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.