Buried Planet

As some of you may already know, my wife and I lead a very rambunctious group of 12-14 year old members of a Jr.High youth group at our church called GRAVITY. We’ve spent a lot of time recently getting them to think outside their busy lives and about their communities, their country and the world at large. We are about to embark on what we call “The Summer of Service” where every couple of weeks throughout the summer, we will be doing various service projects around town (food drives, toy drives, park cleanups, soup kitchens, etc). To kick off that summer of service, the kids are prepared to do something I’m really proud of.

World Vision is a Christian missions organization that works to feed hungry children around the world. They also sponsor something called the “30 Hour Famine” and we will be participating on May 24th-May 25th of this year. The kids in our youth group, as well as my wife and I, will be going without food (except juices or water) for 30 hours straight. We do this to 1) create awareness about hunger in our world today 2) experience a small part of the hunger that some children experience every day 3) raise money to send to World Vision that will be used to feed hungry children.

Those of you who know middle-schoolers… going without food is a big sacrifice, lol. It’s nowhere near the kind of hunger that the kids they’ll be helping experience, but they’ll get a taste and we’ll be playing games and doing other activities throughout the weekend fast that will educate them about some of these countries, the problems they face and open their eyes to the kind of help that is needed out there.

I’ll be honest, when I proposed the idea to them… I thought it’d be a bust. But lo and behold, we have an almost 100% participation of the regular kids in our group, as well as some new kids who came as invites when they heard about it. They can’t wait to do it, and are excited to know they are helping kids across the globe. If you have a church group of your own, I recommend telling your youth leaders about the website:  30hourfamine.org. They can find more info and do the famine as well.

That said… if any of you who I’ve known for a while would be interested in sponsoring my son or daughter (or both) with any amount from $1 to $whatever as they participate in the famine, give me an email… those who know me have it I think. It’s a one time donation amount of any amount you’re comfortable with. Don’t feel obligated, obviously… my kids are doing a pretty good job fundraising, but I thought I’d throw out the opportunity for any of my online friends if they felt led.

Most importantly, I think it’s a great organization and a great cause… and want to do what I can to create awareness out there of this really cool program that is getting kids in America to take a serious look at a serious problem… and do something about it. My prayer is that as they grow older, that concern for others will only grow stronger and stronger.