Hand in Hand Global Mission Support Blog Digest

Cindy McPeake is spending a year in Malaysia as part of the ELCA’s Young Adults in Global Mission (YAGM) program. The program relies on coordinators who facilitate the young adults’ ministry and provide mentoring and spiritual guidance. To support a YAGM coordinator, go to www.elca.org/missionarysponsorship.

Lunch at the New Life Center.

While we were in Thailand recently for our last group retreat, we got to visit the New Life Center, a center for young women who have been exploited or forced into labor. We took a tour of the facilities, ate lunch with some of the residents and spoke with the director. We talked about the causes of forced labor, what the government is doing to eliminate it and how the center is part of restoring the young girls’ hope.

We asked the director, in a seemingly hopeless situation, where does she see hope? Her response was, “sitting with the girls, listening to them cry, crying with them and being angry with them. And then seeing the transformation they go through when their power … their hope … is restored.”

Later that night, we talked about power and what it means. We defined power as “the ability to act.” The New Life Center director had the great power to act on behalf of those young women. She had the power to sit with them and cry. She had the power to show them that they could take back their own power, their own ability to act.

Our discussion moved to what motivates us to act. We all have the great responsibility to take action, to use our power on the behalf of other people to inspire, empower and sustain them. It can be a daunting task, to use our power wisely and positively, with the greater good in mind. But there is also power in using our power.

The power of power comes from building relationships with people, forming bonds of trust and restoring hope to the hopeless.

I know for me, I struggle with letting people have that power over me. Not because I think they will use it negatively but rather because it’s hard for me to admit I need help.

A good example of this is prayer. I truly love praying for other people. To be in conversation with God on the behalf of other people is a great joy for me. But I struggle letting people pray for me. I struggle letting people in on my own struggles. I am ashamed that I struggle and that I can’t handle it on my own. To acknowledge that weakness and be humbled by someone else’s prayer is always something I shy away from.

At the close of our retreat, we had a foot-washing devotion, which was a huge struggle for me. To sit, in front of my fellow YAGMs, as someone prayed for me is way outside of my comfort zone. To be completely vulnerable in the midst of all those people challenged my ability to stay calm.

But I did it. And it was a blessing to be blessed. To be taken care of. To be prayed for and cleansed.

That’s the power of power – the ability to act, but also the ability to stop acting and let someone else act for you. It’s the ability to step back from yourself and allow others to step forward.

How are you powerful? How do you allow others to have power over you?

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Here are excerpts from a message recently delivered by Jessie Obrecht, an incoming participant in the ELCA’s Young Adults in Global Mission (YAGM) program. She will be spending a year in Malaysia under the guidance of the Rev. Peter Harrits, a regional YAGM coordinator. The YAGM program relies on the coordinators who facilitate the young adults’ ministry and provide mentoring and spiritual guidance. To support a YAGM coordinator, go to www.elca.org/missionarysponsorship.

Jessie Obrecht

 … At the beginning of my senior year (at Concordia College in Moorhead, Minn.,) I applied for a program called Young Adults in Global Mission, which is a program for youth to go abroad for 12 months and serve as a missionary in one of nine countries … .

After submitting my application, my response to people asking “Why do you want to do this?” was: “I want to get out of my comfort zone.  I want to experience something completely different … .”

… (But) about a week and a half after (being accepted) I realized that as exciting as all my new adventures and achievements were, that I was deeply rooted in the community of Moorhead and Concordia College ,,, . Here I was having to step outside of my comfort zone, outside of the family and community I had known for four years, and I was fighting it like a stubborn mule!

I won’t tell you that after this revelation of being challenged and stretched that leaving Concordia was all rainbows and bunnies. I won’t tell you it was fun or happy. … I shed more tears within those weeks than ever before.

