30 Hour Famine 2009

"When you fast, don't put on a sad face like the hypocrites. They make their faces look sad to show people they are fasting. I tell you the truth, those hypocrites already have their full reward. So when you fast, comb your hair and wash your face. Then people will not know that you are fasting, but your Father, whom you cannot see, will see you. Your Father sees what is done in secret, and he will reward you." Matthew 6:16-18

I've been thinking about this lesson a lot this week. Currently I'm reading through the book of Matthew and I think I hit this story during the right week. This weekend has been amazing! My church's youth group participated in the 30 Hour Famine. We were challenged to raise $500 and ended up raising over $800. I guess a lot of people really wanted to see our youth leader duct taped to a pole and especially wanted to throw stuff at him.

For the famine, we normally stop eating after our lunch hour at school and then break the fast at six on the Saturday evening. I have lunch at 10:30 in the morning. So I went a little over 30 hours. I'm not gonna lie; I actually had a great difficulty this year with self-control. I got home from school yesterday and thought about eating a snack, but no I couldn't. And I didn't.

Last night, we did some interesting things. We were put into three teams: Brazil, Ecuador, and Bolivia. Can you tell which team I was in? Team Ecuador! We played games to earn cards and my team only got one card, so we didn't end up winning the compassion card at the end or anything, but I think we had fun. Our theme was a Survivor type theme.

The first game we played involved blindfolds and balloons. We had one teammate blindfolded and the rest of us had to give them directions to get to the balloon. It was interesting. Then we had a three-legged race to get survival items such as a blanket and water.

After that, I think we had free time, where most of us played Rock Band. I sang some mean Eye of the Tiger. It was pretty awesome! I just didn't use my church choir singing voice. I also played drums and bass for a while.

After a while, we had to play some more survival games. The first game of this set was a river game. We had to get across the bridge with having two teammates on the bridge at all times. So two of the guys on my team carried all of us across. Kinda awkward, but hey, it worked. Unfortunately we were too slow to win, but we did better than the first team that had tried. Then we had a trivia game where we listened to a story and had to answer questions about it. My team won that one. I have to thank the two guys in my team that were giving me all the answers; way better listeners than me. At that point, I was so tired. I went to bed after playing that game.

I had to get up early today to go babysit. Curfew was midnight though. I slept in one of the Sunday school rooms though because everyone was being so loud out in the sanctuary. The ground was really hard to sleep on last night, but eventually I fell asleep. Then around 7, I woke up freezing (I hate when the heat resets at the church), so I had to go grab sweats and a sweatshirt. I finally got up in time to get ready to go babysit though.

Babysitting was fun. It was my community service project of the day since everyone else did theirs while I was babysitting. When I got home, my dad told me to eat something so I wouldn't be so cranky. He said he wouldn't tell anyone. Yeah and let that be on my guilty conscience? I don't think so. Even if he didn't tell anyone, God knows.

After babysitting, I went back to the church and then we went ice skating. A lesson learned here, if you're really hungry, don't go ice skating, it hurts. My thighs really hurt right now. Normally they don't when I go ice skating. Oh and it down poured when we left to go ice skating. It did that a few times today.

After ice skating, we came back to the church and it was nice out again for a while. We filled up water balloons for a bit getting ready for torturing our youth leader. What? He deserved it. So we did duct tape him to a pole (he looked like a mummy) and we did throw stuff at him (mostly water balloons, silly string, and whipped cream). That was so much fun!

We broke the fast with Communion. Everyone grabbed huge chunks of bread, which I didn't think was the best idea, but whatever floats their boat I guess. Maybe that's how it happened during Jesus' time. I'm really not sure on that one.

We had a nice dinner until the sky started darkening and we got a call that the tornado sirens in town were going off and there was a tornado warning issued. So most of us went into the nursery, which is the safest place in the church since we don't have a basement. But then, it was just a bad storm and nothing happened, just more down pours.

Finally we cleaned up or some people did. Some of us, were a little bit more lazy and started singing random songs in one of the Sunday school rooms. I think we were all a bit loopy from being tired and just eating and stuff. But hey, I didn't randomly start laughing in the middle of the night, so it's all good. I wasn't slap happy.

