Last week you read about Calvary’s amazing youth who gave of their time, money, and desire to eat for 30 hours!! Every year, hundreds of thousands of students throughout the world go without food for 30 hours in order to help those who are hungry. Organized by World Vision, students not only go without food for 30 hours and raise money for hunger relief, but they also learn a lot about the devastating reality of world hunger, malnutrition, and food scarcity.
This year, Calvary’s Junior High Youth raised $3,672 for Hunger Relief!
Calvary’s youth were given a reflection sheet on which they shared the answer to 4 questions based upon their lessons throughout the event:
1-What was the most impactful part of your 30 hours?
2-How did God help you with your fear?
3-What are you hungry for spiritually?
4-Do you have any new thoughts about children in the developing world?
Some of the answers were given in last week’s Who Is My Neighbor article. I know you’ll be blessed as you read those as well as this week’s. God is so good!
How did God help you with your fear?
When I went to the nursing home. I talked to a woman who was really open and she was sitting right there in the sitting room. I think God put her there to make me know that I can do this. It’s not scary.
There was not a specific fear that God helped me with but he helped me feel more comfortable serving others in Jesus’ name.
He helped me to get through it, he showed me that my fear would help me to get farther, then it’s not as much of a fear anymore.
He helped me see how lucky I am to have clean water and food. He made me less scared of the hunger by helping others at the food pantry.
God helped me by overcoming my fears and worries. Everything that I thought would make this experience terrible, didn’t come true. He sent a kind of peace over me after talking about my fears and worries.
Gave me so many other great things to focus on that got my mind off the hunger.
He led me through the past 30 hours and told me I was going to be ok and he told me that I should stay happy and thankful.
He provided me with amazing caregivers that reminded me that it really isn’t that hard and to just keep drinking.
God helped me by distracting me and making sure I knew I wasn’t alone.
I didn’t think that I could survive the whole 30 hours.
God helped me by reminding myself I could do it and by not giving up I would learn a lot.
My friends that helped me through.
He let me know that everything is okay and he would take care of me.
What are you hungry for spiritually?
I am hungry for a relationship with Christ. An everyday thing. Not something where I feel him on weekends like this but so I can feel him every day.
Spiritually, I am hungry for the ability to serve. I always WANT to serve, but I never think of it. I want God to help me actually follow through with my serving.
I think I always want to feel appreciated and to belong. I have also been straying from him and don’t feel as close to him, but I know it won’t matter to him and people have it was worse than me.
A strong relationship with God and I would like to get more involved in public service, it really impacted me in such a positive way and will also impact others positively as well.
Spiritually, I’m hungry to know God better. I know who he is and how he works, but I want a better relationship with him.
Peace of mind and knowing and COMPLETELY TRUSTING GOD with his plan with all of this.
I am spiritually hungry for acceptance. I want to be accepted for who I am.
Consistency. My faith seems to strengthen in bursts, when I wish to be more consistent with it.
I’m spiritually hungry for God. I desperately want to know I’m loved by God. I want to feel him.
For a message from God.
I want God to tell me something I should do to help someone else.
Courage to share His word.
A stronger relationship with God.
Do you have any new thoughts about children in the developing world?
I knew that we had it good and that they had it bad. But I didn’t realize that 30 million children under 5th grade can’t go to school. And that 5,000 children die every day from dirty water. Wow, what can I do to help them?
Yes! I feel more drawn to try to help them now, and now I think more of them now than I did before. Now, I have a better idea of how little they have in their lives.
I realize that what they have to deal with is extreme, and we are SO blessed. I feel for them a lot and want to help.
How their way of life is different and tough. I would like to do something to help those children in need.
I always knew that life was hard for children in the world and how lucky I am. Now I know how much more extreme it is. Everything is so hard for them, I wouldn’t be able to imagine it.
I want to help so much more than I already did before this and I want to know everything I can do.
I feel how they are now. I feel terrible about it. I feel as though it is unfair that I get to live my life while they live theirs.
I never realized how bad it truly is for them. If I could, I would do something to help them, but there’s so many, I can’t help them all.
My new thoughts are that they suffer a lot more than I assumed. They could die from starvation but I feel they handle it so well.
Yes, I now understand how hard it is for them.
Yes, I have a new respect for what they deal with and are happy but I complain all the time and I have everything.
I need to help them. I have so much and they have so little. Even the little things I need to learn to give.
They have it hard, while we have it easy as can be. They have to work for what they want, we don’t.
About the Author
Debbie Reese is the Co-Directing Pastor of Calvary UMC