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 23: Realizing abundance

Truckin' along... just a week to go now! One of the things I really value about this challenge is how it really changes all of my attitudes about food, and reminds me of how much I take for granted. Everywhere I go, I see abundance in my home country, America.

Before doing these challenges, sure, I knew we had abundance. But when you're hungry for 30 days, you seriously notice the abundance. It's everywhere. I could do another challenge called "30 days on the fat of the land" and just get by on grocery store samples and panhandling, and probably eat a lot more than I do on this challenge.

This is a stark contrast to the crowded slums in the cities of the developing world. There's no way to find such abundance. Beggars on the streets are considered the most desperate of society, because rarely does anyone have change to spare, and forget about finding free samples of food, anywhere.

So I'm dedicating day 23 to the very humble and grateful people of the Kampala, Uganda slums, where the organization I lead (Peace Gospel) is in the process of starting up a new "Children's Hope Center." Although extremely basic, the facility is in place, volunteers are enlisted from a local church, and the basic infrastructure of the program is up and running. However, we need more sponsors to cover scholarships for kids to enter the program. You can follow this link to learn more and donate toward this fund.

Some of the children I met near our new outreach:

A look at how food is prepared. The makeshift homes of course do not have kitchens. Just a few feet from this scene was an open ditch of raw sewage. Again, the things I take for granted! And how it makes my $30 worth of food and my modern kitchen seem like opulence!

Great news! Today we received $50 which raises our total to $7,770, leaving us just $230 short of our 16th scholarship! These scholarships mean hope for more kids, enabling them to enter our education programs like these below! This is a picture of what it looks like when we come together, overcome our indifference and help to make a difference! Happy kids, once before hopeless, now empowered by education and nutrition!

Here's what I was able to come up with for today's three meals, using just $1 worth of ingredients, total. It makes me realize that if I can do this with just $1, what I could do with $2 or $3! It makes me realize that simplification does not mean dull, on the contrary, it means I grow in my resourcefulness and creativity, while saving money, eating lighter and feeling better...

Breakfast. Potato/egg/raisin Pancake bliss! After a lot of oatmeal and breakfast taco burnout, this was just downright awesome. Mashed 1/3 of a boiled potato, mixed with one beaten egg, a few raisins and put on the skillet with a tiny amount of oil, voila! Beautiful! The potato and egg gave this real substance and I was surprised it held me over pretty well until lunch. ▼

Lunch. I'm calling this one "Moroccan Salad." Ingredients: 1/3 carrot stick boiled, 1 hard boiled egg, 1 corn tortilla boiled/disintegrated, 1/3 boiled potato (cubed), 1/3 cup brown rice, 1/4 cup pinto beans, 1/4 cup cooked pasta noodles, 1 leaf raw cabbage, 1 teaspoon soy sauce, 1 teaspoon vinegar, dash of seasoned salt and pepper. Chilled in freezer for 10 minutes. Refreshing and filling! Cost: about 30-35 cents.▼

Dinner. Was tired and didn't want to do anything elaborate, so just went with some vegetarian soft tacos. Back to my standard re-fried pinto bean & brown rice mix, with roasted potato wedges, topped with a couple teaspoons of pasta sauce. Nothing spectacular, but good enough for what I estimate cost about 25 cents to make. ▼

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 14: Hope for Kampala

I'm kind of at a loss for words tonight, very tired and growing a bit irritable from the hunger, to be honest. But my heart turns toward vivid memories of this slum settlement in Kampala, Uganda, where our newest "Children's Hope Center" project is currently in development. As I recollect their struggles I witnessed first hand, my complaints are silenced immediately. Kampala is the capital city of Uganda, and is one of the poorest and largest cities in central Africa.

The colony is at the bottom of a hill, so all of the sewage pools here, trash is everywhere and the stench is nearly unbearable. After spending four hours there, I felt very ill just from breathing the fumes.

There is a sense of defeat here, an indifference toward the trash and sewage, simply because there's no way to fight it. You could make a massive clean up effort but then upon the next rain, all of the trash and sewage from uphill would simply flood into the colony and put them right back where they started. The children play barefoot in sewage-contaminated waters, and as a result of course almost all diseases that plague the colony are water-borne.

