The week was mostly boring. We got curtains for every window on the first floor, finally. I like the colors we chose.
This weekend, Erin and I chaperoned a 30-hour famine at St. Matthew’s Church. There were about 50 or 60 kids from various churches and denominations who had raised money for World Vision to provide food aid. These kids then spent 30 hours going without food so they could learn what much of the world lives like.
This is the first year that I could not fast the entire time. I think it was because I ate a light lunch on Friday, at the time we were supposed to stop eating. So by dinnertime, I was famished, and I ate some snacks. And with only a few hours to go, I also snuck out to my car and ate six potato chips. I guess it is a reflection of how fortunate I am: that I can pretend to starve, then sneak out to a car and eat some spare food I have stashed there.
Outside of the worship, meditation, and praise experiences, I had the most fun playing the stodgy chaperone character I have been developing over the past few youth events I’ve attended. Basically I pick on the boys and girls that are laying all over each other and tell them to leave 18 inches of space between them. I’ll say things like “Matt, stop touching girls on the arm, or I will chaperone every dance at your high school until you graduate.” That gets them to stop, and it’s kind of fun. I even slept out in the hallway between the girls’ room and the boys rooms, to make sure nobody was sneaking out. The kids behaved so well that I didn’t need to be there. I discussed with another chaperone how I heard one kid get up at around 3 a.m., and it was just a bathroom break… Then the chaperone told me it was she who had made the late-night trip to the loo.
My only complaint about the 30-hour famine is that it spends too much time on famine relief and not enough time on what market and political forces cause famines in Africa. A common economist argument is that since the western powers provide so much free food on the continent, there is no market for African farmers to begin to create an economy for selling food there. So that keeps the farmers growing cacao and kola, which makes the western powers happy, since we like soda and candy. I know it is an oversimplistic explanation, but there must be something to it. I haven’t asked World Vision what they think of this theory, but the inertia theorist in me suggests that maybe they are in the business of treating the wounds of the world rather than preventing them.
At the famine, I also met a young woman that takes excellent photographs. She said her goal is to become a photographer for National Geographic. I told her that is a great goal. I told her to send me her portfolio, so I could pass it on to someone at work.
All in all, it was a great time.