lazy sunday links

i am not at church. i pushed the snooze button for an hour and finally considered it oversleeping, which we were both content with, until Husby said "crap! it's leadership installation day today!" (he's joining the adult ministries commission) which meant him frantically dressing and me looking for two matching socks and lots of hair goop because there wasn't time for a shower. now he's off and i'm contentedly not there, but home in my bathrobe, blissfully blogging away. =)

this weekend was the 30 Hour Famine. its a really cool event through a really cool organization called World Vision. The participants spend a few weeks raising money, i organize a lock-in, and we all go without food for 30 hours to raise awareness and money for hunger*. my first Famine experience was with my youth group growing up. our selfless rockstar volunteer youth leader arranged activities so we wouldn't be thinking about how hungry we were, fun projects so we could learn about hunger, slept on the church floor (or a crappy couch, i don't remember) with us, and made us homemade chicken soup and bread to gently break our fast with. when i was in school for youth & family ministry, a group of us went back to my little church to help lead the famine for new youth. it's become a really important event to me, and luckily to the kids i serve at church.

so from friday at 9:30am til saturday at 3:30 pm, i was hanging out with 25 foodless teenagers. and they. did. not. complain. not once! they were such rockstars. we played games, made a banner of 29,000 handprints (to represent the 29000 kids will die this year of hunger & malnutrition - it's an incredible visual), went on a canned food scavenger hunt (they collected 13 grocery bags full!), made meals at Feed My Starving Children (my kiddos made 13,000 meals!), drank lots and lots of water and juice, had mini-Bible studies, dealt with a girl whose mom kicked her out, dried tears as a newly "going out" couple had to be apart for the weekend, yelled at the boys who threw the ball too hard in dodgeball.... it was a great weekend! we broke the fast with communion, then ate a couple packets of the FMSC food that they had packaged. after cleanup, etc., Husby and i went home, ordered pizza (yep, we were that lazy), and watched a movie. a nice finish to the weekend.

and today is the big annual SuperBowl party in the youth room! should be fun - tons of kids, a big screen, old couches, and lots of junk food. good times! happy superbowl sunday, everyone!
aer<><

*will post the amount the kids raised in about a week- a few of them wanted extra fundraising time, so who am i to argue with that?!