Our church launched a 3-week Celebration of Hope campaign yesterday, with a focus this year on serving the under-resourced who are both hungry and thirsty. The campaign includes several aspects,
Perhaps the most difficult challenge we gave our people - even greater than volunteering and giving money - is the 5 Day Food and Water Challenge. For five days, we are choosing to eat very simple meals (such as rice and beans, oatmeal for breakfast), with no snacks, and only drinking tap water. Last year we did the food part, but this year, with an emphasis on providing clean water to our partner villages, we decided to add the beverage part.
I decided to begin my own food challenge Saturday, because starting tomorrow I am traveling for a week. As I suspected, the beverage piece is the hardest part for me - especially missing my Diet Coke! The daily reminder of how simply most of the world eats, and how they are desperate just for clean water let alone any other beverage, is powerful. I feel it in my hunger pangs, in my boredom with the same food every meal, in my exhaustion for lack of enough calories and no caffeine! To engage in this challenge annually is very healthy for our congregation because we identify with the billion people or more on this planet for whom even one healthy meal a day is a luxury. We learned yesterday that over 25% of a woman's day in many places is devoted simply to the retrieval of water for the family. How good for us to remember that when we so casually turn on the tap, take a shower, and water our gardens.
When the food challenge ends, our congregation will indulge once again in our favorite foods, breaking the fast and drinking our coffee, tea, and Gatorade and sodas. We will strive to remember that the poor never get that reprieve. Day after day, hour after hour, they live with a hungry stomach and a need for clean water. I am so grateful to be a part of a church that is raising these issues to the surface and inviting our entire community of faith to embark on a journey together, trying to make a difference in one small part of the world.