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 25: Harsh realities, but... hope!

Today I'm going to let my photos do most of the talking. I'm dedicating day 25 to the people of Manila's Payatas Landfill "Scavenger's Colony" as I call it. It's situated right beside a huge city landfill, basically, a giant mountain of trash. Child labor is rampant here, not to mention the extremely hazardous conditions for the adult laborers as well.  

Many of these children, if intervention is not successful, will end up as prostitutes among the estimated 60,000-100,000 child prostitutes in metro Manila. Hard to believe? Well, Manila has a population of over 20 million, poverty is extreme, and organized crime is pervasive. It's sadly the common recipe for such a tragedy.

Trash is everywhere. It's an ecological disaster. Many of the kids have open sores on their skin from exposure to God knows what kinds of chemicals. It's for scenes like these that I abhor plastic bags and try to avoid adding to the demand of such products myself. 

I have to tell you the bad news before you can understand that the good news is... truly good news. So bear with me, I know these are not easy images to digest. 

The good news is, there's hope. In this very colony, we've begun a new "Children's Hope Center" that is offering real hope to these kids. We're providing nutrition, hygiene support, and education opportunities through the provision of school supplies, computer classes and assistance in enrolling them in local schools. Here are a couple of shots I took at the center earlier this year.

And more good news! Donations poured in yesterday for a total of $200. This leaves us just $5 short of our 16th scholarship for these children. Please follow this link to chip in whatever you can spare! It all adds up and makes a huge difference in the life of a child.

Today was one of the more difficult days of the challenge. Here's what I came up with, using just $1 worth of food...

Breakfast. Another morning on the run, so all I had time for was oatmeal with raisins and 3 slices of banana from my weekly banana. ▼

Lunch. My first real meal failure on this challenge. Egg fried rice, but I wanted to try something to mix it up. Roasted potatoes and carrots was not the way to go. I overcooked them and the burned mushy taste was awful. Also had to throw away half of my cabbage leaf ration because it was rotten. I was reminded that there's no refrigeration in the slums and how this must be a common problem, cooking with less than fresh food but having to eat it for survival. ▼

Dinner. Potato soup, chili style. Added a tablespoon of corn meal from my seasonings allowance to add texture and it worked nicely. Chopped corn tortillas and carrots also helped. Soup, with the right seasonings, is never a bad idea when you're hungry and have little to work with. ▼

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 24: We can make a difference!

I'm dedicating day 24 to this girl I met in the Secunderabad landfill scavenger's colony of the Hyderabad, India metro area. It's India's 4th most populous city, and one of the fastest growing the world. The rapid urbanization has left the city overwhelmed with slum settlements popping up anywhere available land permits, usually near trash dumps, train tracks and other hazardous locations.

She helps her parents sift through garbage looking for redeemable materials. On this visit, I found them separating soles of shoes and sandals from the rotted fabric parts and preparing them for sale to a recycler.

She is one of the children we've not yet been able to reach, but would like to. In fact, the parents of the children in this colony are asking us to help. They've heard about our Children's Hope Center and want their sons and daughters to be able to go there, to get an education and nutritious meals. Profits from our farmland help subsidize our budget for this outreach, but it's not enough. That's where you and your friends come in.

Could you help me toward my goal of keeping that smile on her face every day? We've got a lot of work to do, and there's not any easy way to fix all the problems. But we can make a difference for her.

Great news! Yesterday someone gave a $25 donation, and that brings us just $205 shy of our 16th scholarship funded just from readers of this blog! Follow this link to learn more about what a scholarship does, and to chip in whatever amount you can afford. I strongly believe, that one day soon, because of your choice to take action, I'll be posting a follow up story of how her life was forever changed into a life full of hope and promise.

I'm faring ok with the challenge so far. There have been difficult days for sure, and hunger is there, but with your encouragement and knowing that so much awareness and funds are being raised, I'm doing fine and it's all worth it. Here's what I came up with today, using a total of just $1 worth of food... 

Breakfast. Mornings have been crazy lately, so no time for anything elaborate. I had crock-potted my 4th batch of pinto beans overnight, so they were deliciously fresh. Threw on a scrambled egg with seasoned salt and pepper, and bam, very fresh and easy breakfast. ▼

Lunch. I'm really loving the fact that I've got two eggs every day remaining on the challenge. So I went for another version of Korean bibimbap, stir fried with ramen noodles, carrots, potatoes, and cabbage. With the right seasonings, this made a great little meal. ▼

Dinner. I had not thought to mix my pasta sauce with the beans and rice. Worked really well, threw on two corn tortillas for another soft taco mexican dinner rendition. ▼

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 22: If we work together

As I round the corner into the final week, I'm feeling relatively strong and definitely grateful for all of your support. Thanks to many of you overcoming indifference, to believe that even a small donation can make a big difference, we've surpassed the $7,500 mark! This means 15 children's lives forever changed, with a scholarship that gets them their first pair of shoes, a uniform, book bag, school supplies and access to daily nutrition and tutoring at one of our "Children's Hope Centers"! This is fantastic and I couldn't be happier with your participation and support!

With donations totaling $200 today, we're just $280 away from our 16th scholarship being met through readers of this blog! Would you consider chipping in whatever you can afford, even if it's just $5? It all adds up. Please follow this link to learn more and give today, to be a part of the solution. Thanks to our farmland enterprises multiplying our funds and providing nutritious ingredients for our program meals, it's a sustainable solution. A solution to rescue children from child labor and keep them away from the traffickers.

