Veni, vidi, vici.

Some of you know, some of you don't. I am a youth mentor for senior high kids at my church. This weekend we did the 30 Hour Famine. This is where you fast for 30 hours. It was held at St. Andrews Lutheran church in Eden Prairie. It was Friday night and all day Saturday.

Friday night we saw a comedy team called Comedy Sportz. They were really funny and they have regular shows at a place in Calhoun Square. Then we heard from a speaker. His name was Shane Claiborne. He's basically a missionary. He goes around the world helping people in need. He has worked with Mother Theresa, worked in a Leper colony, he lives in Philadelphia where he takes in homeless and feeds them and gives them a place to stay for the night. Basically doing the things that most people would never do. Then we saw a video about the war in the Sudan in Africa. It was a documentary about how Sudan is divided in civil war, and the army who is trying to over though the government is abducting children and forcing them to become solders. These kids range from age 5 to 18. Their stories where absolutely horrific.

After the movies we divided up into groups. One group went and did activities, and the other group packaged food for Feed My Starving Children. Feed My Starving Children is an organization out of Minneapolis that packages food for country's where starvation is eminent. The meals that are packaged consist of chicken base, dried vegetables, soy, and rice. They weigh between 380 and 400 grams and one package will be enough food to make 6 meals. We packaged 81,000 meals. 1331 kids will get one meal a day for an entire year. And when it's the difference between eating mud or rice that's an amazing thing.

Saturday was a day of group activities. There was an information presentation about basically how unbalanced the world really is. We all know how hard it is to drive during rush hour. Our roads are packed. But did you know that only 8% of the worlds population drives. Eight percent. That means that 92% of the world doesn't drive a car. Did you know that the hunger problems in the world are solvable. The amount of money needed to end starvation is about what Americans spend on ice cream in one day. When you see the bumper stickers that say "God Bless America" just know that he already has.

There was also a "structured free time" on Sat. We were able to play DDR on PS2 and there was a craft room, and best of all. Pin guard in the gym. Sweet. After all of that we packaged food again. We packaged for 2 hours on Saturday and that time went the fastest.

At the end of it all they divided us up as the world is. A small percentage was the rich counties, a little bit bigger portion of us was 2nd world countries and the rest of us were 3rd world countries. When we broke the fast, they feed us that way. They had two tables for the rich countries where they got trays of chips and pretzels and grapes and juice, and had as much as they wanted. Then the 2nd world countries. Each person got a bowl of the food that we were packaging. Then for the 3rd worlds. We were divided up into groups of 25 and each group got one bowl and one spoon. After they showed us what it was like we all went and had spaghetti.

All in all the event was really cool. I'm glad I did it. The not eating wasn't even that bad. You only think about it in the first few hours, the next day I didn't even feel hungry, but it was only 30 hours. Not an entire lifetime. I like the idea of "experiencing" something like this because you don't feel guilted into doing something about the problem from some old guy on TV, asking you to send your coffee money. I actually felt empowered. I felt like I was actually helping and that there is an end to this.

So. I came, I saw, I conquered.

Fasting is no problem. Starving is.

Links: http://www.fmsc.org/default.aspx
http://www.30hourfamine.org/