30 Hour Famine 2009

So what are you eating for your last meal? That is, if you are doing the 30 Hour Famine, what are you eating? I personally am glad that the last meal will consist with the most important meal of the day (and my favorite), breakfast. But for your last meal, you have to make it count. This is going to be what sustains you for the next 30 hours. You don't want to make the mistake of putting a hot pocket or a Pop-tart or anything from Taco Bell inside of you. You want something that is--oh what's the word... nourishing. If I had the time, I would be at Cracker Barrel tomorrow morning gobbling down a Mama's Pancake Breakfast, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to go with plan B which consists of sausage biscuits, eggs, and grits at Ken's BBQ.

I can't believe it has already been an entire year since last time we did this. I have been anticipating it for a few weeks now and it's hard to believe that it's already here. Last year I remember asking myself if we could do the famine in a 1 Corinthians 13 sort of way. In other words, couldwe fast, raise money, worship and pray, and everything else with real and authentic love? Could we do this without sounding like just a clanging cymbal? Because I have never shed a tear for a starving African child. Though sad, it doesn't really grab me because it's the world we live in and I mistakenly assume that it has always been that way and it always will be.

Sitting in this luxury box that is America, it's easy to give in to apathy. It's easy to keep our "headphones on", to not listen to the stories of those who are suffering, to eat and drink and laugh without the slightest notion that the world is groaning with pain. We hear statistics all the time that are alarming. 26 million kids die each day from hunger or hunger-related illness. On and on and on, the staggering statistics. It seems like such a painful burden, one that we don't want to take.

I think that I might know one way that can help us from becoming clanging cymbals. Sure, it's easy to look at the problem and judge that it's too big and do nothing, but that's only an excuse. In my opinion, a great way to prevent apathy from setting in is to put a face with those numbers.

On the Monday after the famine this year I will be giving my last speech of the semester. The goal is to try to get the audience to either do something or stop doing something. It worked out really great because, without knowing that the famine was this weekend, I planned at the beginning of the semester to do this specific speech on aiding a child who is lacking food, education, and healthcare. Today I went to the library to work on that speech. I found a table in an empty spot of the room and set down my bag. After I had pulled out my notebook and a pen, I finally grabbed from one of the pockets a small picture of a young, African boy.

Kashala Mujinga is his name. He lives in the Congo and is 6-years-old. His parents work on a farm as regular laborers, and he has 4 sisters and 1 brother. His favorite hobby is, in his own words, "playing the football." I got this picture right before Christmas of last year, and I cannot describe to you how it felt to see this kid who is receiving food, education, and healthcare because one night at a WorldVision event, I made the commitment to send money to fund all of these necessities. It was unbelievable.

As I opened my notebook to jot down some ideas and plan my speech, I set Kashala's picture to the side where I could see it. Every now and then I would stop, pick it up, and just look at it for a minute or two. I wonder what he's doing right now, I would think. I wonder how his parents felt when they found out that their little boy had a sponsor. Of all the speeches I've done this semester, this one is different. It's a labor of love. It affects real people and real lives... it saves lives. It's personal.

Which takes me back to the cymbals. Whereas last year, apathy was a concern of mine, I know that this year it's not. I haven't even thought about it. Why? Because instead of hearing numbers and statistics, I've got a face to go with them. Instead of thinking, If I don't do something, some African kids are going to die; it's more like If I don't do something, Kashala will die. It's a real kid who goes to school, plays football, does chores, and just regular things that people do.

After over a year of supporting Kashala, praying for him, and sending and receiving things such as Christmas and Easter cards, I am all the more pumped up for this famine. Because yeah, it's going to suck when I've been at work for 8 hours and haven't had anything to eat. It's going to be just as bad trying to go to sleep on an empty stomach. But you know what? Because we're doing this famine, that's a feeling that several kids aren't going to have to experience. Because of our church doing God's work, kids aren't going to waste away because they can't fill their stomachs.

Finally, I just want to say that if anybody hasn't considered aiding a child in need, maybe you should look into it. It costs about 30 to 40 dollars a month (which is how much I spend on my X-box Live and Gamefly subscriptions). It's a great way to put a face with the many numbers and statistics that are out there and it's a great way of taking care of people who truly need it. I couldn't recommend it more. Give it a try, save a life.

See you guys at the famine.

There and Back Again

Mark this day down on your calendar. Circle it, put a star around it, and highlight it with blue, pink, and yellow. Get out your planner and make a note about today. Make sure that you never forget that today is the day that I got my acceptance letter to the University of Alabama in Huntsville...

