No, Eric, You won’t be doing what is comfortable….
When I applied for the Young Adults in Global Mission (YAGM) program with the ELCA last December, I wanted nothing more than to escape the US for a year. I was blessed with the opportunity to study for four months in Italy as part of my master’s program at Kansas State University, and since that semester in Europe my hunger for global travel has grown insatiable. I told myself I was doing it in service of God, and I suppose in part I was, but mostly I was doing it for myself.
I was accepted to the program, and in April attended the Discernment Interview Placement event (DIP). At the end of what proved to be the most spiritually challenging, and empowering, four days of my life, I received my placement: the United Kingdom. I was going back to Europe!
Soon an email came to me “Difficult News.” With just over a month before we were supposed to leave country, all the members of my country group, myself included, were reassigned to new country placements. And I stared dumbstruck at my phone’s screen as I read the tiny words “Argentina/Uruguay” sitting next to my name. Argentina or Uruguay?? My mind raced. I can’t speak Spanish, I have no interest in South America, I don’t know anything about the culture or people of those nations! To instead receive news that, “No Eric, you won’t be doing what is comfortable, what you’ve hoped, or what you’ve expected. Instead you’ll be forced into a more humble role. One where you do not know the place or the people. Where you do not know the language or the work. One where you will truly be forced to accompany; not to walk before or behind, but beside the Argentinian people.”
I will be simultaneously working at two different sites during my year of service. Living in the capital city of Buenos Aires, Argentina, I will be volunteering at a hogar, a living facility for adults with developmental disabilities, and also at a Lutheran church, where I will help with their youth program.
What usefulness I will provide, with my limited experience in both these ministries, I cannot say. The thing that caught my attention with YAGM in the first place is how it does not seek to be the missionaries of the past. YAGM seeks to be different, to walk with, instead of over. I ask for your prayers and your thoughts in our discernment and our work.
I began writing by saying I applied to YAGM to escape the US. To run from its brokenness, and to instead try to help the brokenness of another nation. I’ve realized that I will not be doing any “fixing”. I will watch, and learn, and try to love as best as I am able, in the hopes that what I take from this experience I can bring home. And when I return home, I can share that experience to hopefully widen the views of others, as my own views have been expanded. My fears for this year are nearly as numerous as my excitement, but in the end this year isn’t about me. This year is for God, the church, and the world.
My name is Eric Jensen; I grew up in Wichita, KS and attended college at Kansas State University, where I received my Master’s Degree in Architecture this past May. My home congregations are Reformation Lutheran Church in Wichita, where I grew up, and First Lutheran Church in Manhattan, where I attended while at university. Grace and peace to you all.
~~~centralstatessynod.org
|
|