We've started with a very basic facility offering elementary classes to help uneducated children get ready for school. Here's a scene from our classroom I shot on my last visit this year in Kampala. We hope to make many improvements in the months ahead! But we must start somewhere.

These children greeted me with bright smiles and hugs as they gathered outside our facility site. Many of these kids are engaged in child labor. In Uganda, over 40% of children are victims of child labor, most often in very hazardous conditions where safety precautions are never considered.

Your help with my goal for this challenge will help us bring more kids into the program, to offer hope and a way out of this desperate life they live, through education, proper nutrition and hygiene. If you're not familiar with the work of Peace Gospel International, you should know that all of our programs' budgets are supplemented by profits from our various native-led business and farmland enterprise operations, which also provide nutritious ingredients for program participants. Learn more about our work in Uganda here. 

Please follow this link to donate whatever you can afford toward my goal of 20 scholarships for children of the slums. Your gift will help us rescue more of these kids from child labor, to give them a fighting chance against what often follows next in the developing world—child prostitution and trafficking. 

We're currently just $110 away from our 4th scholarship being funded!

Here's what I was able to throw together on a very busy day... not the greatest day in terms of creativity, but it did the job...

Breakfast. A simple bean and egg breakfast taco along with my standard 1/3 cup oatmeal with a few raisins and three slices from my frozen banana ration. ▼

Lunch. Was in a hurry, so I just did a quick re-fried bean & brown rice combo and baked a corn tortilla to make chips. Light but delicious, and easy to make! ▼

Dinner. Wasn't in the mood for anything creative tonight, so I just threw together this ramen stew. 1/3 brick ramen, 1/3 cup of pasta noodles, 2/3 cup of brown rice, a small ration of carrots and potatoes, and one leaf of cabbage. With the right seasonings, not too bad. ▼

Thanks for your continued support. Traffic to the blog continues to grow. Now if we could just catch up a little on our pace for donations toward the goal, that would be great!

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 7: It all adds up

Sorry if I come across as a little worked up today, but I've got a story to tell and not sure how to write it without sounding dramatic. I hope you'll understand my passion.

It was in the slums of Kampala, Uganda, I met this little girl. Here most live on just about 2500 Ugandan Shillings a day, or about $1/day. Fortunately I was able to make her smile after this shot, but honestly, in this colony, where children play barefoot in raw sewage, there's not much to smile about.

But we're starting a new program in her colony where she'll have a chance to live the words on her shirt. However, we can't make it happen without your help. Let's come together, to overcome the indifference we've all succumbed to at one time or another, to throw off the mask of deception that blinds us from the reality THAT WE CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE. It worked for these girls at one of our schools in rural Uganda, because several of you chose to overcome that feeling--instead choosing to rise up and do SOMETHING, no matter how small. Here's the result...

Take for example, a donation we received today, for five US dollars. That is huge, you know why? Not because it's a ton of money, not because it's going to rock our thermometer off the charts, but because someone chose to overcome indifference--chose to say, "It may not seem like much to me, but I'm going to be a part of the solution, I'm going to do something."

That is the only way we'll ever change the story of extreme poverty. It's the only way we'll ever stop the horrible crimes of child prostitution, child labor, abuse and malnutrition--by doing something, doing anything! The more involvement, the more it multiplies. It's about creating a movement of action-taking and ignoring the voice that's telling you your part won't make a difference. And remember that our actions create a ripple effect that inspires others to do their part!

Leave a comment if you have any questions about the meals from today; no time for specifics on the recipes. Thanks for your support! Here's what I managed to cook up with $1 worth of food today...

Breakfast. Steamed cabbage, egg, rice and bean breakfast taco. ▼

Lunch. Re-fried bean, rice & carrot taquitos, topped with steamed cabbage and an improvised bean & rice tomato "soup" topping. ▼

Dinner.  Ramen & pasta noodle tortilla soup, with beans, rice and carrots.▼

In other great news, we received a pledge for $400 toward our goal, which means we've cleared our first step of the goal--our first scholarship is funded! We're now at a total of $505 raised! Just $495 to go until we get another scholarship in place! Please chip in, any amount makes a difference!

Just follow this link to donate toward the goal today!

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!