Family Challenge Preparation

I have been planning and preparing this evening for our first family challenge that will start Monday.   I am so excited about this challenge.  Every month this year our family will be challenged to Sacrifice a different thing for a whole week.  Our first family challenge is going to teach us to sacrifice in the area of food.  I will tell you more about that, but first I have to tell you about our new Compassion child.

As a Christmas present for our kids we sponsored a child through Compassion.   Our child's name is Isaac and is 6 years old.  There were a couple of things we were looking for when picking out our child.

•  The whole family decided we needed a boy. (I guess we have too many girls!)
•  I wanted a child who had been in the database for over 6 months. 
• We wanted a child from Uganda, Africa. 
• We wanted a child who was about the same age as Garrett and Lexi. 
• And I wanted a child who lives in an AIDS infected area. 

 I am not sure why I had each of these things on my heart, but I did.   It was so neat because the birthday didn't matter to us since it was a gift to all of our kids, but Isaac's birthday is right in between both Garrett and Lexi's birthday in September.  To me it was confirmation that this was the exact boy that God has for our family.  Here is our precious Compassion child - Isaac!

I had to tell you about our Compassion child so I could explain what we are doing for our challenge.  Our first challenge will be to eat only what a child or family from Uganda would eat.  This evening I have been researching what a typical family from Uganda would eat and here is what I found they would eat:

• Bananas
• Pineapple
• Rice
• Maize - Corn
• Millet Bread or flat bread
• G-nuts - like peanuts.
• Sweet Potatoes and sometimes white potatoes
• Beef Stew
• Beef or goat.  (Sometimes chicken but is not as available as beef.)
• Tea with milk

I also found that Ugandans only eat two meals a day, lunch and dinner.   I had so much fun looking into the life of our child. 

Next week these items will be the only items on our menu.  I will have the kids eat breakfast before they head out in the morning, but they will only have an item from the list above.  For some this might seem like huge sacrifice, for others not as much.  Our goal is to see how our child eats by giving up the pleasures that we indulge in on a daily basis.  I think it will also give us an opportunity to be thankful for what we have when we don't have as much to choose from. 

Everyday next week I will be posting on how our week is going.  I will post pictures of our food and fill you in on the kids reactions.  *Since Breanna is so picky right now we will have other options for her.  Pineapple would be the only thing on this list that she would eat.  This will keep us from having to visit the Doctor next week. :)