Most of you who read my blog regularly know that 30-Hour-Famine was this past weekend. For those of you who donated, I’m pleased to tell you that the total I raised was $400! (Mom and Dad pitched in quite a bit, actually.) We actually weren’t anything close to making our rather large goal, so Peter, our youth leader, unfortunately isn’t coloring his hair. But the weekend we spent at the church was so much fun! The first thing I should explain is that we each had certain ‘disabilities’ that we had to put on during the tribe activities, for example, wearing a backpack to represent fatigue, an eyepatch to represent blindness, or a bandana to represent AIDS. I ended up with a backpack full of water bottles, which made a few of the activities quite interesting.

So, knowing that, I think it’ll be easier to explain it using the rather loose schedule in the packet they gave us:

Friday, February 24, 6:30 PM ~ Sign in: This was basically the time in which people came in, recieved an informational packet -along with a card that told us which African child we ‘were’, what sort of ‘disability’ we had to do, and what tribe we belonged to-, and got chased around by Kelsea with a camera.

6:45 PM ~ Orientation, Prayer, Overview of the Famine: This was exactly what it sounds like…

7:00 ~ Dinner Devotional: Basically the meal devotions were just the ‘food for thought’ sort of things where they talked about the happenings in Africa and related them to the Bible and the Famine. There wasn’t a meal to go with them, so you donors didn’t donate in vain. =)

7:45 ~ Tribe Activity- The Most Masaai: This was fun; we separated into our tribes and created a costume for our ‘chief’ out of material, face paint, feathers, beads, shells, and string. The people in my group were Kelsea, Allen, Elizabeth, and Daniel, and Elizabeth was elected the leader. Our tribe came in second place out of three, which wasn’t bad.

8:30 ~ Juice Break: We drank Gatorade like crazy. There was cooler after cooler of the stuff, and I think each of us must’ve had at least four bottles. This particular juice break was rather cruel because the adults put out all this candy and junk food that we had to pass on our way to the cooler, grr.

9:00 ~ Tribe Activity- 15 Miles: For this activity, we had to walk on a wooden plank about as wide as a foot (the appendage, not the measurment, unfortunately) from one end to the other without falling off. Easy stuff, right? That’s what we thought before they told us that there had to be at least two people on the bridge at all times. It was hard enough trying to balance with a large backpack full of water bottles, but it was insanely hard trying to go around or over people on a six-inch plank… It was about fifteen minutes later that we figured out that it didn’t have to be the same two people on the bridge, and that we could’ve just had two people step on and off at the same time.

9:30 ~ Tribe Activity- AIDS Outbreak: This was just a version of musical chairs with African music with the aim to simulate how AIDS attacks a village, and how it ends up being the survival of the fittest. I lost, of course- I’d like to see you try to play musical chairs with a large backpack on. =) But the fact that Elizabeth won by a very cool move made me feel infinitely better.

10:00 ~ Free Time: Actually, not really. The free time started at like 10:45 because some of the stuff took a little longer than expected. It was fun though, and Tia, Angie, and I had a great time playing Fluxx for an hour.

11:45 ~ Get Ready for Bed: Yep, ’cause it was lights out at 12:00. No one actually went to sleep until like 12:30 except Angie (who, might I add, has a thing for rolling in her sleep… we ended up practically sharing my sleeping bag most of the night because she kept flopping on me… lol).

Saturday, February 25, 7:25 AM ~ Wake-up Time: Actually, we were supposed to wake up at 8:00, but someone *cough*Kelsea*cough* slammed the door about seven times in a row just to wake us all up… But we who like sleep attacked her with our pillows in Peter’s office, and so got our half-awake revenge.

8:30 ~ Breakfast Devotional: We talked about the “Do Not Worry” passage in Matthew about how we’re not supposed to worry about clothes and food and stuff because God’s already got it taken care of.

9:00 ~ Tribe Activity- Capture the Survival Flag: Ever played Capture the Flag in broad daylight? It involves a lot less hiding of the flags, and more tactics and running. Allen and I, since we both had backpacks, were the guards. I have to say that it was very satisfying to tag Mark over and over, since he was the only one who kept running over and trying to steal our water. See, there were three teams, and three survival items; a plank of wood representing shelter; a bottle of water representing, well, water; and a bag of trail mix, which represented food. Our team won because Kelsea was very fast, and very good at taking advantage of distraction, and also because I’m just so good at guarding things… =)

10:00 ~ Juice Break: After that game, we needed a juice break. We were hot and tired, and getting especially hungry after running on an empty stomach. I think at that point I must’ve been at my fourth bottle, though I’m not quite sure.

