Our 40 Hour Power Famine!

This year, we felt challenged to take the plunge as a family and do the "World Vision 40 Hour Famine".  This is a great event that has been going for years as a way to raise awareness and money for World Vision, who distribute the money to the very needy overseas - this year, the money was going to children in Mali and Niger.  As a child, I have fond memories of doing the famine with my church, armed with hundreds of barley sugars and lots of juice.  As an adult, my body just can't handle going without food like that, I just end up with the shakes, but World Vision have come up with an alternative - why not 'go without' something else instead of food?

Our family decided to go without electricity for 40 hours after some thought about what we really rely on as a family.  Power is a pretty big thing for us, we love our technology and spend most evenings with the computer and TV on - and of course, lighting is always well used!  We did decide that it wouldn't be fair to make Luke do the famine though, so we left the heating on (anyway, its gas!).

Please know that we are NOT the camping type.  When we go away, we stay in motels.  As a child, we camped fairly often, but we had a "pop-up caravan", which we plugged into various camping sites for power so it wasn't that bad.  Down here in the Hawkes Bay, we have lots of friends who go 'proper' camping, I guess one day we will join them, but it really doesn't appeal to me to be without hot showers and walls, so far we have avoided it with fairly valid excuses of babies needing sleep.

So when we started our famine, we found we were not well equip to deal with 40 hours without power.  We don't have all those cool camping tools.  I think we spent about $100 getting candles, torches, batteries and a single gas cooker to see us through.  Ah well, all stuff we should own anyway in earthquake zone!
At 4.45pm (we started at 5pm Friday) I had managed to have a hot shower and read the instructions for the cooker, and was hanging out the washing I had hastily done in the nick of time.  The lights were turned off (and various other switches) at 5pm on the dot, and we plunged into a state of dusky darkness.  The girls ran for their torches, very excited, while I yelled out to them not to waste the batteries straight away. At 5.30pm Kate wanted to watch TV.  Sorry darling!  Luckily, daddy came home and a noisy game of hide and seek with the torches started while I made omelettes for dinner by candlelight and Luke crawled around the house in the darkness.
 The flash was on in this photo, it really was quite dark!!

I learnt a few things about myself that first night.  I learnt that I don't really like the dark.  It made me feel a bit claustrophobic not to be able to see everywhere in the usual cheerful warmth of a good light.   Light makes me feel safe and warm.  I now understand better why Jesus kept saying that that HE was the LIGHT of the world - he lived in a time of the world where there was no power, and any source of light would have been welcoming, comforting and would draw you in.  What a great metaphor for Jesus!

I thought about those who don't have power, and how many in these poorer countries go to bed and rise with the sun.  It all makes sense now.  I learnt that in order to function without light, it is useful to have more than just a few pretty candles.  Marty and I attempted to play cards by the light of about 10 candles around us.  Not so easy to see what cards I had!    It was tricky to do the simplest of tasks in the darkness, getting Luke ready for bed or reading the girls a bedtime story.  On Saturday morning I caved in and purchased a camp lantern, and Saturday night was much easier to cope with.  More than once, my thoughts turned to Christchurch, and I considered just how traumatic it must have been to be in darkness for so long - and we had left our fridge/freezer on, so didn't even have to worry about food going off.

I learnt that I enjoy the comfort of noise around me in the evenings.  This probably stems back to my anxiety issues I had a couple of years ago.  I still don't like listening to the noises of our wider community, and the TV etc do a good job of drowning them out and creating a nice false illusion that we are alone in our bubble of the world.  It was a very very LONG Friday night after the kids went to bed. I think Marty and I went to bed at about 8.30pm in the end, where normally we are up until 10.30pm.  On Saturday night he taught me how to play Monopoly.  I had lots of fun - until I realized that even though I had more property then him, he had built bigger hotels then me and was taking all my money!  Hmm... I think a rematch is in order.

flash was on here...pudding by dim candlelight!

I missed my fan heater too.  I love my fan heater on those cold mornings and when I get ready for bed too.  Although we had our central heating on, I didn't find out until later that Marty had turned it off once the kids went to bed - no wonder I was freezing!!  I shivered my way through changing, and my thoughts once again turned to the things we take for granted that so many don't have the luxury of having.  For example, It took quite a while to do the dishes without hot water.  We had to boil the water on the gas cooker twice to get enough to wash them, making what is normally a quick job a fairly lengthy process. How blessed are we to have hot water that comes out of a tap?!  There were many prayers of thanksgiving said over these 40 hours.

Luke plays outside in a role reversal with Misty!

During the day, we did faith-box with the girls, including lots of prayers together for our sponsored children overseas who we hoped the girls now had a better understanding of their living situation.  I also cleaned the oven (hey, it was cold so a good opportunity), played outside with the kids, finished my book and we all went and watched Marty play soccer.

The girls LOVED eating by candlelight and playing in the dark.  We enjoyed the time playing board games with each other and the lessons we were able to learn together.  It was not easy, but it certainly made us think a lot about what we have.  And the best news? We have raised over $200 towards the children in Mali and Niger....that's enough to feed about 40 hungry children for a month!  You can still donate if you want to - just click on this link.