But I also learned a ton from this experience. …

In a movie I watched a few weeks ago, “We Bought a Zoo,” one of the characters, Benjamin Mee, says, “You know, sometimes all you need is 20 seconds of insane courage. Just literally 20 seconds of just embarrassing bravery. And I promise you, something great will come of it.” Now, in my words, what Benjamin Mee is saying is that every once in a while we just have to take one big ole leap of faith in life. We’ve gotta throw it all up, leave it to God, and just jump! …

For me, my leap of faith is Malaysia, and I would be lying if I told you I wasn’t absolutely terrified to hop on that plane in three months. But sometimes in life, we have to take that leap of faith, to embrace the unknown, and to risk, because in the end, we’ve got the greatest safety net of them all in God. So why not take this crazy, beautiful life, and live it to glorify God’s name in any and every way we can?

Amen

To read Jessie’s complete message, go to her blog.

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The Rev. Andrea and the Rev. Luke Roske-Metcalfe are ELCA missionaries in Cuernavaca, Mexico. Andrea is a regional coordinator for the Young Adults in Global Mission program and Luke serves in parish ministry. To support Andrea and Luke, or another of the ELCA’s 230 missionaries, go to www.elca.org/missionarysponsorship.

Luke and Andrea Roske-Metcalfe

Greetings to you from Cuernavaca!

The last few months have been full of travel and big decisions. Andrea was in Chicago for the annual meetings of all the country coordinators of the Young Adults in Global Mission (YAGM) program, followed by the YAGM Discernment-Interview-Placement Event in Williams Bay, Wis.  This is the time during which placements for the new YAGM candidates are assigned.  Interest in the YAGM program has never been higher – a record 111 young people applied this year.  Sixty-two (the highest number ever invited) came to the Williams Bay event, and all of them were offered a placement.  Nine volunteers will be coming to Mexico next year.  Your prayers – for their preparation, for patience as they wait to hear news of their host families and volunteer work assignments, and for the communities that currently support them and that await their arrival in August – are much appreciated.

In a similar vein, the current YAGM volunteers have just over two months before their term of service comes to an end.  It’s a difficult time, when they struggle with how to stay present and engaged with their communities here, even as they look forward with both anticipation and trepidation to what awaits them back in the U.S.  Your prayers for us during this time would also be appreciated!

We’ve discerned, as a family, that our season of serving in Mexico through Global Mission is coming to an end.  We will stay through July 2013, which is still more than a year away.  This timetable will allow Luke to accompany his congregation, Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd, through the process of determining their future, which may include calling a new pastor.  The congregation’s finances continue to be a constant struggle. It will also allow Andrea to accompany the next group of volunteers through their entire year of service. 

We want to communicate, very clearly, that there are no problems in our current work, nor has anything happened to make us want to leave.  We simply feel that God is calling us elsewhere.  We believe (we hope, anyway!) that we have done good work here, and that we will be able to “leave well” from our communities and our respective ministries.

We’re abundantly aware of the support that each and every one of you has provided (and continue to provide) and of the ways that that support has impacted our lives and the lives of those we accompany in this work.  Words truly cannot express the gratitude we have for what you’ve made possible.

With gratitude,

Andrea, Luke and Olivia Roske-Metcalfe

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Austin and Tanya Propst are the ELCA Young Adults in Global Mission (YAGM) coordinators for Madagascar. The YAGM  program relies  on the coordinators who facilitate the young adults’ ministry and provide mentoring and spiritual guidance. To support a YAGM coordinator, go to www.elca.org/missionarysponsorship.

Austin, center, gets a lesson in picking peanuts.

Tanya and I have been here in Madagascar for three months now. As in all aspects of life, it has been a journey.  Eight weeks of Malagasy language training, a month of travels to visit volunteer placement sites, a quick trip to the States to meet the new Young Adults in Global Mission volunteers and, of course, our own adjustment to living in a new place.

