R & B Night

And no, I'm not talking music.  The food thought has really been on my mind.  I really like to eat.  So maybe I am being drastic in questioning whether or not we should eat only beans and rice for the rest of our lives.  Maybe not.  But until I come to a conclusion, I don't want the overwhelming nature of these questions to paralyze me with inaction and cause me to just not change at all. 

So, we are implementing R & B Night once a week at our house.  I really want my kids to understand that how we spend each dollar is a choice we are making.  We could go buy a cheap toy that is going to break in a week, or we could send that money to Lifewater, who will use it to provide fresh water for a village in Africa. 

So, like much of the poor in the world, in solidarity to their plight, we are going to eat Rice & Beans (R & B) one night a week for dinner.  We will place $10 in a jar and explain that instead of using that money to buy our usual dinner food, we are going to eat R & B, and give that money to Amazima to help feed kids in Uganda who would otherwise have nothing to eat.  

We eat 21 meals a week.  How easy is it to choose to make one of them count for something other than pleasing our tastebuds?  We are still in negotiations about which night of the week this R & B Night will fall on. 

My ideal is Sunday.  This allows it serve multiple purposes.  In addition to the purpose explained above, it has the potential to help me make Sunday more of a sabbath.  We often have friends over for dinner on Sunday so I end up spending much of the afternoon in the kitchen preparing the meal.  This does not feel so sabbath-like for me, since I do this same thing all week as my "job".  So, by placing beans in the crock pot and rice in the rice cooker I am able to actually rest on my Sunday. 

Additionally, by inviting friends over to join us for our Sunday meal of R & B Night, we have the opportunity to talk to others about this idea, to explain why we are doing it and to help encourage them to think about the things they are doing in their own lives.  Win, win, win!