Ok, so, I would just like to start this out by saying that I'm incredibly nervous about writing this blog. I tend to put a lot of pressure on myself when trying to articulate my thoughts in a written manner, but, I will do my best.
For those of you who don't know, I will be spending a year serving in Montevideo, Uruguay with the Young Adults in Global Mission (YAGM) program through the ELCA. While my adventure has not yet started in my country of destination, there has been a fair amount of buildup to it starting in my country of origin. I've known for a long time that I wanted to do something international after graduation. I can't pinpoint exactly where this idea came from, but I'd have to place most of the blame on my hippie mom and worldly grandparents who have instilled in me the idea of a "worldwide community". And I would have to thank my mom and my church for exposing me to El Salvador through relationship-building mission trips. These trips and the people I have met there are invaluable to me, and have steered my interests and passion towards Latin America, something that I would not have predicted about myself 5 years ago.
Speaking of directions in which I hadn't expected my life to go, I have to say that 8 months ago, I would not have envisioned myself going somewhere through the church, as a missionary. So perhaps I should explain how that all came to be.
I graduated in December from UW-Madison, and really wanted to spend a year somewhere in Latin America, but I really had no idea what venue to go through. I wanted to go with a trustworthy program, but when you're googleing "abroad placements", it's pretty tricky to know which program really is reliable, and what I really wanted was for someone to just tell me "I went through this program, it was awesome, you will love it." Enter El Salvador (again). I went to El Salvador again in January. Through these partnership trips, my church has been lucky enough to meet a missionary of the ELCA, Dan, who served two years ago and whom we now take back with us as our interpreter. So, I decided I would ask him for any suggestions. Not too surprisingly, he suggested Global Missions through the ELCA and told me they had various programs, some shorter than others. I guess that wasn’t really the answer I was looking for, so I asked him if he knew of any other programs. I think he briefly mentioned maybe the Peace Corps, and then went back to explaining the benefits of going through the ELCA and how they really take care of you. I have to admit, I kind of wrote it off; going through the church just didn’t seem like the right fit for me.
When I returned home from El Salvador, I continued running my mouth about this grand idea I had to go abroad. I stopped in to my mom’s work, and started talking about what I wanted to do with one of her co-workers, and he also mentioned ELCA Global Missions. (Note: my mom works at a church; the aforementioned co-worker is my pastor; in particular, he is Pastor Gary). So, I kind of looked at the program then, but I wasn’t fully convinced. About a week later, I got a letter in the mail from Pastor Gary that included an article about a girl who had served in Malaysia for a year through the YAGM program. After reading her story, I realized it did sound like what I wanted. After that, I started working on the application, which asked some questions that initially seemed pretty daunting. They were questions that forced me to articulate powerful experiences I’d had, but that I hadn’t yet been able to adequately explain. So, after mulling over the application for weeks, and with a fair amount of help from my mom and Dan, I turned in the YAGM application approximately 2 hours before the final deadline.
A short while after turning in the application, I learned that as a part of the process, I’d have a phone interview with a past alumni. I got on the phone with the alumni, and she introduced herself and started telling her story. She explained that she had served with YAGM in Malaysia and had worked with kids. Sound familiar, anyone? She eventually asked me how I’d heard about the program. All I could say was, “Um, I’m pretty sure I read an article about you”.
Following the phone conversation, I told Pastor Gary about this coincidence. “Well,” he said, “that certainly seems like a sign for those of us who are in the business of reading signs”.
After that, everything with the program just kind of fell into place. The rest of the process, including the 4 day long discernment weekend, proved both challenging but also strengthening and eye-opening. Now, I’m about a week away from officially beginning my journey with a week-long orientation in Chicago. I can’t quite know what to expect next year, which is mildly terrifying, but I am also looking forward to this opportunity. All my life, I’ve enjoyed hearing a good story, so now I’m preparing myself to go to a new place to experience the story of another land, another people and another community. I’m hoping that this blog will serve as an outlet to share those stories as well as my own.