You know I heard one of the girls complaining about how they had just wasted their entire Saturday counting down for the time of food. This was her first famine. It's true that as it gets closer to the time when we break the fast, we all get a bit antsy and we count down and start really thinking about food. It kinda bugs me that she said that. We didn't waste our entire day complaining. At least I don't think we did. I didn't really complain about food except when people started talking about it. If you start thinking about it, then it's just gonna make you more hungry. Plus, we did other stuff today, not just thought about food.

In times like those we need to remember why we're doing this and think about how people who are way less fortunate than us and don't get food very often. I almost wonder if kids who are fed by World Vision get as excited about food as we did when we broke the bread tonight in Communion.

The card my team won says this: In the impoverished villages of the Amazon, food and clean water are often scarce. Schools are run-down or nonexistent. And in families that are struggling to survive, children suffer the most. They are the first to be weakened by hunger, and the first to be sickened by disease.

We are lucky to live where we do and to have what we do. 30 hours without food really isn't a big deal. Think about the kids who go longer without food. We don't need to complain about being hungry because we have food to go home to.

I was also thinking about the fact that this was my 4th 30 Hour Famine in high school as well as probably my last. Geez, I'm getting closer to graduating everyday and that really makes me feel sad. I have been involved in youth group for about 9 years, as long as I've been going to this church because us older kids have always stuck together (our pastor says we're our own peer group) and never really went with the kids except to help. I might get really emotional later on. It's really cool that I got to be involved in the 30 Hour Famine all these times. That's 120 hours that I've gone without food before. All separate dates though and almost all different years. I have some great memories from those as well.

Youth Group = Battle Wounds

Happy Earth Day! I got made fun of saying what I'm about to say right now tonight at youth group, but one of the people I follow on Twitter had a good thought about Earth Day. And I of course mention this to my youth group and a few people start making fun of Twitter and calling it mean names. I like Twitter though. Anyways, one of the people I follow on Twitter gave the verse Genesis 1:1. Does anyone ever think about how the earth is actually God's creation on Earth Day? Does anyone ever celebrate the creation God made?

We didn't get much reaction out of that. People tend to just think about the 3 R's on Earth Day: reduce, reuse, and recycle. But I think we should celebrate and thank God for giving us this place to live. We still also need to take care of it because I think that's what God wants us to do. We can't just trash this present that God has given us.

So what do you think about my picture? Do you need an explanation besides my title? That's my knee. I skinned it playing a game in youth group tonight. Tonight was the funnest time I've had in youth group in a while I think. I'm not saying that I don't like what we talk about normally. Normally we do a parable and I like learning about the parables and usually it's very interesting and informative. Youth group isn't all fun and games, but it also isn't serious all the time. I'm glad we had this chance to do some really fun games tonight.

At first, we split into two teams: boys vs. girls. Nothing wrong with that except the girls sadly outnumbered the guys by a lot. In the first game, I volunteered myself (actually no wait, my team volunteered me) to do it. They put a shower cap on me and safety goggles. Sound dangerous yet? Then they duct taped the shower cap with the sticky part sticking out. They gave each person a straw. No, not spitballs. Gross! Instead they gave them q-tips. You take the q-tip, stick it in the straw, and blow. My team couldn't step on the mat that we had to protect the floor and I could move any which way as long as I stayed sitting on my chair. For being girls, they did a lot better than the guys (but I heard the guys cheated too). They got 66 q-tips on my head. I'm really glad I had safety goggles on because it would have been rather dangerous without them.

The second game we played, we went outside. It was kinda chilly. We were given coffee pots and inside the coffee pots were frozen blocks of ice with a t-shirt in it. The goal is to get the t-shirt out and put it on. We played that game at our 30 Hour Famine last year. Yeah, it was interesting. The guys won this game tonight. Us girls, we were kinda wimpy. What? It was cold and a chunk of ice and we didn't have gloves or coats on. Ok, it was probably in the 40s, but still that's kinda cold.

The third game we played involved pantyhose and flour. Four of us (once again I was involved, but only because the girl who was gonna do it saw what was going on and didn't want to do it) took pantyhose filled with flour and put it over our faces. The goal was to grab the other person's pantyhose with yours and pull it off their head. The guys won that one too. And we got flour everywhere. I needed to get my back dusted off. I was really bad at that game and my partner got flour in her eye. I think I might have gotten flour in my hair as well.

