over her in a way I can only ever imagine being able to do.  A courageous act of love.

The girls made it to bed on time-ish again...and the other leader I was rooming with--that kindred spirit I was writing about--and I stayed up until 3am talking!  It was a late night/early morning but it was so worth it.  We had our morning session on relationships and then we packed up and headed out.  I rode with my sisters and one other student and while the other girls went on about finishing up the retreat, we headed to Portland.  At PDX, we met up with one of the students moms and left our extra passenger with her.  We headed back to Salem, making a pit stop in Canby for some Burgerville deliciousness.

By the time we got home, I was so ready to crash, even though I slept for part of the way in the car.  I realized that I was only physically drained, but that my emotional and mental capacities were a little tired, but nothing to complain about and I was spiritually overflowing!  These girls had little to know drama despite the late nights, crying, and some heavy things they're dealing with and I am so impressed with them!

I hope that we continue as we enter back into the "real world."