To understand why God would ever call us to India, Michael & Emily Ballard (the Leaders of Touching India) have called us to a rice fast on Thursday nights.  That means all I have been eating on Thursday nights is rice.  It’s not like I am going without any food all day, but still I find myself challenged by it nonetheless.  Here are three things I have learned by the rice fast:

1. I choose to go without for the sake of others – When we proposed the fast idea to our kids, they went along with it but not without questions.  They asked me, “Dad, when we don’t eat food here does it mean that families in India get to eat more?”  They thought surely this fast had some practical value to the Indians other than making our Thursday night dinners a bore.  I wish the fast was as simple and practical as my daughters’ question.  Yet it is not.  In fact, the fast does more to get our attention than it does to change their circumstances.  I told them that we are going without a proper meal on Thursdays for the sake of others.  Now I find that my hungry stomach is a teaching tool.  Its rumblings are a constant reminder that I can’t buffer myself from the suffering of hopeless people just by living in the American suburbs.  As a Christian, I am called to love my neighbor as myself.  I can’t love them if I can’t identify with them in some real way.  So, I fast.  I choose to go without for the sake of others.

2. Talking Helps – Our typical dinners are sometimes eventful and sometimes not.  It just depends on what gets spilled.  Yet, there is always conversation.  This conversation centers around our daily activities, our hopes for tomorrow, and our hopes for dessert.  In truth, these conversations aren’t ones to be written down and remembered for the ages.  They are just conversations.  Talk with a little bit of instruction thrown in.  Yet, during our Thursday night dinners, our conversations change.  Mostly, we ask questions.  We don’t give answers.  We ask questions about the plight of the Dalits living in India.  We ask questions about what is going on in the hospital and church.  We ask questions to God on their behalf.  Oddly enough, even though we don’t have all the answers to our questions the talking helps.  It awakens each of us to not just be engaged with each other around the table, but to engage God and his love for the world.  This conversation reminds us of our purpose together.  That we are not just called to be a family that serves each other, but we are a family called by God to engage God’s mission.  That means we need to pay attention to people we haven’t even met, but that God loves.  The fast has transformed our conversations, and it has helped us connect with God and his mission for us in it.

3. Praying Matters – It was once told to me by a respected pastor in Kenya that all the important work is done in prayer.  I have never forgotten that, and I find more and more evidence that it is true.  This fast is further evidence of it.  The Dalit needs are overwhelming and their problems are like a knot that seems too tangled to bother with.  It is too easy to give up and find something better to do with our time.  Yet, on Thursdays, I can count on the fact that we are going to pray as a family for the Dalits.  I am not just praying alone, I hear the voices of my daughters and wife cry out to God on behalf of the Dalits.  In our time of prayer for them, I imagine all of the households of Aspen Grove crying out to the Lord on Thursday nights as we sit around our rice meals.  It reminds me of the time when the children of Israel cried out because of their oppressive suffering at the hands of Pharaoh.  The Lord heard their cry and was merciful.  When I pray with my family for the Dalits, I get excited about the day when the Dalits will be freed by the gospel because I am reminded that we serve a compassionate God.  He is slow to anger and abounding in love.  What else would matter more than to pray to him over the plight of the Dalits?  This fast has reminded me that praying matters.

What has God been teaching you through the Rice Fast?