(Disclaimer: If some of this sounds familiar, it's because pieces of it were borrowed from last year's post.)

Thanksgiving will be here soon! That means that we're all busy planning our menus and making our grocery lists and readying our tables. Most of us will gather with family and friends and eat amazing, comfort food until our belts need loosening. Let us not forget in this season of thankfulness the many who will not be joining us in our overindulgence.

World hunger statistics are sobering, to say the least. I like this video because it uses the numbers to get our attention rather than the emotionally evocative images involved with so many of the world hunger videos we've been subjected to over the years.   One child dies hungry every 6 seconds. Now that's sobering. How many children would that be during just our Thanksgiving meal alone?

As our family met to discuss how we wanted to approach feeding the hungry this holiday, I mentioned this statistic to Girl 1. She just looked at me and started slowly counting as the tears welled up in her eyes.

I don't mean to be a downer this holiday. I do mean to challenge you to do something about the plight of the needy. So, I'm doing what the video asks of me and telling a friend (who will hopefully tell a friend who will hopefully tell a friend, etc.).

Our family plans to do our part this season by donating to Bread for the World.  We plan to raise the money for this the same way we did last year.  And, you can do it, too -- without even having to reach into your pocketbook (what is a pocketbook exactly? Does anyone even really use one?) You want to know how, don't you? Well, lean in. And promise not to tell MeeMee that we plan to do it again this year. Promise? Okay.

We plan to eat Ramen noodles every night for a week. The grocery money saved will be donated and help to feed others.  We do this in an attempt to better understand the plight of the hungry. Now, rice and beans would be a much more appropriate meal if we were trying to eat the way most of the hungry world eats. But, my kids won't eat rice and beans. They just won't. And, contrary to what MeeMee seems to believe, we do plan to feed our kids this week. (Bless her, she's only got their best interests at heart!) We choose Ramen because it's about the cheapest thing I can think of to feed us that we will all eat. Also, it probably pretty closely approximates the way our closest hungry neighbors eat.

Why the same thing every night of the week? When you're truly hungry, food diversity is a luxury you do not have. You eat what is available, and often it's the same thing . . . over and over again.

The week leading up to Thanksgiving seems a fitting time to undergo this challenge and prayerful focus. So, we will begin this coming Wednesday and continue until the following Tuesday, two days prior to Thanksgiving. (Ideally, we would run it right up through Wednesday, the day before the holiday, but it just doesn't fit our schedule this year.) To focus our mealtimes on the task at hand, we will begin each of our seven evening meals together with a special prayer. (This was my favorite part last year!) Here are links to the beautiful prayers we intend to use this year.

Wednesday -- Sharing our Abundance
Thursday -- That We May Be Satisfied
Friday -- Prayer of Confession
Saturday -- May I Hunger Enough
Sunday -- Traditional Native American Prayer
Monday and Tuesday (this link contains two separate prayers) -- Prayers at the Table

Will you join with us? Put your own spin on it. Eat something else. Or, don't change the way you eat at all but click on the prayers when you sit down to the table each night and join with us as we pray for the hungry of our world.