In the middle of OCF, I waited impatiently for my clock to strike 8pm so that I can start counting down the hours due. I had a really late lunch and a cup of coffee after, so I was full from 4pm onwards. I listened to Wen Yi as she shared the Gospel in 5 minutes whilst I planned my activities for the next 40 hours. I thought of how many hours I will spend sleeping, how I would keep myself indoors to conserve energy, how to lock away the Milo or hot chocolate so I could say that I survived on water alone, etc.
Then 8pm came and OCF ended. We split into cells for Bible Study and later on went for supper. I joined the cell at Pancake Parlour, only to sit quietly in the corner and watch everyone devour a short stack each. It was fun to see the look in their faces as they poured the maple syrup over their pancakes. They happily enjoyed their supper, and a few of them proceeded to order another round.
Questions started coming during the meal itself.
"Why are you starving yourself for 40 hours?"
"Have you done this before?"
"What're you going to do? How do you not eat for 40 hours!"
"What is the purpose of this Famine? I don't see why people need to starve."
... dll.
Of course I answered them all, haha.
Anyway, to cut the long story short, Saturday evening was definitely the hardest time. Eventhough I went to get groceries at the market in the afternoon and discussed the menu for Wai Yee's 21st, I thought the Famine went well until 9pm came.
I sat down, tidied up my desk, took out my textbook and notes to catch up on Corporate Finance. It was a complete failure of an attempt. I took forever to complete one lecture and ended up not learning anything from it. I barely did anything for the second lecture. After twiddling my pen for a while, I just leaned back in my chair and stared blankly at the uninteresting wall in front of me. I stayed in the position for quite a while and counted that I had 14 hours to go. Every 2 minutes I contemplated of just cutting back to 30 hours instead of 40 - the Malaysians were doing 30 only anyway!
But I'm proud to say I persisted! Low on brain fuel, I packed up my study materials and climbed into my bed after talking to Mum. Did some browsing, then slept at 1am.
Fortunately, the last 8 hours weren't as tough. Went to church for Worship Weekend and said "Hi" to God as He came into my heart again. Then went for lunch after church.
That's it. This round was way better than the 30 hours in Monash! Almost died for that one. -.-
Perhaps it was easy to get away with fasting from food. You could distract yourself from the hunger, or sometimes your stomach just stops complaining after a certain point. But the lack of nutrients even for one day drained my energy. I couldn't think intellectually, felt cold easily and was constantly lethargic. I basically got nothing done, because of the low brain fuel.
I thought of the children. I wondered how they could run around enjoying the breeze, free-spirited and without worry like the children we know, if they were constantly deprived on such basic necessity such as clean food. How would they have the energy to do children-y things? What about children who are forced to work hard labour or something - what do they survive on? Do they know about what they need - food, water, shelter, etc. What is their perception of those needs - do they perceive?
Fasting was a participatory event for us, but for them it's kind of compulsory. It was a glimpse into their lives, even though it's just for 40 hours. Feeling thankful for His blessings is one thing, taking an active step is another. I took the 40-hour Famine challenge to raise others' awareness of global hunger, as well as my own. It reminded me of a small spark He lit in my heart for people - my neighbours. Gotta get into action!
Thank you all for supporting the 40-hour Famine movement here in Melbourne! To those who chipped in, thank you so much for your encouragement. Next year, do the 40-hour Famine!
Let's go do something real.
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