The last game we played was paper bag limbo. We couldn't touch the ground with our knees and couldn't use our hands. Every time we got the bag, they cut it lower and lower. It was really hard. Of course I didn't get very far because my flexibility skills are lacking. A boy and a girl ended up both winning and they got a cup of candy. It was fun seeing how they managed to get down there without touching the ground with their knees or hands. For one of the times I was in on the game, I bent to far and tripped and fell and that's how my knee got scratched up. That was my battle wound.

Overall, it was definitely a fun night. I probably didn't mention who did this with us. It was a couple of pastors at my church who travel all over the country doing illusions and really cool balloon creations. They are such awesome people. And truly kids at heart.

I don't know how much everyone else enjoyed it, but I really enjoyed the night. During the first game, people wanted to take pictures with their phones and our senior pastor's wife told them not to, but I told them to go ahead because I thought it was funny and I probably looked hilarious. If that's what will get someone to laugh, then so be it. I hope that picture makes them laugh. Tonight as one of the pastors said, I was just being a good sport with all the games. I'm not used to having so many games in one night, so why not take advantage of the time I do have to play these games? After all, I'm not gonna be in youth group much longer. After about 9 years of being in youth group and I'm done this year. That makes me sad, so I'm just enjoying youth group right now while I still have time left in it.

Immanuel

I apologize if I sounded a bit too preachy yesterday. I didn't mean to sound like Jonathan Edwards with a Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God tone. That is one intense sermon if you have never read it. We studied it either last year or the year before in my English class.

I think I have a theme going this week. It happens. A few weeks ago, my these was silence. I think I wrote two or three blogs about silence. It was one of my pastor's sermons that just stuck to me like superglue. The same is true for this week it seems. I'm stuck on this topic of being alone.

I got a new Bible on Sunday. It's the New Century Version and it's a lot different from other Bibles I have had. Well ok, the layout of this Bible is different because it's not like a book. It's actually in the format of a magazine. It's called a Biblezine. It's pretty cool. It has the complete New Testament. And I'm gonna try reading through it completely.

So last night before going to bed, I read Matthew 1. And something struck me while reading it. This was something that had never struck me before. I mean I know the story of Jesus and how he comes into this world, but that's not what struck me.

Jesus' name was what struck me. The prophet said that they would name him Immanuel, which means "God is with us."

That's really cool! I've never thought about that before. Ok, I probably have, but I doubt it ever really impacted me this much before.

God is with us. He will never leave us. It is impossible for God to leave you stranded. We're not alone!

If you ask me, that's wonderful news!

Are you all alone?

Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work: If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up! Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone? though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken. Ecclesiastes 4:9-12

Are you all alone?

If you say yes, I'm automatically gonna say that you're wrong. It's not a matter of me being bigger, stronger, or older than you. It's not even a matter of if I'm right and you're wrong. The fact is if you say you're all alone, you're wrong. It's the true matter here.

You're not all alone. But I don't have any friends. But I don't have a church family. But I don't belong to any particular group. But I don't have a family. I feel so unloved.

Excuses. Excuses. Excuses. I bet you have at least one friend. And I bet you won't feel so unloved once you know who that friend is. Your friend is Jesus.

No matter how alone we feel in this world, we need to realize that we do have God and we do have Jesus. But I can't see them.

So? What's your point? Did you ever feel so alone as a child that you made up a friend, an imaginary friend? I think I had an imaginary friend at one time.

But that's not my point. God isn't imaginary. You can't see Him, but look at the earth. I know God exists because of how complex everything is. Look at us. I know some of the theories say we came from single cell organisms or something. We're way more complicated than those organisms. It's absolutely amazing.

Do you ever feel lonely? Boy do I. There's this song that I've been listening to on repeat for a few hours now (what? It's an amazing song) and I think you should check it out. It's called Call Unto Me and it's by Phil Joel.

It's written from God's point of view. Basically God is telling us that everything is going to be ok. We're not in this world all alone. God has a plan for everything, so don't worry so much.

I think we should all follow what Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 says. This was our theme verse yesterday at church. Do you wanna be the one all alone? Or do you wanna have two? I think you do need two to tango.

So if you go to church and think your church family doesn't care about you, think again. All you church people, we need to come together as a team. We can't do the tango by ourselves.

Growing, serving, reaching together as followers of Jesus Christ.

I know I said talked about this yesterday and how it's my church's mission statement, but I absolutely love it. It's really cool and it's really what we need to be accomplishing here.

So are you all alone?

