- Doing prep work for the 30-Hour Famine, which includes but is not limited to calling each of the shelters, getting an accurate number of people that we were going to feed, putting together teams of students & volunteers, getting all 50 people to fill out and turn in a release form for the mall, etc.
- Holding a meeting with the Famine participants and making sure all the meals would be prepared by the families of the participants and delivered at the church when we needed them (one parent took it upon herself to feed 95, YES 95 people!)
- Designing an 8-foot banner that would display HOMELESS FOR HAITI and finding money to pay for it (gulp), which after the company printed it they gave us 50% off when they discovered what it was for (PRAISE GOD!)
- Secured my own living quarters (cardboard box) for the Famine, which we stayed out front of the mall
- Answered my phone which either rang or beeped with a text seemingly every 2 minutes
- Plotted directions for every team and made sure each had the schedule and the appropriate amount of meals for each outreach that we went to
- Led a candlelight vigil and a time of worship & prayer with Mark
- Failed to sleep much at all in the high-20s weather we had Friday night
- Drew the 3-5am watch shift for that night
- Succeeded in sleeping from 5:30-8am
- Guided a few teams on the fly on their routes while I was trying to lead my own team
- By the way, I stopped eating at 8pm Friday night and wouldn't eat until 7am Sunday morning
- While we fasted, we served the meals
- At 1pm (this is last Saturday mind you) we started a door-to-door canned food drive for the Food Bank. We raised 1,700 lbs in just 2.5 HOURS! Amazing!
- Took a 20 minute nap in my box
- Had a small interview with the guy at the Daily Advance
- Led Silent Library, if you know you know, if you don't you're missing out. All the games involved food (which was GREAT). But it involved eating gummy bears off someone's face, eating marshmellow fluff from someone's fingers and lastly eating three bottles of Gerber (flavored Carrots, Fruit Yogurt and Lamb, which was easily the worst smelling thing from that day). The prizes were half-eaten bags of chips, cookies, etc.
- Led another time of prayer & worship with Mark
- Drew the 12-2am watch shift, which wasn't better as it sounds because I couldn't wake up my partner who was supposed to stay up with me. I wasn't going to go into his box to get him! No worries because George wasn't asleep.
- Found it really difficult to sleep in the humid low-30s weather (hadn't ate anything in 31 hours)
- Cleaned up all the trash and boxes, took communion (led by Jason)
- Had the best, most classy experience at McDonald's that I've ever had and I only ate a McChicken bisquit (after 36 hours of fasting)
- All 44 of us went to the 8:30 service Sunday morning service and totally blew the place up with our energy, which no one thought we would have:) Take THAT!!
- Went home, took a 1.5 hour nap, came back and started to set up for the Hunger Banquet
- Emcee'd the Hunger Banquet and raised over $1300 dollars
- Cleaned up the auditorium and left around 10pm
- Got up and did some calls for the Benefit Auction, packed and left for Charlotte the next morning
- Saw the Mavs come from behind to beat the Bobcats that night!
- Called more businesses on Tuesday, sent faxes, emails, etc
- Went to the Unleash Conference at Newspring Church (newspring.cc) Wednesday-Friday
- Picked up all the remaining donations for the Auction on Saturday
- Sunday morning, we had the most kids we've ever had in THE EDGE, 46!!!
- I set up the football field at 1:45pm, finished setting up for the Auction at 5pm and had my first meal of the day immediately afterwards
- I described all the items and let the auctioneer do his thing (we raised nearly $3200 by the way)
- Cleaned up and done by 10pm
- And then, I tweeted what I did when I was watching House and having leftover Mexican food:)
What do you think? Were you a part of the Famine or any of the fundraisers? What was your experience like?
That's an intense two weeks.. no doubt. Props to God for holding you strong, even when I didn't arise from my box in freezing weather to help with watch. I was so knocked out... I don't remember hearing a thing.
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