I'm dedicating day 22 to these girls in the Secunderabad landfill "scavenger's colony" as I call it, in metro Hyderabad, India. A lesser-known city globally, but at 8 million residents, it's among the 40 most populated cities in the world—and among those, one of the fastest growing. The overload in urbanization has spawned 1,400 make-shift slum settlements, mostly around the edges of the city. In these colonies, thousands survive from what averages out to be about $1 a day scavenging for redeemable materials such as metals, plastic and anything that the recyclers can imagine refurbishing or melting down to resell. 

Desperate to make ends meet, often times parents take their children along to help, in very hazardous conditions. Several scavengers have died in this landfill, from landslides on the side of the mountain of trash. Education is not an option because there's simply no way to imagine buying the supplies, shoes, or uniform necessary to enroll.

I always enjoy the hospitality of these humble people, as they invite me into their pieced-together homes for a simple cup of tea or whatever snack they might offer me. I spoke with this lady in what little broken Telugu I know, and with the help of my interpreter, we discussed her challenges living in the colony. I felt a desperation in her tone as she wonders what will become of her children.

But there's hope! As evidenced from my photos of children who have benefited from our programs, there's a way out, and it's bringing hope to those who were previously hopeless. It only requires everyone stepping up to play whatever small part they can. And there's hope for this woman, who knows that her children have a chance to enroll at our education center just a few minutes walk from her settlement. I know it sounds overly idealistic of me, but I really, really believe it's true that together, if we overcome indifference, we can make a difference, one child at a time!

Here's my effort to empathize with those trying to make a lot out of a little. My 3 meals today, prepared with just $1 worth of food...

Breakfast. Nothing too spectacular here, but quite a tasty breakfast taco! Simple re-fried beans and brown rice mixture with a fried egg and seasonings on a corn tortilla. ▼

Lunch. In a hurry, sometimes stir-fry is the best solution. A simple egg fried rice preparation with cabbage, carrots and seasonings. ▼

Dinner. I know I'm definitely lacking in the variety department the past two days, but this potato/bean/tortilla pasta noodle "chili" combo (which includes shredded carrots) really wins for heartiness, so you can't complain! ▼

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 21: Extreme poverty

I'm dedicating day 21 to this little boy I met in the Thapathali slum settlement of Kathmandu, Nepal. I've made a few visits to this colony where we're in the process of launching a new "Children's Hope Center" to reach the 200+ kids who live here. My meals look gourmet compared to what they eat. Here he stands in front of his makeshift home that has no electricity, no latrine and certainly no running water. It's a crude form of a shelter, hardly enough to protect him from the Himalayan winter's cold spells and the rains of the monsoons.

Many will ask, so what's the difference between this and the problems of the homeless of my (Western) country? My answer is generally that we're dealing with a different kind of poverty in the developing world. We call it "extreme poverty" because of the extreme risks such a population is exposed to, especially among the children and women of such populations, and even more so among orphans, widows and single mothers.

A shocking statistic that puts things into quick perspective is that every day 33 Nepalese children, mostly girls, become human trafficking victims. Often times relatives are lured with an attractive "advance" and tricked into thinking the child will be working in a domestic servant or nanny role, or some similar alleged respectable job. But in reality they are taken across the Indian border, mostly to brothels, where they're forced to become prostitutes, and some to hazardous labor situations where they are never to be heard from again.

In almost all cases, the children targeted are from among the poorest, such as these of the slums, where parents or relatives of orphans are most susceptible to believe in the schemes of the traffickers. This is a young girl I met in the same colony—she was showing me a small meal she had prepared for herself while her parents were away looking for day labor jobs. She's on our list of children we'd like to serve through the Children's Hope Center we're the process of launching in her community.

To learn more about the realities of human trafficking, child labor and the orphan crisis, please read this report I've put together for Peace Gospel International.

However, to build on last night's post, I want to add that the solution is not simply more funding. It's more funding for sustainable, empowering solutions to extreme poverty. That's why we've equipped our native team in Nepal with a farmland, where they raise goats and grow organic crops to help keep our program's pantries well-stocked with nutritious foods, and to provide additional funding from sales of excess yields.

And here's a result. Orphan girls once trapped in child labor, at extreme risk of being trafficked, now happy, safe and receiving proper nutrition and education at our orphanage home in Kathmandu. They have great hope and their future is looking very bright.

Great news! Today we received $525 in donations toward our scholarship fund for children of the slums, bringing our total up to 15 scholarships funded, just from readers of this blog! Thank you! And we're just $480 away from our 16th! Please follow this link to learn more about the program and give anything you can afford to chip in—it all makes a difference!

Here's a look at what I was able to prepare today using a total of just $1 worth of food...

Breakfast. I've been experimenting with a new style of re-fried beans by mashing in brown rice with the beans before simmering in water and a tablespoon of canola oil. Works well in the breakfast taco. In the same oil I first lightly fried the potato strips and carrot slices you can see in the photo. Anything for variety's sake. A very delicious and satisfying breakfast, all things considered! My guess is that this cost under 30 cents. ▼

Lunch. I wasn't feeling very creative and didn't have much time on my hands. I needed something simple to throw together. I realized I've been going really light on my raisin rations and have what looks like plenty for the remaining days of the challenge. So I added some extra raisins in with my oatmeal ration, along with four slices of frozen banana, added a dash of cinnamon, and this was really fine for what I needed until dinner. ▼

Dinner. I've really been enjoying the "filling feeling" of these potato/tortilla/bean soup varieties I've been coming up with, so I decided to try yet another version tonight. I finely shredded 1/3 of a carrot and let that boil with the potatoes, 1/4 cup of pasta noodles, 1 cup of cooked beans, and half of a ramen noodle brick. Also added two chopped corn tortillas and a variety of seasonings (cumin, chili powder, salt, pepper, ramen spices) to create a very hearty soup. Best part is these are so easy to make! Total prep time was about 10 minutes! ▼

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!