Week 7- A Gift for Nchimunya

  

http://www.sowersinternationalaust.com
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This week I got to do something that I have been meaning to do for a long time now, but always seemed to get put off. I got to send a letter and a package to my family's sponsor child in Zambia. For those of you who don’t know where Zambia is, it is located in the southern part of Africa. Our sponsor child’s name is Nchimunya Mauzya. She will be 11 in a little over two weeks.

The rules for sending gifts are, no food/ candy, no jewelry, no expensive looking toys, and it must fit in a 6 in. by 9 in. envelope. So we went to the store to find her something. The first thing that caught my eye was a pink notebook with a big flower on it. Then we found some stickers. After that we went to another store and I found some colored pencils and a jump rope. Lucky for us we had my mom’s creative packing skills to help us out, and we were able to fit everything in. The final thing that went in the envelope was a letter from my family. 



Nchimunya



We’re hoping our gift will get to her just in time for her birthday. I really want to send more gifts to Nchimunya in the future, like a craft to do, or a matching bracelet.  She has definitely blessed my family’s lives by teaching us about giving, and opening our eyes to the problems that go on outside the United States. I love the pictures she sends us, and I sincerely hope she will love the pictures we send her. I know I’ll probably never meet Nchimunya, but maybe this will be the start of a long distance friendship.

       



Week 6- 30 Hour Famine

This week I got to do something I have been waiting to do for a while now. I got to do the 30 Hour Famine. For those of you who have not heard of the 30 Hour Famine, it is a weekend when youth groups around the country go 30 hours without eating to raise awareness and money to fight world hunger.

It started on Friday at 12:00 p.m. and went to 6:00 p.m. on Saturday.  At 6:30 on Friday I met up with my youth group for the rally. At the rally we sang songs and watched a movie called Journey to Jamaa. The award-winning short film, "Jamaa" is inspired by the real life story of Margaret and Derick, two orphaned children from Uganda who make the journey from Kampala to Kasangombe in a heartbreaking bid to overcome poverty and experience hope. The movie touched my heart and I’m sure it touched the heart of everyone there that night.

After the rally, the girls went back to Gwen’s house, and the boys back to Jon’s house.  Gwen and Jon are two of the leaders. At Gwen’s house really all we did was get out our sleeping bags and go to bed, but the next morning was more fun. Instead off eating breakfast we just had orange juice because you can have juice and water, but that’s it. Then the guys came over. We talked a lot about the famine and the video we had watched the night before. That’s truthfully when I started to feel hungry, but like last yearI just have to get through it. You forget about it and before you realize it, you don’t even realize you’re hungry. 

Later, we went to collect cans for the local food pantry. We froze out there, but by the time we were done we had collected over 200 pounds of food.

Then… we went to the food court. It always amazes me how your sense of smell seems to be so much stronger when you’re hungry. The food smelled amazing! But of course, we couldn’t eat it. When we looked around we say how much people had piled on their plates. They probably had enough food to feed three people and then through out half of it! It makes me feel so guilty whenever I throw out even just a little food.

The final thing we did, eat tacos. Every year now, when the famine is over we eat tacos. I’ve never had tacos that were so good.  When we were done we had collected over $1,600 and over 200 pounds of food. This money will feed over 127 kids and their families for a year in Africa.  I love how much I learn from the famine every year, and every year it touches my heart. I’m so glad for all the people who participate every year and make the famine possible.

http://jamaa.worldvision.org/about/the-film.html- Description of "Journey to Jamma"

Week 5- Forward Stride

Going into this week I knew exactly what I was going to do. Unfortunately, those plans fell through. I was going to volunteer at this great food bank called Helping Hands. At Helping Hands I would have bagged food for people to take home. The event was supposed to start at 6:30, only some people got there at 6:15. When my friend Hunter and I got there at 6:37 they were already done.  So now I had a problem. It was Friday night, and I needed to volunteer before Monday. When I told my friend Megan that I needed to volunteer she came up with the greatest idea. I could come and volunteer at the barn where she rides.

Dee



Duckee



When we got to the barn we went to what’s known as the pink penguin hall. When we were there we swept the hallway. It was a long hallway. While we were sweeping I got to meet a lot of horses. One horse was named Duckee, she was really sweet and had the coolest looking eyes. Another horse I met, named Dee, was all brown and really tall. He ended up scaring me really bad when I was standing next to a window and he stuck his head out right next to me. I might have screamed, just a little… or a lot :). It took a while to get all the hay and bedding swept up, but when we were done it looked really good.




The barn Megan rides at is called Forward Stride.  Forward Stride is a great organization. Not only do they offer riding lessons for all ages, but they also offer therapeutic riding. Therapeutic riding helps people improve their sensory integration, gross and fine motor skills, proper posture, independence and social skills, self esteem and more. I loved helping out at Forward Stride and I hope that I get to again soon.



