Day 30: Finish line

I'm utterly grateful for the last-minute outpouring of support that not only helped me reach my goal, but surpass it! Tonight we got up to $10,750 for 21 scholarships! I honestly had my doubts, because this is the 3rd time I've blogged on this almost identical subject, and my usual base of support might justifiably be burnt out on my harping on this cause. But because of your passion for these children and your desire to raise awareness among your own circles of friends and co-workers, we really made a difference.

Internationally, I was amazed at the outpouring of support, with contributions coming in from Poland, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Singapore, Romania, Canada, Australia and Brazil—and web visits from dozens more countries around the globe. It's a picture I love, that of the nations coming together to repair a broken world.

Tomorrow, I'm leaving on a journey that will take me to two of the project locations where we reach out to children recovering from child labor and malnutrition, helping them become integrated into a life of wholeness in education, nutrition and mentorship, through our Children's Hope Centers. I'll be traveling to Nepal and India. I look forward to following up with you through my public Facebook, Instagram and Flickr posts in the days ahead. I'm particularly excited to share with you our progress in Kathmandu, Nepal, where our new Children's Hope Center is really starting to make an impact.

As I've blogged about before on my previous "day 30" posts, this of course is always a time of introspection, of being grateful for the abundance in my life, being thankful that I have a finish line to cross. However, I really hesitate to gloat too much in the "finish" because I am so heavy-hearted for those who know no such "ending" to their suffering.

It is for them that I do this challenge, but again and again I remind myself how it is but a shadow of their very real and ever-present challenge to survive on the same amount or even less, on top of all of the hazardous conditions of the slums—no electricity, rainstorms and leaky roofs, exposure to extreme temperatures, flooding, cholera, disease-bearing mosquitoes, crime, violence, snakes and worse.

And for the children, whom I so often find alone in the colonies, while their parents are away looking for work. For the brave children of 9, 10, 11 years of age, taking care of the little ones as in this scene in Kathmandu.

Yes, poverty is a real problem in our own back yards around the world. However, we should all feel compelled as global citizens of God's creation, to stand up for these who have no voice, who are being taken advantage of, forced to work at young ages in very hazardous conditions, trafficked across borders into deplorable, unthinkable labor and prostitution situations. We should all feel compelled to "speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute."

We must all come together to do something for the destitute children of the developing world. It cannot be a national effort whereby every nation is expected to take care of their own children. Local governments in the developing world are often bereft of funds, and what little funding is available is squandered by corrupt officials. So you cannot simply say, "let their governments take care of them"—it's simply not going to happen.

So here ends another of my 30 day challenges. I'm not sure I'll do such a challenge again for some time. It's a a bit of a strain planning out three meals a day that require quite a bit of "puzzling" together with limited ingredients, on top of blogging and all that comes with raising awareness to try to reach a fundraising goal, while also trying to juggle all of my other responsibilities, for 30 days!

So this may very well be the last time I attempt such a "public" food-based challenge. Again I'd like to say a huge thank you to all of you who supported me in this effort, whether just through your encouragement, your spreading of awareness and/or actually giving toward the scholarships. I am extremely grateful, but more importantly, the children whose lives will be forever changed due to your action would surely offer you their sincere gratitude if they knew of your support.

Here's what I came up with for my final day of food on the challenge, living on just $1 of food per day...

Breakfast. Similar to the way I started the challenge, wrapping up the final breakfast with an egg-topped oatmeal, with my final banana and raisin rations. ▼

Lunch. With my one remaining egg of the 48 I had for this challenge, along with the remainder of my pasta rations, I made a noodle/egg-fried rice with cabbage, boiled potato cubes and a bit of brown rice. Seasoned with season-all, ramen seasoning and pepper, it was not bad. ▼

Dinner. I dedicate this, my final "meal" to those who must often skip meals, not to diet, not to fast, not to raise awareness—but simply because they cannot afford to eat. ▼

Take Action!

1) Please consider giving toward scholarships for children of the slums. Every little bit helps! We've met the goal but don't let that stop you, there's always a need to rescue more children.

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!

Day 29: It's different for children

Well, here I am on the eve of the ending day. At this point my body has kind of set into a rhythm of just knowing this is the new normal. I had a lunch meeting with some friends who will be meeting me in Nepal next month, and they were feasting on what I'm sure was great food. It did not even phase me. I say this not to brag about how strong I am to overlook their delicious food. Rather, I bring it up as a point of human psychology, that after a while you just resign to the reality of your situation, and you learn to block out certain sensory triggers completely.

I wonder about those who go on in this kind of "challenge" indefinitely as a way of life. For the adults living in extreme poverty, I can see where they could be strong and endure through the hardships and the hunger in the interest of survival and sacrificing for their children. However, what I cannot fathom, is how the children endure it. Their challenge in these conditions is infinitely more difficult.

So I'd like to dedicate day 29 to these children I've met and photographed in the slums. All of their emotions, from smiles to sorrow, inspire me... and I know you would say the same as well.

