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50 Prayers Challenge: #43 – Update

That’s it. We made it! Five days with only a bowl of rice each day and it was brutal. A bowl of rice a day is not near enough to fill one up. You are constantly hungry. Immediately after eating your bowl, the hunger pangs are eased, but you’re still not full. Your stomach gurgles and the irritating discomfort around your midsection makes it impossible to forget your hunger which makes you think about food which makes you think about your hunger and so on.

I’ve never thought as much about food as I have in the past five days.

For me, each day was harder than the last culminating in today, Friday. At points, I had the shakes. My stomach felt emptier than empty. I think the acids in there were trying to consume themselves. The whole day I had to interact and work with people and operate trying my best to disregard the raging hunger inside. I was afraid, at times, that I might flat out faint (I thankfully didn’t).

My friend Evan summed up the experience the best. He said, “It’s hard to believe a billion people live this way …”

Simple disbelief.

50 Prayers Challenge: #43

43. Eat only a bowl of rice a day for a week to remember
those who do that for most of their life (take a multivitamin).
Remember the 30,000 people who die each day of poverty and malnutrition.

I crave more than I hunger and when I actually do hunger, I never starve. I’ve grown up in a culture of excess. I spend more time thinking about how to work off the food I’ve eaten than where my next meal might come from. My undertaking of #43, along with my friend Evan, is just a tiny attempt to empathize with the millions all over the world who’s daily struggles I can’t even imagine.

For the next 5 days, we’ll be eating just one bowl of rice (as well as a multivitamin). It may be slightly cheating, but I’m using the biggest bowl I have in my house – it holds three cups of cooked rice – but it is still so much less than I’m used to eating. I’m on the back nine of my first day and I’ll confirm that it’s rough. I made the mistake of going into town today. Being surrounded by restaurants, food ads, and the smells that go along with both were a massive temptation and a reminder of the hollow feeling in my stomach (after only one day). On to day 2.

End of the week update.

50 Prayers Challenge

The 50 Prayers Challenge is a challenge I’ve posed myself to complete as many prayers on this list as I can throughout 2014. The list is originally titled ‘50 Ways to Become the Answer to Our Prayers‘ and is posted on the website of a group who’s faith, and the practices it leads them to, I respect very much, The Simple Way. When I first found the list, I thought it would be a good challenge for someone (not me of course) to give a shot. Maybe I’d give it a try when I got back to the States, but not now. I’m currently living in Zambia and while it’s become familiar, it is far from home and I have zero clue how to go about some of these here. Then it struck me that I have zero clue how to go about some of these back in the States where I am home, comfortable, and acquainted. There will always be excuses to made so it’s go time.

Some of these prayers will actually be easier to accomplish while in Zambia and there will be some that I’ll probably save until I get back to the States in – Lord willing – August. Then, there are some where my location makes absolutely no difference. Finally, there are also several prayers on this list that I have no intention of completing, at least in 2014, based on who I am (single male) and what stage of life I am in. With all this said, embarking on this challenge, much like the Christian life, is not about success, it is about glorifying God. I want to complete as many of these prayers as possible, but that is not the goal. The goal is to grow in love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. It’s not about crossing items off a list (literally) in order to become a better Christian, but an exercise in pushing my idea of what it means to follow Christ’s example and falling more in love with my Creator.

If you’d like to join me, either physically or in spirit, in one or a few or all of the prayers, let me know. Email me and we’ll figure it out.

To see the list and follow along either go to the ’50 Prayers Challenge’ button at the top of the blog or click here.