This week, 300 people from our church have been participating in the Five Day Challenge: eat beans and rice only for five days. Why? To be more sensitive to those who are hungry; to remember that when they do have food, it's meager, limited, and often the same exact, boring thing every meal; to appreciate the blessings we take for granted everyday (even simply having variety in our diet); and then to give the gap (what you saved in grocery expenses for the week) to Feed My Starving Children. We've gotten an email each day of encouragement. I thought this one was especially poignant -- even around adoption.

Hey, and if anyone's out and about tomorrow and wants to grab a meal at the Tuckernuck Chick-Fil-A (on Broad), a portion of the proceeds will go to Feed My Starving Children.

Meals With Hope - Day Four

Some important details: community meal Friday begins at 6pm. It’s BYORABAC. That’s Bring-Your-Own-Rice-And-Beans-And-Chair. (so obvious, I know).

On Saturday, the Tuckernuck Chick-fil-a will donate 20% of the sales between 8AM-8PM to Meals With Hope. So go eat! and leave your receipt! (in the designated box). Bring friends! Now, onto inspiration:

(look at this little honey!)

They Say It Can’t Be Done

by Ryan Evans

Most of us can live well off half of what we claim to need.

Some say that affecting poverty

is impossible…
or it’s their fault…
or it’s pointless…
or it’s not our war…
or it’s too big…
they say–with their words and their lives–we can’t.

Today we are hungry, but before you give up on this challenge or on the desperate needs all around the world –

Tell the beautiful 13 year old who cares for her orphaned siblings and dreams of becoming a nurse, TELL HER: “It’s impossible.”

Tell the teenage girl, a victim of AIDS because of ruthless rape, TELL HER: “It’s your fault.”

Tell the infant, orphaned at birth and HIV positive, with no living relatives, malnourished, and barely clinging to life, TELL HIM: “It’s pointless.”

Tell the compassionate, loving, selfless pastor; fighting against the powers of darkness to reveal the true light; fighting for the salvation of many; fighting to overcome, TELL HIM, “It’s not our war.”

Tell the smart, funny, friendly young man, who has an opportunity for a better life because someone else paid his way to college, TELL HIM: “It’s just too big for me.”

Tell the little toddler, pain and deep confusion in his eyes, needing love and just needing safe arms of love around him, TELL HIM: “I can’t.”

With God, it is possible.
What “just is” should never have been.
Striving for a better life is never pointless.
Neither is helping someone get there.
Life, as one may know it, can be changed.
Loving a deeply lost child isn’t too big for anyone.
There is always hope.
And fighting for the Kingdom of God?
What other war would be ours to fight?

So we fight. And for this week we are all fighting together.

To share the light that breaks the chains of sin and death that oppress these sons and daughters of the King — to love, and love well, regardless of time, place, or reason — to break our own trend of apathy and selfishness and make a change for someone, somewhere, because they matter — to step out of what keeps us accepted, comfortable, or safe — to claim in our hearts that we truly belong to Christ and spend our lives as a response to how His heart moves ours — to hope, and know beyond a doubt that what we hope for is coming and will not delay — to stand for the innocent, the lost, and the broken and to believe fully, that God’s love changes everything.

Let’s fight beyond the five days of this challenge. By sacrificing these five days HOPE is literally changing the lives of hundreds of children. Lets pray together and stand up and watch as God changes the world–He’s doing it constantly, we’re just not always aware. He wants to use us, so be use-able. Don’t look at a situation and say, “It’s too big” because, yeah for us alone it might be, but we have God, and nothing can overwhelm His power!