10:15 ~ Canned Food Scavenger Hunt: In other words, door-to-door begging for cans in the nearby housing development. It was supervised by one of the adults, of course, and was a lot more fun than I expected it to be. And just for the record, our team collected the most cans… or the most Spam and Vienna Sausages, anyway. (What is it with Hawaii and Spam, anyway…?)

12:00 PM~ Lunch Devotional: Another devotional, though I forgot to write notes for this one. Oops. =)

12:30 ~ Work Project: For this, each team had to build a bookshelf for the church. This only took an hour, so we ended up with like 3 and a half hours of free time, most of which I spend playing DDR on the projector in the youth room. Tia and I especially had a blast. We played for about two hours straight, and the best part was that we were pretty close ability-wise. She’s actually a lot better than I am, but I can at least keep up with her. We had fun with one of the songs- Japan something, I think it was… Anyway, we were laughing at it because it involved a lot of weird noises, like some guy on it going “yoi-yoi-oi-oi!” at different parts through it. And after we both got tired, Kelsea came in, and she and I tried it sitting down, which was one of the weirdest things I think I’ve ever done. But yep, it was one of the best parts of the Famine for the DDR junkies.

5:00 ~ Tribe Finale: We basically recapped the week and discussed all of the events, what our favorites were, what we learned, and that sort of thing. We did one last tribe activity where our teams bartered for survival cards. See, every time a tribe would win something, they’d get a different kind of survival cards. Our team got four, and one of the other teams got four too, and the last got nothing. So our team ended up giving two of our cards to the losing team because we felt bad for them, and other team had the same idea. It was funny because the losing team actually ended up winning.

6:00 ~ Break-Fast!: Ah, one of the best parts of the weekend. The way they did it was that the winning team got a table with everything on it and chairs and stuff; the team in the middle got one of those tables where you sit on the floor with Wheat Thins, soup, and apple juice; and our team, the losing team, got a tablecloth on the floor with water and this unimix nastiness that was a mixture of cornbread, beans, sugar, and something else… the texture closely resembled that of sand, actually. We were pretty bummed at first and just watched the other people eat, but the people from the middle table felt sorry for us and gave us some soup and stuff. After they did that, the other table joined in and gave us some stuff. After a while, the adults let up and let us go to the buffet thing and get all the food we wanted. Actually, our team got to go first because we won the canned food drive, so everything worked out in the end. I’ve only ever tasted that good of sandwiches before one other time, and that was at the Famine I went to like three years ago at Laura’s church.

7:00 ~ All Pau!: I’m assuming that meant we could all go home, because we did anyway. =)

Ah, such a fun weekend! We all had such a great time.

It has been raining insane amounts lately. Most of windward O’ahu (that’s the east side for you mainlanders) is under at least a foot of water. My parents and I have been watching the news, and we’re amazed at the amount of rain that’s covering the island. Heh, there was even a guy on the news that was surfing along Kamehameha Highway, pulled by a truck. o_0 Lucky for us that we live in Mililani, where it’s only been raining on and off. It’s a bit soggy, but definitely not unbearable.

I’ve got a cold. I’ve been getting it for about a week, but it’s been at its worst since Tuesday. Sniffles and coughs galore, and breathing through my mouth at night.. in other words, the normal cold. I keep hoping it’ll disappear, but no luck so far. Gosh, I’d forgotten how bothersome a simple cold can be!

Okay, enough cold ranting, and time for some good news. I think I’ve got enough money to buy a new PS2! Mom and I have been babysitting this little 3-but-almost-4-year-old kid from our church a bit last week and this week. His name is Elijah, and he’s cute… But he doubles as both the reason I’d like a little sibling, and also why I don’t want one. Pretty obedient most of the time, but once you get him started on a game, he never quits. Mom says that’s kids in general, which serves as one of my many reasons for never having one. He’s adorable, though, from his squeaky little kid voice to his strange attatchment to me. I was just thinking last night as I went to bed that he wouldn’t be a bad little brother to have around… but then I talked myself out of that idea. Sorry for going off a bit… The point of this paragraph was to tell you that Grace pays reeeeally well for watching Elijah. By reeeeally well, I mean $20 a day for watching him from around 8:00 to 2:30. That’s $80 just for the four days we had him. Definitely makes it worth it.

Um… I guess I’d better go do my homework, especially since it’s 1:23 AM and the only thing I’ve done so far is Spanish and English. Looks like I’m in for some work.