on rice

Sometimes our pastors make us do some crazy stuff.

Like the time he announced our huge church garage sale. Except that we were NOT to bring our junk. Instead, we were to bring that "one special treasure" in our life...to sell for the needy.

I actually had a little internal battle on that one.

The nonconformist on my shoulder whispered, "you don't really have to listen to every little thing your pastor says...he's just a man...not God", vs the little angel on my other shoulder "the fact that this is such a hard decision for you means you are holding on too tight and idolizing that treasure."

And on and on 'we' debated, until the more 'we' debated, the more I realized I needed to let that treasure go!

Or the time we were instructed to leave our nice shoes at church next week and walk out barefoot. Good old barefoot Sunday.

So when my pastor announced that he had a 'little something' he wanted our congregation to do, my first thought was "Oh crud! I'm wearing my fav new toms. He's gonna ask me to leave them and walk out barefoot today". Hahahaaaaaa.

But no. He did not ask me to leave my toms.

Instead, he held up a bag of rice.

And presented a challenge.

We were to eat this rice for one entire day that week. 
And the money saved on our regular food for the day, we were to bring back to church next Sunday.
Along with $1.50 per bag of rice consumed.
This money would help feed the Haitians, who considered these bags of rice as gifts from heaven. Like steak.
Each bag fed them 6 meals.
If 2000 people in our church did this for 1 day we would feed 2000 Haitians for 16 days. 

Yowzas. We are piggies.

"We don't just want your money. We want you to eat this and ask yourself "Is Jesus worth it to me to deny myself?", our pastor said. Our sermon that day was from Luke 9:23

"...If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me"

Our pastor continued, "And eating this rice for a day does not make you a super Christian or mean you even have an inkling of what it means to deny yourself!"

"Oh and one more thing" Pastor Jeff said. "This rice doesn't taste good."

>>>>>>><<<<<<<

We grabbed 6 bags of rice for our family of 6 and went home.

"Let's start at lunch today and finish by tomorrow for breakfast", John said.

The {recovering}perfectionist in me protested "No! I think we are supposed to do it all on the same day!"

But since John is the leader of our house, I went along with it.

I didn't think it would be that hard. But I was aware that I was going to be inconvenienced by this rice deal. I wasn't exactly looking forward to it. I'm a bit of a pansy and often wilt when it comes to food. I couldn't even make it though a 12-hour fast to get my cholesterol checked. At 4 am I caved and ate pb&honey.

But this was different. I had rice to eat, which was fortified with vitamins and soy.

And I was secretly thrilled I didn't have to think about what to make for dinner that night!

So for lunch Sunday we cooked up 2 bags of rice. John looked at me pathetically and asked, "can we add sausage?" to which I shouted "NO!"

Our first bowl of rice tasted just fine.



And I might have felt the tiniest amount smug that I thought the rice tasted ok. "I'm used to eating rocks and sticks", I thought .

You know what they say. Pride comes before the fall.

I looked at our pot of leftovers. "Did it multiply?" I asked John, feeling a bit disgusted.


I ran some errands that afternoon. Walking out of Home Depot I passed a taco stand and smelled the most delicious smell in all the world. (Those tacos are going on my bucket list. Today I realized I have no bucket list. Do you?)

I was getting hungry. And just knowing I wasn't allowed to eat those tacos made me crave them all the more! I never wanted tacos from a food stand ever before! For the first time, I realized, this rice thing was really hard.

I went home and cooked just 1 bag for dinner.

Libby joined us for moral support. "Thank you Jesus for this rice".


I ate as much as I could stomach and started to feel a little sickened by the chunks of soy and strange seasonings. Everything tasted a bit off, shall we say? What I wouldn't do for some plain white rice with soy sauce, I thought.

I mechanically chomped my jaws up and down, willing myself to eat it. And I thought of the days as a kid where my dad made us say "Yum Yum Delicious!" when we complained about food.

Even with 1 bag of rice, we still had leftovers.


"We should feed this stuff to our inmates in prison!", John declared.

"The crime rate would go down instantly", we joked.

Even the poorest of America would probably scorn this rice.

Barefoot Sunday...Treasure Sale...Dragging 4 boys to Mexico for 4 days...these were all a piece of cake compared to eating this rice/soy mush.

That night I went to bed feeling depressed that I would have to wake up to this rice again. But, "Yes Jesus. You are worth this. Thank you for giving us this rice to eat."

I couldn't believe how much food effected my mood! I felt so pathetic that all my joy in life had evaporated that night at the thought of eating the rice for breakfast.

"I'm so spoiled", I thought. "So, so spoiled."

>>>>>>><<<<<<

That morning, John made Finn and Cal rice and I dropped them off at school.

Back at home, I prepared rice for Ollie, Twain and myself.

Ollie looked ghastly pale and was laying on the floor.

As I cooked this rice, my stomach turned. I was determined to finish. We had come this far.

Twain walked around crying for peanuts and raisins. "No honey, we are having rice one more time", I said calmly.

And Twain just stood there with his mouth open and bawled.

And my heart just ached. Not for Twain but for the Haitian mothers and all mothers of this world who have to stand by helpless and watch their children cry from actual starvation.

Me and my kids are so spoiled.

From Ollie's room I hear a strange noise of gagging and retching. Apparently he just barfed all over the carpet.

As I rushed to grab cleaning rags, the phone rang. "This is Finn" I hear a small voice say. "I'm at the nurse's office and my stomach hurts really bad. Can you get me?"

"I'll be there soon honey", I answered and hung up.

We picked up Finn and grabbed Calvin too, just in case he started throwing up too.

Back at home, I poured myself a {small} bowl of rice, eyeing it suspiciously. Later that day Twain had diarrhea. I have no idea if we had a random bug or if it was the rice, and honestly it doesn't matter.

I learned such a valuable lesson from this rice experiment.

That,
I am spoiled.
I am so so grateful for the food I eat every day and will never take it for granted again. Seriously every bite of food I've had since the rice tastes like a wild taste sensation.
And I never ever want to see this rice again!

We still have 2 bags left. Any takers?


Ollie has his bag stashed on his bed shelf for safekeeping. Such a hoarder.

I really wanted to save the final bag for the potluck at our church camping trip at the end of the month. John said No.

I have no idea what else is gonna come from this rice experiment but it made a huge impact on us and our church. The conversations I've had in the days since rice, have been completely hilarious yet awesome. We are bonded for life over rice. If you ever get a chance to do something like this, do it! It was worth it. Jesus is worth it.

Has your church or organization ever done anything like this?