...for the second time.

I guess it doesn't really have as much of a punch the second time around. I've had a year to strengthen my resolve, discover my ambition to go um... somewhere, and test the academic waters to make sure I'm not the same slacker I was a few years ago. The truth is last year I wasn't ready to make the transition from working a full time to job to quitting, moving away, and taking on a full load at university. But now I think--no I'm sure--that I am. I'm 23 for crying out loud! I'm ready for anything!

Of course an acceptance letter doesn't mean that much to me at the moment. I'm really happy but I was expecting it. It felt good to tear open the envelope, read the letter, and let my mind fill with hope for what the future may hold. But it doesn't mean a thing unless the money comes through. That's what messed up everything last year.

It has to come through this time. If not I think I'm going to have to do some serious rearranging with my life because it's been the same old, same old for so long and I can't take it much longer. A lot of it has to do with the fact that I'm an adult and still living with my parents, working the same hometown job I've been working for over 3 years, and wandering around in an academic maze that has seemingly gone nowhere for almost 5 years.

In my entire being I am anticipating a change. I think this is more than just in my head or something that I have to do in order to grow up. It feels like the entire rhythm of my life is pushing me to go on. It's like I've become so restless being stuck in the same places for so long. I need to finally get that feeling that a person gets when they go to their boss and say, "Only two more weeks for me." I need to be able to see Locust Fork, Pinson, and Center Point in the rear view mirror and have that nostalgic feeling in my chest as I drive away knowing that I will return but things just won't be the same. I need to finally be able to say so long, dad. I need to find a church that is interested in providing ministries and activities for people my age, not just those who are older or younger than I am. And I need a place where I can invite friends to come over and just hang out, watch a ballgame or play some X-box. I don't have that luxury here.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I want to be away from all the amazing people in my life. I love my friends and family and because of those special people, it is going to make leaving that much harder. I have no intentions of ever breaking contact with any of my friends in my life. What I'm talking about is just the fact that I have to make a life for myself and that's going to take some sort of journey, a story that requires that things must change even if only for a little while.

Because a guy can only load furniture into cars for so long until he says I can't take it anymore, I was made to do more than this. A guy can only eat his mama's cooking for so long until he is embarrassed that he can't make anything more than a cheese sandwich or frozen pizza. People in general don't like walls. We don't like cages. We have to get out, stretch our legs, and sometimes run as hard and as fast as we can just for the sake of doing it. We have to, because we are people, and that's what we are supposed to do.

And so I am praying that the money comes. I am praying that my future lies somewhere... else. Because here isn't bad, but for a stagnant 23-year-old, it just doesn't hold the same glamor as there.

Behold!

...the most amazing, wonderful candy ever, the Skitburst!

"What's the son of a duck? It's a duck."

Guy claims Bible is not true, and gets owned by Colbert.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Bart Ehrman
colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor NASA Name Contest

This is a Good Thing

I find this video pretty encouraging. Jim Wallis is president of Sojourners, which is a Christian magazine and group that focuses on social justice and addressing humanity's greatest problems such as poverty, war, the environment, and basic human rights. I've been reading his new book lately, and from the Sojourners website I found this video of President Obama's new Faith-Based Council. Like I said, it makes me more optimistic about faith and politics, and I'm looking forward to seeing what these guys do to work on these crucial issues.



First of all, I like to see the cooperation and harmony between these three, all representing different religions on this Faith-Based Council. We've seen in the past so many media interviews with evangelicals on TV being the opposite of humble and arguing about gay marriage, abortion, or whether or not God wanted Hurricane Katrina and 9/11 to happen. Instead of highlighting their differences and creating an ugly scene of bigotry and intolerance for all of America to see, these leaders are finding common ground and trying to use each of their own different faiths to bring a better world.

CNN probably wanted them to argue, because that gets them better ratings and thus more money. I'm still not sure why the interviewer asked the Muslim guy what he thought of the number of Christians in America dropping by 10%. Still, it was refreshing to see religious leaders coming together to try to find ways to help people and not just argue over their differences.

I also liked how Rev. Wallis completely dodged the question about Tony Dungy being on the council. So what if he won the Super Bowl, who cares whether he's on the council or not? Wallis made a simple comment about not knowing who will be on the council and moved on to an issue that actually matters--poverty. Will it net CNN high ratings? Probably not, but it will make a big difference in the world and in peoples' lives.

