PoP’s 7th and 8th grade confirmation students spent a recent Friday serving at Second Harvest and preparing for PoP’s Tanzania Dinner. It was a Confirmation mini retreat on a no school day in Roseville. The kids are studying the Lord’s Prayer, focusing on “give us today our daily bread.”
This is the second year of a new confirmation model where students meet once a month – either on a Sunday from 4-8 pm or on a day off from school. These longer sessions allow us to go into greater depth and include service learning activities to help students understand what we are studying and how it applies to daily life.

This year we are studying the Catechism. September and October focused on the Ten Commandments. The students had a project of coming up with creative ways to teach the Ten Commandments to kids because when you teach something, you actually learn a lot. They presented a puppet show and a game show on the Ten Commandments at worship on the Fall Retreat at Camp Wapo.

At Second Harvest in November, the project was sorting 2,000 pound bags of potatoes, discarding the rotting ones and placing the good potatoes into 40lb bags. Second Harvest is the food supplier for food shelves and soup kitchens in 57 counties in MN and WI. It was hard work and the students got dirty, but it was rewarding to see the results. Students from Prince of Peace were also winners in the funniest shaped potato contest with potatoes shaped like a mustache, two hearts becoming one, and a submarine.

Debriefing the experience afterward, Youth Director Cori Forcey asked the students about other organizations they are aware of that help to feed people in the community. We also read the story about Elijah and the Widow of Zaraphath. When asked why are we reading this, one student responded, “It’s about food insecurity.” At the end of the day, another student said, “I’m glad we did this – otherwise I would have stayed home and done nothing today.”

Confirmation meets next on Sunday, Dec. 8 from 4-8. The focus will be on “forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.”