ThE aDveNtuRes oF 30 hOuRs of FaStiNg!

Last night was the 30 hour famine lock in!  And I survived!  I have never fasted for 30 hours before and I have never put on an entire lock in before either.  But I am happy to say that it all went well.  My fasting was not as difficult as I thought it would be because I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off all day!  Let me explain:

We had our kick off on Thursday, which turned out great!  The power went off RIGHT before youth group so we changed around the whole schedule.  I had huge faith that the power was going to stay on – which is why we decided to keep it at my house and not move it to the international school.  But when it went off my heart sank.  We lit candles, played the games in the dark, and I moved my talk to the beginning of the night and we set up chairs in the yard.  The funny thing that happened though was that the power never actually went off!  The lights at my neighbor’s house were still on and I did not think that was weird at all because I am surrounded by people with generators.  What actually happened was that I was running far too many ACs and fans and lights at the same time causing the breaker thing to turn off (or however that works).  Matt figured it out and fixed the problem – I laughed so hard.  It was interesting to experience that though because it was exactly like my first time speaking in Ouaga all the way back in September.  My reaction compared to 6 months ago was completely different.  Instead of being overwhelmed and upset, I was calm and made do with what we had – God has already brought me so far! 

Once we figured the power issue we moved inside for a time of worship.  It was simply amazing.  We sang longer and it just felt like God was in the room.  His presence was thick and when we sang songs like “How He Loves Us” and “Hungry” and “I am Free” I could tell that I was not alone in worshiping God.  This youth group is amazing!  God is so good.  I also stretched many of the teens by having a time of prayer.  I had them silently ask God what he wanted them to get out of the fast, confess their sins, and ask God to do mighty things through the next 30 hours.  Then I had them get into partners and pray for each other.  It was so neat to see them scattered around the yard praying together.  Also, there was one girl who prayed for the very first time.  I don’t know if she believes in God but she talked to him for the first time.  It brought me to tears because I know God heard her and is just waiting for her to run into his arms.  

Yesterday, Friday, was quite an interesting day in preparing for the lock-in.  I slept in as long as I could without being too anxious (so 8:00) and started getting things ready.  I had to go to the school to pay for the auditorium and ran into some seriously heightened security.  The school was not too thrilled that we were going to have possibly 50 kids come to the international school and stay the entire night (even though they gave me permission last week).  The university students were rioting.  They were burning tires, huge crowds, setting up road blocks and who knows what else – I didn’t actually see them but we heard gunshots and saw a ton of smoke.  I left the school on my moto not knowing all this and when I stopped at the stop sign right outside of the school 2 huge trucks full of police officers with huge rifles of some sort driving slowly in front of me.  I quickly drove my moto to my house through crowds of people.  When I got there my phone rang – Matt called to tell me not to leave my house for the next few hours and got slightly mad at me for driving my moto right before that.  I spent a majority of the afternoon gathering stuff, making muffins (for the breaking of the fast) and getting phone calls from nearly everyone I know here.  At 3 I had to get some things so I ventured out of the house – I took the car though.  I had to get a cake mix from Lorinda and as I was taking the back roads from her house I decided to stop by the Shafto’s.  It was at this moment that I realized I was completely frazzled because I walked into their house and Robbie said – why don’t you just sit down here and ill make your cake.  Apparently I looked like I had been running around trying to solve everything.  Which I was because there was a lot to solve!  All the stores were closed because of the rioting and we needed to buy and prepare food for the lock-in.  Also, some of the parents were not able to help because of the rioting.  Robbie and the Lyon boys came with me to my house after we baked some cakes and basically saved the day.  They helped me so much!  They made Kool Aid and frosting, packed my car, and helped me get everything set up for the Lock-In. 

I had to meet with security at the school at 5 – they had to know who was coming, when, and for how long.  My llama leaders showed up and helped set up as well.  Kari made some simply amazing posters to put on the wall and people started to show up and bring food.  Matt and Megan spent the whole day making over 100 pancakes.

The Lock-In itself was great – not all the people who said they were coming came, which was fine because of the food shortage issue and the fact that some of my adult leader chaperones fell through – I think we had around 34 kids.  There was a time period there where I was the only adult leader (lets not tell the parents that though…haha).  We played some great outdoor hide and seek type games and then we moved inside.  We played human foosball, telephone pictionary, human tick tac toe (which is an awesome game by the way) and a giant game of musical chairs.  Then we watched the cartoon Tangled.  We stopped the movie right before 1:00 in the morning.  Matt shared about his recent well drilling success this week; we shared some scripture, prayed and then ate!  We had plenty of food and it was all amazing!  It was just a neat experience to have with all those kids.  After that we finished the movie, played some card games, some people went to sleep and played the wii.  Then we watched another movie around 4 in the morning – which put most everyone else to sleep – me included. 

I woke everyone up around 6:45, we cleaned up, packed up, and headed out!  There were no major issues, no really big problems – everything just turned out great.  And on top of that it was fun!  The kids had big smiles on their faces most of the night. 

I started the morning so unsure how everything was going to work out:  Were we going to even have the lock-in?  Would parents still let their kids come because of the rioting?  Would there be enough food?  Would I have any adults leaders?  How is this going to work?  But friends – God was in it.  And he ironed out all the issues – and I think that’s because I feel like I actually gave them to him.  I let him be in charge because I couldn’t be – and it was a good decision. 

I just want to say a big thank you to all of you who were praying for this.  Please keep praying because we still are having money come in and are still seeing what God is going to bring about from this amazing experience.  There are a few youth groups in the states who are partnering with us and have not yet had their 30 hours of fasting – so keep them in mind too.  Thanks again for donating and praying.  You all are so amazing – MAN I AM SO BLESSED!

Now I am spending the day sleeping, writing thank you cards, and maybe playing some video games with some of the llama leaders.  I will post pictures very soon.