For more information about PILAS and my short-term missions trip, please check out my prayer letter. You can also support PILAS by donating online on my fundraising web page.
The last 12 hours of my last day of GLC were definitely the hardest of the week because I only had one meal for the whole day. I expected it would be hard, especially after a week of not eating much, but it still surprised me how weak I felt.
My friend came over to keep me company until I broke my fast. Around 8:30pm, we walked over to Whole Foods to buy some “snacks” for my midnight feast. After a week of self-denial, it felt very strange to walk into a supermarket surrounded by unlimited amounts and varieties of food. And it also made me realize anew just what an abundance of food we have available to us. What a contrast to living a life of only 3 options – we are truly privileged.
Here is the midnight snack I crafted for myself – one piece of southern fried chicken, Mediterranean salad, nachos, fresh salsa and guacamole.
At around 12:30 am, I wolfed this down. It was delicious. I definitely savoured the flavours, but one thing I found really interesting was how much I had missed freshness. The raw cucumbers and tomatoes in the Mediterranean salad – even the salsa and fresh guacamole – it was such a clean and healthy feeling to eat them! It’s really hard to explain unless you’ve tried eating a week of mostly dry food without any fresh vegetables or fruits. If you’ve never appreciated those before, I guarantee you will after a week without them!
What I also noticed after a week of GLC is that the impact on me was way beyond just hunger. Mentally, there was the toll from lack of variety and pleasure which I discussed in Day 6’s blog. Physically, there was certainly hunger, but even when the food was nourishing, it did not feel nutritious – and I felt a lot less healthy than when I ate balanced meals with lots of fresh veg and fruits. My digestion was all messed up; my physical strength was OK during the day but by evening, when I would usually eat a banana and go to the gym, I had no ability to do anything but drag myself home and eat my second meal of the day. When I ate my midnight snack on Friday night, it was amazing how quickly I rejuvenated – I went from exhausted to energized almost instantly. And I think it had as much to do with mental rejuvenation as physical rejuvenation.
As much as I’m relieved this GLC week is now over and I can enjoy all the foods I love again – I can’t forget those who don’t get any relief from the hunger and poverty they live through every day. I’m actually really glad to have done the Guatemalan Life Challenge and to have experienced everything that I did – I learned a lot about myself and have a better appreciation for the huge gap between the rich and poor in this world. I may not be a millionaire, but as far as food and health goes, I’m definitely rich.
I’ll be posting one final blog about the GLC to try and summarize some of my key learnings and also how I might eat or live differently going forward, so that the GLC doesn’t just remain a one-time, one-week challenge, but an actual change in mentality.
In the meantime – I have a lot of thanks to give to a lot of people. Thank you to Annie, our tireless church administrator who posted, Facebooked and Tweeted my blog posts every day, and organized so many things for me. Thank you to my family and friends, especially Barb & Gerry, who sent me so many words of encouragement to keep me going. Thank you, God, for giving me strength to persevere through the week, and this abundance of food you provide me with today and every day. And God, please help us to remember those who are not so blessed, and to take action to help and care for them.