If you say yes, I think you need to go read this blog all over again because I don't think you got the point of it. No matter how alone we feel sometimes, I can guarantee that we're not alone in this world and everything will be ok.

School Shootings

Today marks a significant day in history. On this day in 1999, the Columbine shootings happened. That was 10 years ago.

10 years ago, I was 8 years old. I don't really remember this day and what I did on this day that time ago. I was just kinda clueless about everything that may have been happening. I felt the say way about 9/11.

But as I've gotten older, dates like today have become more important to me. They're a lot more sentimental to me than they used to be.

My school hasn't had any school shootings in recent years. We've come close to them though. For instance, in middle school, a boy a year behind me in school, threw an antique gun through one of the windows at the school. Back in the 90s, a teacher actually shot and killed the school superintendent and wounded two other people. He's now serving life in prison I believe. There have deaths from car accidents and suicides. There was a mercury spill when I was a sophomore. Oh yeah and a mental patient put us in lockdown on the first day of school this year.

I'm glad we haven't had any school shootings. They're really hard to deal with I imagine. I was reading last week about how the people who went to Columbine those years are still affected by it. It's really sad.

And apparently today is some drug day. I'm not sure what. I don't do drugs, so obviously I don't know what the day is all about, which is probably the best thing. Stay in school and stay drug free. I do get high occasionally, but I'm high on life, not drugs.

And she was all like...

I have a problem. That's the first step right? Admitting I have a problem. But I bet I'm probably not the only one who has this problem.

We were talking yesterday in Sunday school about how if I'm going to become an English teacher, I need to stop saying "like" all the time. Does anyone else have this problem?

By talking about the problem yesterday, we all tried not to use "like" unless we were saying that we actually liked something. It's really hard and I think we're so used to saying it that we just don't notice it. So all during church, I was working on not using that word.

It's a habit. And while it's not a really bad habit, it's still a habit.

We had a Sunday school teacher one time who actually tried to get us to stop using that word the wrong way, but as you can see that hasn't helped much. I still remember her trying to get us to stop though.

It's really easy to use the word "like" the wrong way. We use it to substitute things all the time. I was like that's totally crazy. She was all like crazy and stuff.

No, we need to stop substituting words. And I said that's totally crazy. She was acting really crazy and stuff. See? I know it's a lot more words to say or type, but it's better English. Sometimes though, it seems as if you'll say something the proper way, but it doesn't sound right to you if you don't use "like."

I'm challenging myself right now to not use "like" as much. I'm definitely a lot more conscious of how I use it since we were discussing it yesterday.

Team Day 2009

Team Day! Lunch! Team Day!

I belong to a few teams. But they're not sports teams. Well I guess we could have a sports team within this team if we really wanted to. There used to be a softball team in summer some of us participated in. But no, we're not specifically a sports team.

So today, I wasn't celebrating my favorite sports' teams. I was celebrating the team I'm in. I was celebrating my church's team. That's the team I'm in.

Today at church we had Team Day. Now what exactly is team day? It's when we present all of our ministries that we have at the church and ask people to join.

There is no I in team (a popular saying), but there is a me (that's an add-on right there). There may be a me, but as I was thinking during the sermon, there is also a mate. You can't be a team by yourself. You have to have at least one other person I would think.

But being in a church, I think we should have more than just two members to a team. We need to come together for a bigger cause.

The other team I'm on within the church is the youth group team. Yeah youth group!!!! You gotta have teamwork to be in youth group I would think.

Take this for instance, next week, the youth group at my church is having their 30 Hour Famine. Our youth leader challenged us to raise $500. For every dollar we raise, we get a foot of duct tape. Can you see where this is going? We're also gonna take a pole and with this pole and duct tape, we're going to tape our youth leader to it. Then we're going to throw stuff at him like pie or something. So yeah, we have a team of people raising money not only to feed hungry children (because that's where the money goes), but also to get to $500, so they have payback or revenge on the youth leader. It will be an interesting weekend.

A few weeks back, our pastor asked the teens to come up with some ways to show the congregation team day. So two guys came up with a song and that's where the first words of this blog come from. They made a video and showed it for a few weeks. It's pretty funny.

And my picture, is of something I got for going to church today. That's right, I got a cup. But not just any cup, a cup with my church's name, logo, and mission statement on it.

Growing, serving, reaching together as followers of Jesus Christ.

Yeah, we definitely can't do that by ourselves. We need a team. I'm glad to belong in my church's team!