CVS Shopping Trip
I was super excited to be able to stock up on diapers this week for a great price. My 3-year-old is potty trained during the day but we’re still working on night time. This sale came just in time as we were almost out of diapers! I was even more excited about the great coupons that printed out of the CVS red kiosk making my total even lower. 
2 Huggies Diapers – $9 each
1 Huggies Pull Ups – $9 (Buy $20 in Huggies, Get $5 ECBs)
Used 1 $2/$10 Huggies CVS coupon
And used 1 $2.50/1 Huggies Pull Ups CVS soupon
And used $2/1 Huggies coupons (I only had one of these coupons but you can use two.)
And used $2/1 Pull-ups coupon
1 CVS Diapers – $6.99 (Buy 1, Get $2 ECBs)
Used $1/1 printable
And used $5/$30 any diapers CVS coupon (from CVS red kiosk)
1 Brookside Chocolates – $0.60 (Buy 1, Get $0.60 ECBs)
2 Scott Single Roll Bath Tissue &endash; $1 each
Used $1/2 CVS coupon from the CVS red kiosk
1 Got2b Hair Stylers – $6.99 (Buy 1, Get $2 ECBs)
Used $2.50/1 coupon from the 2/8 SmartSource insert
1 McCafe Coffee K-Cups – $5.99 (Buy 1, Get $1 ECBs)
There was a $1/1 printable available for these but I didn’t get it printed in time.
Used 25% off your next purchase CVS coupon from red kiosk (My cashier couldn’t get this coupon to scan so she just manually took off $10. My total after manufacturer’s coupons was $40.07 so I think $10 should have been right.)
Used $11 ECBs from previous trip
Total before coupons, sales and ECBs: $70.24
Total with tax ($2.29) after coupons, sales and ECBs: $12.86, Plus received $8.60 in ECBs
{These children usually just have pap to eat. We brought them some fruit and they were so excited to gobble it down!}
Of all the new and different things I experienced in South Africa, I think the thing that will stick with me for a very long time was seeing first hand just how significant the hunger problems there are in the world.
And I know they are not isolated to communities in Africa — or even in third world countries. Right here in America, there are children and adults who go hungry. There are children who go home from school and have no food at all over the weekends.
{This JAM porridge is much more nutritionally dense than the pap that most South African children in the poorest communities eat. You can read more about it here. Take Action Ministries in partnership with Help One Now makes and feeds this porridge to hundreds of children every day in an effort to help fill children’s bellies with something that provides nutritional value.}
We want to change the world and make an impact, but sometimes, that starts with offering a bowl of porridge. When you have an empty belly, it’s hard to think of anything else. It’s hard to dream or imagine a life outside of the confines of poverty.
Those of us who have choices in what we eat each day are tremendously blessed. We worry about whether we’re giving our kids enough variety. We stress over whether we should buy more organic produce.
We wonder whether we should give our kids a different kind of vitamin or whether they should be eating more meat or drinking more milk or going off dairy or gluten…
{Samp and beans — this was what they fed to around 100 kids at the Reagoboka Drop-In Centre the day we visited. It made me so happy for the kids to get something other than pap to eat. We got to eat it for lunch, too, and I thought it was quite tasty!}
And none of these things we worry about as parents are wrong. We should want to do our best to nurture our children and encourage them to develop healthy habits from a young age.
However, going to South Africa gave me a completely different perspective on life, including things like making food and washing dishes. I realized that there are many things that I’ve complained about in the past that seem so silly and inconsequential now when you think of them in the grand scheme of things.
Here are two things I will never be able to complain about again:
1. I can never complain about having to do dishes.
I’ve often grumbled over a heap of dirty dishes… wishing cooking and eating didn’t make such a mess, wishing there weren’t burned pans to scrub, wishing I could just go to bed instead of staying up conquering that mountain of plates and cups and bowls.
But how can I complain when I realize that those same dishes represent the blessing of food? Food that is readily available in our fridge and cupboards to cook and eat and, yes, dirty our dishes.
Dirty dishes mean that little people at my house have food in their bellies. That none of us know the ache and pain of a seriously empty stomach or the fear that must come when there is nothing to eat and no money to buy food.
{The kitchen where the Reagoboka Drop-In Centre cooks food for over 100 children every day. And you thought your kitchen was too small for your family!}
2. I can never complain about how much time it takes to plan & prepare meals.
So many times, I’ve thought how easy it would be if we could just skip eating — or at least stick with really simple meals. I’ve sometimes dreaded the fact that it’s getting close to dinner and I need to make yet another meal.
I’ve had times when I’ve wished my kids weren’t hungry yet again. (Didn’t they just eat a few hours ago??)
But here’s the thing: I’ve never known what it is like to see my kids go hungry. To desperately wish I could give them something to eat and have nothing to give them. To see them suffer from hunger and be literally helpless to do anything about it.
{Visiting the Maubane Community. While we were there, Take Action Ministries arranged a special treat — lunch for all the kids in the community! They had pap and Walkie Talkies — which are chicken feet and chicken beaks!}
Yes, we’ve had very lean years, but we always had food to eat — even if it meant eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches almost every day. We’ve always had a roof over our heads, blankets to cover up with at night, enough clothes to wear, coats to keep us warm in the winter time, enough money to buy gas to drive where we needed to go, clean water to drink and bathe with.
How can I complain about things like “having to cook yet again” when there are mothers all around the world who would give anything just to have something to cook for their starving child? To have even one small bit of food once a day to quell their baby’s empty stomach?
From here on out, I hope that I look at that pile of dirty dishes, that messy kitchen, that refrigerator needing to be cleaned out, and the meal that needs to be made with completely new appreciation. Truly, we have so much more to be grateful for than we often realize.
P.S. If you feel called to help the children in some of the poorest communities in South Africa, we’d love to have you join us and over 100 others as part of the Ten Dollar Tribe. You can read all about this group and how you can get involved here. And thank you, thank you to each of you who have already joined. We are incredibly humbled and grateful that you’d join us in this!