There have been countless ways that I have seen God at work, what a blessing it has been to experience. The Malagasy people have such a passion to offer us, and all visitors, with an experience of culture. Malagasy always ask, “Ahoana no fahitanao an’ Madagasikara?” (How do you see Madagascar?) I have discovered Madagascar is not to only see with my eyes, but how to see, feel understand, know and experience with my whole being. And the passion of the Malagasy is to continue to offer us a deeper experience and understanding of their unique culture.

No matter where we find ourselves, or who we meet, we are offered a true Malagasy experience.  Maybe through a meal, showing us how to wash clothes, teaching us words and phrases, teaching us how to plant/grow/harvest rice, or in our most recent experience, how to harvest peanuts — click here to watch the video. The Malagasy want to share themselves unceasingly by offering us a glimpse of what it means to live here in Madagascar.  I have found that the foundation of what it means to be Malagasy is simple: relationship.

We are blessed to be happy and happy to be blessed, sambatra!

– Austin

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Liz Frey is spending a year in Malaysia teaching English as a second language as a member of the ELCA’s Young Adults in Global Mission (YAGM) program. The program relies on coordinators who facilitate the young adults’ ministry and provide mentoring and spiritual guidance. To support a YAGM coordinator,  go to www.elca.org/missionarysponsorship.

Serving as a YAGM in Malaysia has helped Liz Frey control her fears.

I never thought of myself as brave. I have a very timid disposition, if you ask me. I do not like to face my fears; instead, I allow them to fester while I hide. I would wait for someone else to make a move. I would blame my inaction on others.

Fear or the opposite of bravery can be crippling and life changing. It hinders us in doing things that we want to do, that we should do, that we need to do. I can think of countless examples of times in my life that I allowed my fear to take control. My fear of being alone or unloved. My fear of losing a friend. My fear of being wrong. My fear of leaving home. The list goes on and on. I can pick out so many moments where my fear beat out the call of bravery.

Yet, a big change in me has been the development of bravery. I didn’t go to Oz to collect courage from the Wizard. Instead I came to Malaysia, and here is where I received bravery. I faced one of the biggest fears in my life – going out on my own. I couldn’t run home if things were difficult. I wanted to face this fear head on; I had allowed it to block other dreams and this wouldn’t happen again.

I was really scared from the onset and in some serious denial about leaving. I had morphed the whole summer before coming to Malaysia into playtime. I pretended I wasn’t leaving. I could feel the fear creeping into me, as the time at home got shorter. But I was committed, and I was determined to face my fears in the unknown.

And I would be lying if I said that I don’t feel fear coming every day. Every day brings something new to tackle, big or small. But every time I feel this fear, I remind myself of a great quote from a great book, “Coraline” by Neil Gaiman: “Because when you’re scared but you still do it anyway, that’s brave.”

This is what I have learned about myself in the last eight months. I can be brave. In fact, I am brave. Fear is just part of life, but I can’t let it hold me back. As I round out the last few days of the semester at STS, I can’t help, but smile. I am so proud of myself and how far I have come. The next step is packing up this newfound bravery and bringing it home with me.

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Jordan Muller is part of the ELCA’s Young Adults in Global Mission (YAGM) program. He is spending a year in Estcourt, South Africa. The YAGM program is reliant on coordinators who facilitate the young adults’ ministry and provide mentoring and spiritual guidance. To support a YAGM coordinator, go to www.elca.org/missionarysponsorship.

At a taxi rank, or terminal, there can be hundreds of minibus taxis waiting for passengers.

There are two things that I really struggle with when riding the mimibus taxis here. The first is that the taxi doesn’t depart until it is full so you never know when you will leave. The other problem I have is that they are always so hot! For some reason no one likes having windows open no matter how hot it gets so I often arrive at my destination feeling sweaty and gross.

Last week, when I was going from Estcourt to Pietermaritzburg, my tolerance for the taxis was maxing out. After 90 minutes of waiting, the taxi was full but for some reason the manager decided we should go in a different taxi so all 15 of us had to get out and move to another taxi. I had been in the back by a window which was great because then I could control how hot it was by me. However, upon moving to the other taxi I ended up being the last one to have to squeeze into the back row. I got to Pietermaritzburg and told Elise, another volunteer, that I don’t know how many more of those I’m going to be able to handle!  Then, right on cue, my return trip to Estcourt was very different.

