35 Hour Famine

Last Friday and Saturday, my youth group did the 30 Hour Famine. For me it was a 35 hour famine, because I started at 7:30am instead of noon. Ngiap challenged me to do it, and she paid me $10 for every extra hour. It was a lot of fun and a great experience. We went to the church Friday night for regular youth group, and everyone who stayed for the famine slept over. We had 13 kids, 9 girls and 4 guys. We had 3 leaders. As I said, we had regular youth group, and then we kind of helped clean up the church after Awana sort of. While we were waiting for the Koreans to be done in the sactuary, we played with the nerf guns that one of the guys brought. That was really fun! Then we had a sort of discussion time. Then we went into the sanctuary to sing and talk some more. Then, we played sardines!! Now, if you have never played sardines at 1 o'clock in the morning in a pitch black church, you have GOT to do it! It was SO much fun!! Then we went to bed at something like 2:00am (Saturday morning). We woke up around 8:30. First we decorated the church for Christmas, but after a while, we got distracted because the guys and Elias started shooting the guns at the girls. They played with the guns for about a half hour, then we went to a homeless shelter called the Lazarus House. We split into two groups, one stayed at the house and did some cleaning, and the other one (that I was with) went to their soup kitchen and moved sugar, moved chairs and a desk into a truck, and put a lot of bags of clothes into the truck, too. It was quite fun! There's a picture of everyone who was in my group sitting in the truck we packed at the end of this post. Anyways, moving on, after that we went back to the church to go to the bathroom, charge the camera battery, and get ready to go to Boston. Then we went to Boston. We took the T in. The ride was a lot of fun! One of the guys had heelies, and when the train slowed down, he would roll down the aisle of the car. It was really cool to watch! When we got to Boston, we did a picture scavenger hunt. The questions were like, take a picture with a police, with an important person, with a fountain, with as many people as you could, with a homeless person, with a street performer, and you had to get 5 signatures for no reason. It was the girls against the guys. I think the guys got everything, but the girls didn't get a street performer, and we didn't get a picture with the homeless person, the reason which you'll find out in a few. We had to give a Burger King meal to the homeless person that we were supposed to take a picture with, so that we wouldn't be walking up to some random homeless person, and being like "Hey, you're a homeless person, can we take a picture with you?". That would just be mean. So, we got everything except for our street performer, and the homeless person, and our meal was getting cold, so we needed to find our homeless person. One of the girls saw a person fall off of a bench and then not get up or anything, so we were like, oh, here's our homeless person. We walked up to him, and 3 of the girls walked up to him and put the bag and drink in front of his head and walked away. The guy didn't move, and we started walking away. I didn't really want to just leave him there without checking to see if he was ok, so I convinced our leader to go back and check with me and two of the girls. There was a couple other homeless people there when we went back and they were taking they guy on the ground's food. Our leader told them that it was for him, and offered to buy them all food. There was a lady there and she was talking us, but we couldn't really understand what she was saying, because she was rambling. They were all drunk or on drugs. So, we went to get them all food, and we found Dad, and he came with us. We went back, and gave them all the food. They were really thankful. The guy on the ground hadn't moved, but someone had put a blanket over him. One of the homeless guys who was there went to call 911, and we stayed to wait for it with them. While we were waiting, we started talking to one of the guys who was there. We told him what we were doing, and what church we were from, and why we were doing everything that we had done. He said that he had grown up near Boston, and in high school, he had gotten involved with drugs, and had gotten addicted. Somehow, he had gotten sober for 9 years, and had been a drugs counselor, and then this summer while in Hawaii, he had had a beer and gotten addicted again. He asked us to pray for him, that he would be able to get sober again. He said that everyday, God showed him two roads he could take, either to drink or not, and he always chose the wrong one. I invited him to come to our church, and he seemed very grateful for the invitation. He asked us to pray for him. So, now I'm asking everyone who reads this to pray for him too, his name is Denis. With God all things a possible. Anyways, we waited a while, and the ambulance didn't come. Then we went to where some of the people in our youth group were waiting, and the guys had gotten back. Elias was making fun of us, and it was NOT funny. I really felt like God was telling me to help those people out. It was kind of weird to see the guys faces, because all of them (except for Elias) had a look of confusion and sadness on their faces, and it looked like they were thinking something like, why are all the girls crying?! We prayed for all of the people that we had interacted with. I think almost all of the girls cried. Elias was making fun of me by saying like, "Oh, Tori's crying over some dumb homeless person." That really made me mad. They are people, just like you and me. I really wish that the guys in our youth group had been able to have the same experience that we had. After that, we went on the T back to church, and we broke the fast at our pastor's house, because the Koreans were using the church for a dinner with their church. Anyways, we broke the fast, and the whole experience is something I don't think any of us will forget. Here are some pictures-This is my group in the truck we loaded.(^)
Elias was sleeping on the table near the end of when we were playing sardines and when we were getting ready to go to bed. I took this picture at about 1am, with flash and he didn't wake up. Then all the girls hit him with pillows and he woke up. (^)

"When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take you inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me. Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?' The King will reply, "I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me." Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look at me.' They will answer, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?' He will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.' Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life." -Matthew 25:31-46

I think that the homeless people that we met would be considered on of "the least of these". I'm really blessed that we were able to be Jesus' hands and feet Saturday in some small way.