Join Desmond Tutu for a once a week fast for Zimbabwe

As many of you would know, Megan and started to fast once a week (two years ago when our son Liam was born).  It has been a significant spiritual discipline.  I am quite 'strict' about it (even if I'm invited to a function, a client event, or out for lunch etc., I still adhere to my fast).  It has reminded me of a number of things.

1.  I discovered that I was much more hungry for food than I was for God... I would plan my days around meals, but I would often skip my prayer time because I was too busy.  It's sad, but it's a reality for many Christians!  So, fasting helps me to prioritize my spiritual life and my devotion to Christ.  Whenever I feel hungry on my fast day it remind me to pray and engage in acts of mercy.

2.  It reminds me that there are many people in the world who do not have the luxury to choose when to eat and when not to eat.  In my own country, South Africa, 17% of our population subsist on less than US$1 a day, and 38% on less than US$2 a day - in fact more than half are regarded as poor and impoverished.  This one day of fasting gives me a great deal of compassion (helping me to understand in just a very, very insignificant and small way what others experience daily...).  Compassion is different from pity... Pity separates people, compassion joins them.

3.  For Megan and I, in particular, it reminds us to pray earnestly for sick Children, suffering children, and families who struggle with loss, illness, and other challenges.

Here, however, is a challenge to join Bishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu in fasting in solidarity with the people of Zimbabwe.  My encouragement is to link your fasting to prayer and acts of mercy.  On your fast day set aside your meal times to pray and also set aside the money (or food) you would have consumed to bless someone else.

Here's the story:

JOHANNESBURG, Jan 11 (Reuters) - South African Nobel peace laureate Desmond Tutu has called on all South Africans to join his weekly fasting in protest at the humanitarian crisis in neighbouring Zimbabwe, the 702 radio station reported on Sunday.

The 78-year-old Anglican archbishop said he had been fasting once a week in solidarity with the hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans facing food shortages and a cholera outbreak.

"If we would have more people saying 'I will fast' maybe one day a week, just to identify myself with my sisters and brothers in Zimbabwe," the radio station quoted him as saying.

Zimbabweans are suffering from hyper-inflation and severe food, fuel and foreign currency shortages. Cholera has killed more than 1,800 people. (Reporting by Agnieszka Flak; Editing by Charles Dick)  from http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSLB640138