Kathmandu, Nepal:

Manila, Philippines:

Kampala, Uganda:

Hyderabad, India:

I have some good news for you today! We've raised another $330 toward my goal of 20 scholarships for these children of the slums. This puts us just $80 short of our 17th scholarship funded! And just $1,580 short of my bigger goal of $10,000 for 20 scholarships. I'm overwhelmed by the support and very grateful for all of you who have helped in whatever way you can. Please follow this link to learn more, and consider helping me reach my goal, with just one day remaining!

I also invite you to follow this link, to view photos of HOPE on the smiles of the women and children who benefit from our programs.

Here's what I was able to put together with just $1 worth of food for today... 

Breakfast. I was ready to get the day rolling so I didn't have much time for anything elaborate. A quick re-fried beans and brown rice combo on the corn tortilla, topped with an over-easy egg, made for a great little breakfast taco. No apologies, I love eggs. ▼

Lunch. More of the bonus of being over-conservative in my rationing earlier in the challenge, I had an entire brick of ramen noodles to add to this egg fried rice deliciousness. Everything tastes better when you're hungry, and you learn to appreciate every morsel. ▼

Dinner. Another variation of the Baked Hasselback Potato. I used my extra potato rations to enjoy a my second full potato. This time I simply shredded a half-carrot and garnished the top of the potato at 20 minutes remaining on the bake at 425F/220C. Simple and delicious, it really did the job for dinner. ▼

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!

Day 28: The real challenge

The challenge is definitely starting to wear on me. I'm so ready for this to be over. However, I'm compelled to push through with a strong finish, because there are so many who do not have a day 31. This is no challenge at all, I keep telling myself, compared to what they endure on a daily basis. They're the ones with the real challenge on their hands. They're the ones who need your support and encouragement, not me.

Usually when I visit the slum colonies where we work, it's dry season or at least not raining. One of the things I think about a lot is what they endure during the monsoons or other rain storms. Their makeshift homes are not in any way equipped to handle the downpours. As their settlements are situated in less than desirable locations, they're usually flood-prone. As a result, the conditions are unimaginable, mosquitoes rampant, snakes, cholera outbreaks, etc. The intense heat and humidity that follows the floods makes the conditions and putrid odors even worse. My heart aches for them during these severe weather conditions.

I'm dedicating day 28 to these kids I met in the slums of Kampala, Uganda who endure some of the worst living conditions I've ever witnessed. We've just begun an education & nutrition outreach here, another one of our "Children's Hope Centers" to try to improve their lives.

My intention in documenting and sharing these scenes is two fold, 1) to wake us up to be more thankful for what we have, and 2) to give you a real sense of the conditions that my words could never adequately describe.

This girl was showing me where here latrine is, as she stands in front of it. There's no sewage system here of course, and children play barefoot or in flip-flops in the sewage drainage.

A mother and her daughters make their way back from fetching their daily water supply, which is probably not from a safe source.

For those of you who might have been following along, I know I might be starting to sound redundant, but it's because I want to drive home the point. We could stop here. We could feel overwhelmed and despondent and throw our hands up in the air and say, "Oh well, the problem is way too big, there's nothing we could possibly do to solve this." But that's just not the case. You see, we can do something. We can do something one child at a time.

And as we all begin to overcome this defeatist attitude of indifference, realize we can do something, and then actually play whatever little part we can, we begin to be a part of the solution.

What's the solution, you ask? The solution is hope, hope through small steps of education and nutrition. Making sure that there's food in a child's belly before we educate them, so that they can concentrate in class. Allowing them a chance to break out of the cycle of poverty, child labor, and human trafficking that is destroying innocent lives every day as you and I go on about our daily routines. The solution is also found in achieving sustainability, thus we've empowered our native team here with a farmland enterprise. 

The goal is their smiles, but not just fleeting smiles. Smiles that come from the satisfaction of hard work in education, to achieve a solid foundation for their future. Smiles from a deeper understanding of God's heart for them, a heart to prosper them and not to harm them, plans to give them a hope and a future. But God's heart is expressed through the actions of God's people. That's where we come in to do our part in repairing a broken world.

Great news! Today we received $70 toward my goal, putting us just $410 short of our 17th scholarship! Please follow this link to give any amount you can spare, knowing that it all counts, and all can make a huge difference in the life of one of these children.

On the final stretch! Here's what I managed to create using just $1 of food today...

Breakfast. I enjoyed yesterday's variety of texture with the omelet-style egg, so I tried that again today with re-fried bean & rice mixture, topped with fresh carrots and pepper. ▼

Lunch. I tried boiling in a beaten egg with the pasta again. This really adds a nice texture and the protein is a good balance to the starchiness. Just drop it in one minute before your pasta is done, strain with the pasta, carrots and cabbage, then mix in pasta sauce and you're done. Oh, I think I also cooked in half of a cubed potato, so this was definitely filling! (Still benefiting from my conservatism in rationing earlier in the challenge). ▼

Dinner. The lunch had remained somewhat heavy on my stomach (all things considered) so I just wanted something light for dinner. Used some of the last banana slices I have left, added with raisins and standard 1/3 cup of oatmeal. With a little cinnamon, not a bad end-of-day meal. ▼

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!

