Saturday, August 17, 2013

Day 20: Within reach

I'm dedicating day 20 to these amazing kids I've spent some time with in the Secunderabad landfill scavenger's colony of metro Hyderabad, India, one of the most populated cities on the planet. This is in the colony directly adjacent to the colony where our "Children's Hope Center" is located, and we'd like to expand our reach to help the few dozen children who live here. They do not attend school, instead working to help their parents sift through the garbage looking for redeemable materials like plastics, metals or even rubber shoe soles. It's a hazardous life.

I was happy that we were able to distribute some food and some soccer balls from One World Futbol, and this brought them some temporary joy. However, I know we (you and I) can, and must do more. They're within easy reach—the parents are interested in enrolling them in our education center, but the honest truth is, all that's standing in between them and a bright future is... adequate funding.

More accurately, all that's standing in between them and hope is us overcoming indifference. I cannot stress enough the truth that if we come together and overcome this feeling that our contribution is not going to make difference, then we can actually, in fact... make a real difference!


Part of my goal with this challenge is to raise awareness of extreme poverty. But not only awareness, action also. Thus I've set a goal to raise enough funds through this blog to put 20 children through our Children's Hope programs for one year—and we're getting close!

We're just $5 short of our 14th scholarship—a scholarship that will help us rescue another child trapped in child labor in one of the communities where we serve. Please follow this link to learn more and make a donation toward our scholarship fund, for children of the slums—children who are trapped in dead-end lives with no chance of education, at extremely high risk of being trafficked into prostitution or even, God forbid, organ harvesting. It sounds unbelievable but it's true, it's a simple reality in the developing world, a reality that must be made known. My personal exposure to these realities is one of the compelling factors in me taking this challenge so seriously.

The result is radically altered life-paths: education, mentorship, nutrition, security... leading to hope, opportunity, growth, and healthy balanced lives, like theirs in this photo at our India girl's home!


Here's what I was able to cook up today using a total of just $1 worth of ingredients for three meals...

Breakfast. Yet another variation of the versatile breakfast taco, this time, a few strips of lightly fried potatoes, re-fried beans and a scrambled egg (all thrown together in the same skillet), plus a small portion of oatmeal with raisins and a few slices of banana. ▼


Lunch. This was a very basic version of a cabbage salad with baked ramen noodles, carrots, a hard-boiled egg, a few pieces of boiled potatoes, raisins and pinto beans. Seasoned with salt and vinegar. Hearty and pure! ▼


Dinner. All I had remaining in my rations for today was part of a small potato, pinto beans, pasta and two corn tortillas. So I made an improvised potato soup with a bean base and chopped up corn tortillas with some basic seasonings like chili powder, it was really quite good actually! ▼


Take Action!

1) Please consider giving toward scholarships for children of the slums. Our goal is to cover a scholarship for 20 kids to get an education this next year. Every little bit helps!

2) Please visit my unofficial sponsor, Amazon.com through this link. 7% of your purchases made through the link are given to Peace Gospel. If you're in the UK, use this link.


3) If you're compelled by my effort here, please share it with friends. One of the main goals is awareness. So if you can help with that, huge.

4) Leave me feedback. Please comment on this post, especially if you have any ideas about what I should try to cook with these ingredients I have available. I love hearing from you! It really helps!

2 comments:

  1. Hi Kirby! This is Nor (@nzard). Really amazing to read what you're doing here. As for the cooking, there's not much I can contribute because I'm such a bad cook myself ;-)

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  2. Overcoming indifference is easy when we love God!
    And what not lack in your work is love ...
    As hard as it is, but in the end, the smiles and the happiness of these children are the greatest reward ...

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