Well, let me preface this entry with a short introduction of myself. I am Derek I'm 22 and a Jesus follower:-) I also dabble in triathlon, photography, the guitar, and I'm a college student at WVU. Oh, and I'm also not the type that enjoys blogging, but it has kind of been on my heart lately to write down my life so that others can learn from my constant mistakes. Anyway, here's the story of what lead up to the fast I am currently in the middle of.
A while back I was listening to several of the online messages by Francis Chan of Cornerstone Simi out in Simi Valley, California. Anyway, he is constantly calling his congregation to give up what they have and serve the poor. Well I got convicted while listening to him and after praying about it a LOT I decided that I needed to make some changes. The first change that was laid on my heart was to sell my triathlon bike(Cervelo P2C) and give the profits to a non-profit organization that is involved in helping the poor. A few of my friends were involved with an organization called Nuru International, so I started looking into it as a possible place to donate my money. Well, the more I looked into it the more I got fired up for their mission and I realized that they weren't just another aid organization that was going to miss use funds and make no tangible difference. After the research and more prayer I decided that not only would I donate my money, I would become personally involved in the organization.
Don't get me wrong, I have always had a heart for the poor and the down and out. I lived in a community growing up that was by American standards very poor and I saw the pain and suffering it could cause. I actually remember one conversation I had with my mom where I told her that I didn't think other people felt the same way about the world that I did. Anyway, so this is not a new thing for me, just in the past I have had the passion and desire, but never did anything about it.
So now back to Nuru. I started talking about my passion to serve with my good friend Billy and we decided that it would be best if I focused my energy on fundraising and getting the message out about Nuru. So, I am really excited and there will be more about this later:-)
Back to the fast:
A few weeks ago, I was riding in my car with my great friend Brit and two of our other friends getting ready to go out to the lake for some swim training. For some reason God laid it on my heart to share with them that I really felt like I needed to feel the pain of hunger if I was going to work to end it. At this point I looked at Brit and there was a twinkle in her eye, and she says, "NOOOOO WAAAAYYY!!! I've been thinking about doing something like this for awhile except I feel like we should just eat like impoverished people would for a week." Not a whole lot more was said about it after that but the idea stuck with me and I started to pray.
The next morning we decided that we would meet with another one of our friends, Janine who is by the way one of the most awesomely passionate people I've met so far, at the Zen Clay Cafe to read our Bibles. When Brit got there the first thing she said to me was I've been thinking about this eating like impoverished people thing and I think we should do it, and I said, "OK." So, that was it and we started trying to figure out what we should eat. We decided that for our initial test of the "Feast of Famine" that we should eat one meal a day and make it traditional Kenyan foods because that is the location Nuru intends to start. We decided to start on the Sunday we came back from the beach and the plan was in motion.
Fast Day 1:
Sunday I didn't really feel like was that difficult. I was with Brit all day and we kind of had each other to lean on. I suppose I also had the previous evening's gorge session still in my stomach as well. The best thing, I feel, that came out of the first day of fasting was that Brit and I skipped lunch and we went and sat on the Boardwalk in Atlantic City and read our Bibles and talked. We had some awesome conversation and it really made me appreciate what a rarity it is to have friends as amazing as the ones I have. We couldn't really come up with anything authentic to eat that day so we just had a chicken wrap from Subway for our one meal. It was possibly the best chicken wrap I've ever consumed...
Fast Day 2:
Monday was pretty tough, I'm not going to lie. While I'm at work I'm used to just eating when I'm bored. It was super hard not to go get some M&M's or peanuts the first time I got a little bored. I made it till just before lunch time and I allowed myself two rolos and a cup of tea and I went outside to read my Bible under the tree. I read a couple chapters in John and just began to reflect on what I was feeling. I set out, I guess, to get a sense of the hopelessness that hunger brings and I wasn't really feeling it. I realized that the way we were doing it was more an exercise of self control than actually not having food to eat. Somehow that got me thinking about being single... I don't really enjoy being single... I feel like I am good at being a boyfriend and not so much at being alone... Not eating made me realize that the reason I am single is similar to the reason I wasn't eating. In both cases I was denying myself something that was standing between myself and God. The food because I needed to feel the pain of hunger in order to fully devote myself to the purpose God has laid out for my life. The relationship obviously because I put the relationship ahead of my relationship with God. It is a very liberating sense of calm that you receive when you figure out why God has done something in your life... I started praying a while ago that God would have his way in my life and that His will would be done and not mine, and I have been blessed in the most random ways!!! God truly is an awesome God!!!
I went for a run after work with my friend Sarah and we talked about lots of interesting things from goals to God. I explained all the feelings I had to her and she seemed to understand somehow. I thought they all were pretty random and didn't really make sense, but I at least am glad she pretended I'm not crazy...LOL. After that Brit and I and another friend Cassie went for a swim out at the lake. Brit and I were both pretty weak when it came time to swim. It felt sort of good though to glide through the water, though I didn't have the stamina I normally have.
When we finished swimming Brit and I went to Kroger to pick out what we would eat. We decided that we'd try to eat Ugali (basically boiled cornmeal), Sakuma (greens, we substituted greens that were available here), Red Beans, and sweet potato. We took all this back to her house and started cooking. We ended up cooking waaaay more than our shrunken stomachs could eat in one meal so we put it in the fridge for the next day. We decided that it would be a good idea if we got together and ate family style for our meals and just to praise God for each other and for blessing us with the ability to choose not to eat. Brit's roommates made it hard on us by having lots of yummy looking sweets right beside the stove... After dinner we decided to do some journaling and then we started sharing our feelings about what was going on. I shared with her my feelings that I was getting the feeling that I wanted and that maybe we should come up with another way of doing it so that it would be more authentic to the fact that there is actually no food. We came up with the idea of possibly doing it in a retreat setting where we could control how much food people actually had access to. Just some ideas we through out who knows what will come of them.
Fast Day 3:
Day three was a little bit tougher. I started getting a some weird feelings. It was almost like a crazy loopy tired feeling. I'm pretty sure it was my body saying you are an idiot you need to feed me... Anyway, I said no. I fought with the same urges to eat at work as the day before. I've really realized that I'm a bored eater. I'm not sure I ever really get hungry normally... It really makes me feel bad to realize this! Half the world is hungry most of the day and I eat before I get hungry... The excess that we live in in the United States is ridiculous!!! I am far from blameless also! I am awful about driving places I could walk or bike and I eat out an excessive amount as well.
After work I met Britt for a bike ride and we rode like 12 miles. It was a pretty slow pace but I was able to pick it up a couple times and not completely die. We mostly just talked about what was going on in our lives and had a general good time.
When we finished up we went back over to her place and finished off the leftovers we had from the day before and rushed over to Billy's for a meeting about our fast and then for a Nuru meeting. We both told our stories to Billy about why we decided to fast, the details of what we are doing, and our feelings about it. It was pretty cool to get Billy's feedback because he is such an awesome follower of Christ. It's hard to get unbelievers to understand why you would give up the majority of your food for a week, but as I've come to find out it's easier for fellow Christians to "get it." It's not really important to me that people get it, just that they see that I am passionate enough to do it.
I guess I'll end this post by saying that I pray that this blog will do something for someone, I don't know who and I can't imagine what, but God works in mysterious ways and may all the praise be to him!!! I would also appreciate prayers for strength as Brit and I continue this fast. Thanks in advance and I'll try to do one day at a time from now on:-)
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