Duckee and me



Megan and Tigo











Week 4- Fundraising for the Famine



Last years clothing drive



This week I got to do something I have been looking forward to doing for a while. I got to start fundraising for the 30 hour famine. The 30 hour famine is a project that is taken on by youth groups around the country to raise money to fight hunger.  A child dies every ten seconds because of hunger. That’s nearly 8,000 kids every day. During the 30 hour famine we go serve our community (last year we volunteered at a clothing drive), learn about world hunger (we visited the Real Life Exhibit), and meet up with others in our area that are doing the famine. Oh and did I mention, we don’t eat. That’s right; we go 30 hours, a day and a quarter, without eating. It sounds really hard, but it’s not. We can drink water and juice, but that’s it, but when you are with others who are doing the same things, it doesn’t seem that hard. When we’re done, we all have a big dinner. It starts on Friday the 25^th, we eat lunch, but then we stop. We skip dinner, then breakfast the next day, then lunch, and then at six o’clock on Saturday, we eat. This was such an eye opener for me last year. Before this, I didn’t realize how much food we throw away, how much money we waste, and how cheap it really is to feed people. For thirty dollars a month, about a dollar a day, you can feed a child in Africa. This will be my second year doing the famine and so I am more excited than nervous this year, Last year I thought it would be really hard, I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to do it, but I know now that I can do it. Last year I was only able to raise about ninety dollars, that’s enough to feed 3 children for a month, but this year my goal is to raise at least $100.00, and once I meet that, I’m going to up my goal to $150.00. I would love to be able to raise $180.00 to $200.00, but I’m not sure I’ll be able to. If you want to help me out you can at this link.



Visiting the Real Life Exhibit last year



 http://twv.convio.net/site/TR/30HourFamine/30HourFamine?px=1148858&pg=personal&fr_id=1310

Week 3- 3 Adults, 6 Babies, and Me

This week I did something similar to what I did the first week. I volunteered at my church, only this time in the nursery.  The nursery is only for newborn to 2 years. Once they turn two they have to go to the nursery because it can be really hard to deal with boisterous two year olds along with newborn babies.  This week we had a full house. Six babies! All under a year (except for one). Lucky for Gwen (who was running the nursery that week) and me, they were all really well behaved. I was surprised; there was no crying for more than about a minute. One little girl cried, but that’s to be expected from someone who’s only about three months old. Another little girl cried because she decided to flop over in her dad’s arms and hit her head on the chair, she was fine though, just scared her. Lucky for us, one of the fathers stayed and held his daughter the whole time because he could see we had a full house… or room. Partway trough, Katie, a lady from our church, came in and held some babies because she saw how many babies there were.



Winter riding a toy bike



                Of the six babies, I already knew 5 of them and had worked with them before.  One of them was Winter. Winter is the sweetest little girl ever! She’s 9 months old and Gwen’s daughter. I have known Winter since before she was born. Gwen is one of the leaders in our youth group and is a really good friend to all the girls. When we found out she was having a baby we were so excited. We have endless nicknames for her and all absolutely adore her. One of my favorite things to do in the nursery is help Winter walk around. She isn’t quite walking yet, but if you hold her hands and help support her she takes tiny little steps. I also love holding the babies, and just taking care of them. I can't wait until I get to help out again.

Week Two- Free Rice?

So it’s my second week of blogging and the question is back, what am I going to do this week? After thinking long and hard I knew exactly what I was going to do. Ok, that’s a lie.  I had absolutely no idea what I was going to do this week. With a busy weekend I had put it off until this week and I was now going to have to help out sometime after school. So here’s the problem, I need to help out, and there isn’t a lot of time. That’s when my friend Megan came up with the best idea. Freerice.com. Free Rice is an amazing website. It asks you all kinds of questions ranging from English vocabulary to geography.  For each question you answer correctly they will donate ten grains of rice.

This sounded like a great idea to me so I started answering questions. Before long I had reached 100 grains, then 500, and before I knew it, 1,000. So I set a goal, 5,000 grains. With the help of Megan, we earned 3,000 grains. After that Megan had to leave, but I continued to answer questions. Before I know it I had already reached my 5,000 grain goal and I had a decision to make, do I stop, or keep going? I decided to keep going. Soon I reached 6,000, 7,000, 8,000, 9,000, and before I know it, 10,000 grains of rice!  But that’s not all; as the week goes on I continued to check back into the website. It’s not just benefitting Haiti (where the rice is going), but it is benefitting me. I’m learning a lot, especially in the French category. I have been trying to learn French for sometime now, and this is definitely going to be a good source for studying.  By the end of the week I have reached 14,540 grains of rice. Free Rice is now one of my favorite websites; I can’t wait to keep earning rice in the future.

Week 1- Helping Out In the Sunday School Class

This week, I volunteered in the pre-school Sunday school class at my church. I love helping in their class. The kids are just so sweet! Since their ages range from two to four, their isn’t much of a lesson you can actually teach, but we try. My job, help keep the kids engaged in the lesson, pass things out, direct the kids to where they need to go, basic things like that, but to me it’s much more than that.  Helping extends beyond the classroom. Our church meets in a building that we rent out Sunday mornings; it has a giant jungle gym inside. After I help clean up I always meet up with my friends, then most times we go to find the kids in the jungle gym. I just love the kids and they love having someone to play with.  I remember when I was little I always wanted to play with the older kids and teenagers. It used to make me so sad that they were always too busy. But there was one girl who would always play with me, Lauren. Lauren was one of my best friends. She lived just down the street, and always treated me like a friend, not just another little kid. I want to be a like Lauren to those little kids, treat them like a friend and always be there to play.  Hopefully, as these children grow up, the will remember all the times my friends and I stopped what we were doing to play duck duck goose, and follow them around the jungle gym, and hopefully do the same for the young children in their life.