30 Hour Famine

Making a Difference

There are many different things I could be doing with my weekend. I could hang out with friends, watch some movies, read a book or two, or just be lazy and waste time doing nothing but daydreaming. This is how I have spent some time in the past, but this weekend is different. This weekend, I will be making a difference in childrens' lives and helping to keep them nourished and happy. :)

How am I going to accomplish this? I and some other kids from my youth group will be fasting for 30 hours in order to support the children around the world who are starving. We have been raising donations to give to World Vision, the organization who came up with this idea in the first place. They will take the money we helped raise and will use it to deliver food to impoverished children in countries around the world, such as Haiti, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Myammar.

I'll be honest; I'm a little nervous to be fasting for 30 hours straight. We're allowed to bring water and juice if we want, but that will definitely not silence the inevitable growling of my stomach. However, when I think of how those poor children go every day with that hunger gnawing at them, I know that any miniscule discomfort I may experience is nothing compared to that. I will be fasting by choice, but many of them skip meals for days because they're unable to get any food.

Of course, the money is not the only thing we can do to contribute to helping these kids. We also will be helping through the power of prayer. Fasting and praying go hand in hand. By fasting, we are able to focus more on God and show Him how serious we are about requesting for this need to be met. He will undoubtedly hear our prayers and can make sure that our efforts will have the desired effect.

How You Can Help

Almost 8,000 children under 5 years old die each day from hunger-related causes. With the help of World Vision, we can drastically change this statistic. If you want to learn how you personally can help support this cause, you can learn more about World Vision's 30 Hour Famine. You can also pray about this issue and, if you want, you can pray that everyone participating in this event will be able to make a significant difference. I'm excited to find out just how much good we can do!