Because there are so many taxis in one rank (or terminal), it can become confusing and difficult to find the one that is going where you need. On my way back to Estcourt we had just gotten on the interstate when an older woman a few rows ahead of me started asking about where the taxi was going. I couldn’t understand most of the conversation as it was in Zulu but I did hear her saying, “Tugela” several times, which is another hour past Estcourt. She was realizing, too late, that she had gotten on the wrong taxi.

She soon began to cry as she did not have enough money to then make the trip from Estcourt to Tugela. Without pause, a girl sitting next to her began asking everyone to put some money together for her. Through everyone’s donations the woman was given  more than enough to make the next leg of her journey.

I watched the whole thing in awe and humility. God knew that this was just the thing I needed to renew my spirit as frustration and annoyance had begun to take over.  “Umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu” is a Zulu expression meaning, “A person is a person through people.” In other words, we do not get where we are solely by ourselves. There are so many people around us that make us who we are and help us along the way. The spirit of Ubuntu filled that taxi as a group of strangers were willing to help another stranger for no benefit of their own. Such a small but awesome experience to be a part of and one I will not soon forget!

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Jisella Ibarra is living for a year in Malaysia through the ELCA Young Adults in Global Mission (YAGM) program. The program relies on coordinators who facilitate the young adults’ ministry and provide mentoring and spiritual guidance. To support a YAGM coordinator, go to www.elca.org/missionarysponsorship.

Poverty in urban Manilla.

Recently, I took a trip to the Philippines thanks to some additional support from home. (Thanks Dad!) I work with Filipino and Indonesian immigrants, so I wanted to see where most of my kids were coming from and why so many people immigrate to Malaysia from the Philippines.

It wasn’t very hard to miss the high degree of poverty. We hear about poverty and we are saddened by it. But I have to say it is really something else when you are in the middle of it all and can breathe in its intoxicating reality.

There were kids begging the tourists for money just to be sent away empty handed. At times you could spot a group of kids counting their coins just hoping that it would be enough to feed all of them for the night. And at the next corner there would be a poor child lying on the ground too weak to get up. I doubt they had families to take care of them or a home to go back to.

There were many Filipino women with desperate looks in their eyes accompanied by white men. I can’t imagine how terrible their situation was to give into prostitution and live with it as if it was a normal part of life. It shocked me to see how open this community was to this matter.

Never in my life had I felt as vulnerable as I did then, just to imagine what all of these women go through just to survive. My heart screams “That isn’t life.” I just ponder in agony, where is the love that Jesus came down here to teach us? That selfless love all Jesus’ followers should have?

As I have come up to this point in my YAGM year and have experienced so many things I never could have imagined, I feel that the main purpose for my time here in Malaysia is about seeing things that we miss in our ordinary lives because we are too busy to stop and take a closer look. It’s about giving into vulnerability and letting our hearts to be broken by the injustices of this world. It is when we are most vulnerable that we are able to see with more clarity what God wants us to see and give ourselves into his plan.

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Brian and Kristen Konkol are nearing the end of their service as ELCA missionaries in South Africa, where they have been coordinators for the Young Adults in Global Mission program. To support any of the ELCA’s 230 missionaries, go to www.elca.org/missionarysponsorship.

Kristen and Brian Konkol and their son, Khaya.

I have already begun to hear others speak of our departure from South Africa as the conclusion of our global missionary service.  I totally disagree with this assertion, for in many ways it is only the beginning. I believe wholeheartedly that God’s global mission through Jesus is about reconciliation, transformation and empowerment, thus a global Christian missionary is one who seeks to reconcile, transform and empower, by the grace of God, and for the sake of the world.  I cannot see myself stopping such activity at any point, as everywhere is the “mission field,” each day constitutes numerous “mission trips” and every local action has a global reaction.

