Youth Group’s 30 Hours of Fasting is Filled with Transformation

Participation in a YMCo mission immersion experience includes a challenge to continue the conversation about mission and justice in your home context. Pleasant Hill Presbyterian is doing just that! In November their high school youth participated in World Vision’s 30 Hour Famine. This is an event whose aim is that “students will grow closer to Christ and each other as they fast together for 30 hours and raise funds to fight hunger.” The 30 Hour Famine created a space for youth to form an awareness, on a small scale, of what people dealing with hunger face daily, and for them to learn where this awareness intersects with scripture, faith, and the call to do justice. While they were fasting, and experiencing the mental and physical effects of hunger, they spent time learning about how lack of food effects people worldwide. They reflected on this experience through worship, prayer, and an art project known as a Smash Book. They also used these 30 hours to serve the hungry in their own community by working in community gardens and serving breakfast at a shelter in Atlanta, and raising more than $1,000 for hungry children worldwide.

Visit this link (Anna’s Reflection) to read Anna Steingruber, a PHPC 9th grader’s, personal reflection on the 30 Hour Famine experience. In her reflection, she writes that through the experience, she is able to “see now how strong the hungry are, maybe not physically, but definitely mentally stronger than [she] may ever be.” She also notes how easy it would be for us to contribute to the work to alleviate hunger. She says, “We have enough food. We just need to figure out how to get it to people who need it.”

​What is your group doing to help get food to people who need it? Or, are they doing something to help folks get the other resources that they need? If so, YMCo wants to hear about it!

If you’d like to use PHPC’s experience to start a conversation about hunger in your own community, here is a study guide created by YMCo to do just that. 30 Hour Famine Study Guide

To view photos from the 30 Hour Famine and to check out PHPC’s Smash Book, visit YMCo’s Tumblr site!

PHPC also created a video of their 30 Hour Famine experience. View it below!