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etable, potato and bean. Although not obligatory, a free will offering is being asked for the drive up service as a means to help raise money for youth from the congregation to attend Luther Bible Camp at Chetek this summer. On hand to help out as well as answer questions Wednesday evening was Our Savior’s member and former mayor Norm Christianson.

“It’s every Wednesday during Lent,” Christianson said of the annual soup supper now estimated to be in its eighth year. “Every year we’ve done the soup supper in the basement,” he said, with the caveat that it wasn’t possible last year and outside this year. Christianson said that while the supper was usually supported by Our Savior’s own members, it was open to everybody from the community and area.

“We have five Wednesdays that we do it,” he said on Wednesday March 10. “This (March 10) is our third one now.” As we were talking, a vehicle drove up, with one of the young people present delivering soup and a blessing from the hymnal on the table. Downstairs in the basement kitchen, there was more.

“It’s just a fundraiser to help the kids go to Luther Park Bible Camp,” volunteer and main cook Barb Samuelson said of the Lenten fundraiser. “And if we were doing it inside they’d be helping us clean up,” she said.

“Not Maundy Thursday,” Donella Christianson said in relation the soup supper for the week following Palm Sunday but coming before Good Friday. “Maundy Thursday” corresponds to Holy Thursday in the Catholic tradition and refers to the day that Jesus held the Last Supper with his Apostles, including (at that time) the traitor, Judas Iscariot. ‘Maundy,’ meanwhile, comes from the same word root as “mandate” in English, and refers to the Great Commandment to love one another, given at the Last Supper. If it’s just soup you’re after on the other hand, there’s still time. Our Savior’s soup supper fundraiser is set to continue on through March 24.

Sunday March 28 is Palm Sunday, at least in the Western tradition that Lutherans and most Catholics are part of. The Eastern rites, are different.

Helping with the soup supper at Our Savior's were (left to right) Barb Samuelson; Donella Christianson; and Rosanne Peterson. Staff photo.