In a world that possesses division and violence, I believe God is on a global mission of reconciliation, and I plan to participate fully within in. In a world were billions of people scrape through life in spirit-destroying poverty, I believe God is on a global mission of transformation, and I plan to participate fully within it. In the midst of a world that is thirsty for compassionate servant-leaders, I believe God is on a global mission of empowerment, and I plan to participate fully within it. And so, our global missionary work has not concluded, but it will transition to something new, and by God’s grace I look forward to this new, exciting, and challenging chapter.

Kristen, Khaya, and I will return to North America and always seek to learn about the joys and struggles of the people whom we are called to accompany. In addition, we will always discern who God is and who we are in the midst of such diverse settings, and we will always consider how we may contribute to what God is doing to and through an ever-changing and increasingly complex world. We will remain mindful of the lessons we learned in Guyana, South Africa and beyond, we will hold tight to the wonderful friendships formed, and we will continue to be shaped in the years ahead alongside whatever local and global community we are placed.

And so, as we enter into this process of transitions, decisions and additions, Kristen and I ask for your ongoing thoughts and prayers, for just as so many have loved and supported us throughout the past years, we trust that such encouragement will continue in the time ahead. We look forward to this next chapter of life and ministry. We thank God that so many will walk this journey alongside us, and we look forward to all that God will do “to us all” and “through us all” in the years ahead.

Pastor Brian E. Konkol
Project Co-Coordinator, South Africa
Young Adults in Global Mission

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The Rev. Miriam Schmidt is an ELCA missionary in Bratislava, Slovakia. To support  Miriam, or another of the ELCA’s 230 missionaries, go to www.elca.org/missionarysponsorship.

The Rev. Miriam Schmidt

So here we are, at home, in Bratislava — in Slovak, “doma v Bratislava.” We arrived on Feb. 3.

The Bratislava International Church, of which I’m the new pastor, has become the — often temporary — church home for a remarkably diverse group of people over the last two decades. Refugees, ex-patriots, teachers, businesspeople, students, volunteers, government officials and many more from more countries than you can count have come, and still come for Sunday morning worship. Off the top of my head, some of the countries of origin presently represented include Jamaica, Nigeria, Uganda, South Africa, Great Britain, the United States, Indonesia, Korea, Denmark, Norway, Israel, Mexico, Hungary, and of course Slovakia. but this is hardly a complete list. In addition, many of the people who come to the International Church have lived in still other countries around the world before they found their way to Slovakia — Jordan, Morocco, Togo, Namibia — to name a few.

The pastors who have served this congregation since 1994 have come from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, but those who come to Bratislava International Church come from many different denominational backgrounds: Presbyterians, Pentecostals, Assemblies of God, Church of England, Roman Catholics, to name a few. There are also Lutherans from the United States and from the Evangelical (Lutheran) Church in Slovakia.

But somehow by the power of the Holy Spirit and the call of God through Jesus Christ we manage midst all these differences to gather on Sunday morning around Word and Sacrament, to pray and sing, to worship and fellowship together. Thanks be to God that such a thing is possible at all! And I give particular thanks that my family and I have the opportunity to take part in this temporary church home of Bratislava International Church over the next (at least) four years.

Besides being pastor of the Bratislava International Church, my other work through ELCA Global Mission is to coordinate the ELCA’s Young Adults in Global Mission Program in Central Europe. I am now in the process of setting up sites for the four YAGM’s who will be coming to Central Europe next fall for one year. The young adults who come to serve here will intersect with the Roma (or Gypsy) people of Slovakia and Hungary.

Those who come here have no small task. In fact, I am a little in awe of the (as yet unknown!) young adults who will come to be Central European YAGMs next year.  But even more, I am grateful for the chance I have to meet and accompany these young adults through a year of life and work abroad. I hope to provide comfort, prayers, and some practical nuts-and-bolts assistance along the way.

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