Every Seven Seconds...

[Stanley_9875]

I felt it on my heart to blog about this…
So as you all (or most of you may know) I did a 30 Hour Famine early Friday morning starting at 6:30am through Saturday till 12:30pm… starving myself for 30 hours with an occasional fruit drink break and we can get water whenever. Well it was about 8:00pm Friday night, and we had a time called the Candle Quite Time, where there were about 20 candles or more lit on a fold open table, and with all the lights off one of the leaders snuffed out a candle every 7 seconds… why? Because every 7 seconds someone in the world dies a hunger related death… 25,000 people die every day, 13,000 of them hunger related. So with everyone silent, just reflecting on our own thoughts, the leader snuffed out a candle… every seven seconds. It really got me thinking, every time a candle went out; someone in this world breathed their last breath… someone in this world died next to a loved one, or all alone. It really was something pressured on my mind as I looked around from behind the sound board I was running to all the other youth involved in this… “What are they thinking? Are they counting down the time each time someone dies, really reflecting on their death, and how the situation unfolds? Or are they counting down the time to where they can sit down and talk with their friends… showing no grief for the people around the world dying. Those who are so unprivileged they don’t have clean running water or anything to eat. We walk to our cabinets or refrigerators and grab whatever we want, sometimes not eating certain things because they don’t taste that good to us, whereas if one of those kids or adults were here they’d eat whatever they can get their hands on.” (just as a side note, this isn’t me making you feel bad or trying to feel guilty, I’m just telling it from what I thought in my mind… it may get you thinking on something new you could do to make a difference in this world).
Then suddenly something unexpected happened.

Boom!

I felt my heart skip a beat as I glanced across the room and saw what I feared; someone flat on their back. A few leaders and I ran over to the kid, and I heard one of the leaders say, “I’m calling 911” and he picked up his phone and dialed. The lights turned on and I looked over to the group of youth standing around the table, some with their hands over their mouths in shock. I looked back at the kid on the ground and his face was pale, but his eyes were open. His older cousin who was about 23 was kneeling next to him telling him to relax, not move, and breath. In a short while the fire truck and the ambulance arrived and they came in and measured the kids blood pressure (which was really low) and his parents arrived. The kid was conscious, answering questions accurately and such. We learned later on through the night he was okay and went home that night. It was quite a shock and it brought something else to my mind...

He was fine before that, he was up and playing games and such and obviously none of us knew something like this would happen, and I also thought, "any one of us could be taken from this world whenever... at any second... like in Fight Club when Tyler Durden asked the main character, "if you were to die right now how would you feel about your life?" and the main character replied, "I wouldn't feel anything good about my life is that what you want to hear?" How would I feel about my life if I got into a car accident and am laying there on the road feeling the life leaving me? Would I be the one to smile because I was happy about my life? Or one to feel sick that my life isn't all that I wanted it to be?" And I thought long and hard and came to the conclusion, I would be the one smiling.

Something that was on my heart to write about and share with you all. I was at the church Friday night and Saturday morning, so I'm glad to be home with all of you again was a wonderful experience