Day 27: The missing drop

I'm dedicating day 27 to this girl I met in the Secunderabad Landfill "Scavengers' Colony" as I call it. It's one of the several slum colonies on the edge of this massive city landfill serving the metro Hyderabad, India area. Most people have never heard of this city. However, it's among the world's 40 most populous cities at an estimated 8.2 million residents.

The local language here is Telugu, which is the mother tongue to over 80 million people, ranking it as the 15th most widely spoken language in the world—more than Korean, French or Italian. But the average person I meet has never heard of Telugu. Such is the contradiction of India, with its 1.1 billion citizens and 13 official languages.

Yet among all of this overwhelming statistical data, stands this one girl. A girl we can help. She's in a colony right beside the slum settlement where our "Children's Hope Center" is located. Here I met her family as they invited me into their make-shift home assembled from tattered tarps and vinyl ad banners they found in the trash.

If you can't feed a hundred people, then feed just one. We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop. —Mother Teresa

Along with our native team members, I've interviewed the parents of this colony, and they are very interested in enrolling their children, including this girl, at our Children's Hope Center. And we'd love to help. We just can't do it all by ourselves. That's where we can all come together to make a difference, for her and her friends here.

Our India farmland's profits are helping to supplement the budget of this outreach, but it's not enough to meet the growing needs. This is where your donation, however small, can make a real difference in the life of a child of the slums. Education coupled with proper nutrition can completely change the course of a child's life. The potential alternative routes for these children are quite desperate—many will end up as trafficking victims, being sold for labor or prostitution. Here's a summary I wrote describing the depth of the challenges these children face.

However, here's the other side of the equation. There are children we've rescued from child labor, now flourishing at our Children's Hope Center just a short walk from where I took the photograph above.

We're just $480 away from funding our 17th scholarship just through readers of this blog! That's huge! Follow this link to give any amount you can afford to chip in, it all makes a difference! Your gift will ensure that another child has a chance to break out of the cycle of extreme poverty, to get out of the dangerous work of sifting through the trash, onto the solid tracks of education and proper nutrition!

On to what I was able to cook up using a total of just $1 worth of food for these 3 meals...

Breakfast. Nothing to write home about, but it was a solid breakfast. 1/3 cup oatmeal with raisins and dash of cinnamon. Breakfast taco with plain 1-egg omelet, rice and beans. ▼

Lunch. Quite an inspirational breakthrough here. As I mentioned in yesterday's post, I went a little conservative on rations for the first 25 days. That's left me with a nice surplus to finish out the challenge! Today I had an entire potato and an extra ration of pasta noodles. I was googling baked potato recipes and came across this one. It's a Swedish recipe called Baked Hasselback Potato, and let me tell you, it is something pretty awesome, especially when you're hungry. Also had an extra egg today, so after beating, I tried dropping it into the boiling pasta at one minute remaining and it gave it a really great consistency. Mixed in about three tablespoons of pasta sauce and I had quite a feast on my hands here. ▼

Dinner. Can't go wrong with tostadas, that's my motto. The crispy goodness of corn tortillas baked in the oven, topped with re-fried rice and beans mix and steamed cabbage and carrots, seasoned with your favorite seasonings, and bam, wow, it's fresh, not too heavy and really delicious! A very natural, healthful, wholesome dish! ▼

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!

Day 26: Surplus!

Today I'm taking a break from "heavy" blogging due to yesterday's intense post. Great news is that I went way conservative on my first 25 days' rations, and now I find myself with a bit of a surplus for the remainder of the challenge. This comes at a great time in the "race" as this is when it starts getting really monotonous.

In other good news, we received a very generous $25 donation and this brings us up to our 16th scholarship now funded! Wow! This makes it all worth it and I'm so grateful for all of your support in whatever way you've offered it. Whether it be through your encouragement, sharing my posts, spreading the word about this blog, using the amazon link or actually giving toward the goal, I'm thankful for your support!

So here's what I was able to come up with using just $1 worth of ingredients for today's 3 meals...

Breakfast. Nothing super-fancy here, just a breakfast taco with my typical re-fried rice-n-beans mix plus a fried egg on a corn tortilla. When you're hungry, wow, this really hits the spot, and plenty of protein to get you pretty close to lunch. ▼

Lunch. I know, it's redundant, right? But when you don't have a lot of time and you're really hungry, you make what you like and what you know works. I just love this Korean bibimbap dish. It's so easy and it's so tasty. Half a brick of Ramen noodles, brown rice, carrots, cabbage all stir fried, with a fried egg on top. The runny yolk creates a sort of sauce and it's really quite satisfying. All for about 30 cents! ▼

Dinner. Depending on what your definition is, these are either chimichangas or taquitos. Whatever you want to call them, these hit the spot after a long wait since lunch. My usual recipe on this works quite well, and easy to make. Just google chimichanga recipe and you'll find plenty of options on this. My version is a simple re-fried bean-n-rice mix with raw carrots for the filling inside the corn tortillas, topped with pasta sauce after baking for 8 minutes at 500F/260C. ▼

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!