This is good to see. When there has been so much religious polarization and discrimination in the past, especially in the media, it's good to finally see people of different faiths working together for the common purpose of helping people.

Anyways, I really like this Jim Wallis guy. I was going to post an interview he did on The Daily Show but it wouldn't work. I'm posting the link below. I think that if you can watch it, you should. His message is something that is refreshing and all Christians should hear.

Jim Wallis on The Daily Show

Keeping Myself in Check (Part 2)

I was on twitter before it was even popular. Does that mean anything at all? I don’t know, but all I remember was my sister telling me to text “follow steph23” to the number 40404 and create my own account for her to follow. If I remember correctly, we treated it only as a joke at first, texting the stupidest and most monotonous things to 40404 to which the other sibling would receive the update. Later, after I found out more friends had it and we started to weave our web of twitter friends and followers, I didn’t notice that this 40404 thing seemed to grow into a tool that I along with lots of others used often for purposes both good and bad.

It was the new perspective from Kevin’s blog post about twitter that really made the difference. As I got more friends and a few kids from the youth group (who I also consider to be friends) to follow me on twitter, I think I let it go to my head a little bit. I don’t know what it was, it’s not that I was proud that I had a whopping 12 followers. Steph has much more than I do. Maybe it wasn’t pride at all. Maybe it was just a little boredom throughout the day mixed with a direct feed from my life to the phones of my friends. Maybe it game me a sense of empowerment, I don’t know, but something about how I used it doesn’t sit right with me and it has revealed a bad flaw in the way I view my relationship with my friends.

I updated my twitter a lot. I would do it before class at school, on my way driving to places, in the library while I was reading a book, several times while I was at work, and in many more of each day’s circumstances. Like I said, a lot of it probably had to do with simple boredom. Sometimes some older “tweeters” would get a little upset because the younger “tweeters” were updating their twitters so often that the older “tweeters” got tired of their phones going off every 30 seconds with new text messages. This is understandable, but when some of the older “tweeters” (let’s just call them Aimee Gilbert and Stephanie Benton) sounded off via twitter about a younger “tweeter” (we’ll just call her Kaylea Roberts) updating too often, I spoke up by saying that I liked getting all their updates and I thought that everyone should update more often. It never annoyed me because I always liked it when I was in a boring lecture or at work doing some monotonous task and my phone would go off, telling me what a friend was up to or what they were thinking at the moment.

In this sense, I love twitter because when I go to work or school I still feel in a sense connected to my closest friends. I don’t feel like I’m going off into some foreign world all by myself. I can at least send and receive messages so that I know someone is still out there.

But the negative part of this, the part that Kevin hit on in his post, is that I let twitter fuel my narcissistic tendencies. This is one reason I like to read a lot, because it never hurts to get someone else’s take on things. I used twitter as a sort of “bully pulpit,” sending my opinions about Christian radio or politics or just anything out to my followers. I did this often in the heat of the moment right as the thoughts and emotions came up in my mind, and I think it put off my friends a little bit. Being able to send out little 140 character messages completely about me made it easy for me to slip into a selfish tendency to view myself as the center of the universe and be less considerate of others. It wasn’t like I didn’t care about anybody else, but it led me to take up a “me first” attitude that is never good.

Since I realized what I was doing, I feel like I have grown up a little bit. I’ve taken a step back, examined myself, and looked at what I was doing closely. Now, when I update my twitter I try to think about the people who are receiving my updates and not just the “me, me, me” attitude that I take up all too easily. I try to include them somehow, and sometimes I don’t update at all but rather text one of them. Truth is, it’s so much better that way. I realized that for a while that in my own little world I was looking at my friends as fans or followers and not friends at all, which is scary. In a sense, I placed myself above them, and I shouldn’t have done that.

Of course, half the time I was still just a bored guy with 5 hours left to go in his shift, or a bored guy in a library who missed his friends and would like to send out some sort of something to communicate, or somebody with a great joke or quote and nobody to tell.

Also, nothing beats being able to hijack someone else’s phone and update their twitter for them. There is just something satisfying about letting another person’s followers know that said person is:

“cannibalizing children”

“taking a dump in the yard”

“gay”

"in love with Chris Lombardo"

“eating baby fetuses and drinking embryo juice”

“eating zombie brains”

“pregnant”

And finally, my favorite…

“pooping in the turlet”

If you know somebody who has a twitter, never miss an opportunity to steal their phone and use it to completely ruin their life. You won't regret it.