Get Set

Orientation was a roller coaster. I spent the second week of August in Chicago for the Young Adults in Global Mission orientation. But how can one prepare for a year of service in a completely different cultural context? And how does one handle being the next generation of a practice that has changed {corrupted, enhanced, endangered, destroyed, demeaned, improved} the ways of living in so much of the world? I am a missionary, in name, deed, and service. But it is a title that carries great and grave connotation even within the United States. The week was intended to challenge our views and perspectives, reveal that our perceptions are shaped by the course of events in our lives, and begin the conversation on what that means as a Christian in the world.

LSTC welcome sign: the location of Orientation

Throughout all of orientation, we returned to ourselves. It didn’t make sense at first, but it is impossible to fully serve others without knowing yourself. Every action has an impact, although it is sometimes impossible to know what it will be. Knowing from where within oneself a response begins is pivotal to better gauging the actions we take. Mindfulness of one’s origins in the process of action becomes imperative to move forward on the path of acting the best possible way toward another person.

We listened to a lot of people talk about many different origins. They discussed origins of themselves, of others, and how those origins impact their life everyday from buying food at the supermarket to the discrimination they face. It is all in an effort to get us (the YAGM) to understand our lives are unique. Just as with anything, uniqueness comes double-edged. It is great to be original and special in our own way. However, we often fail to see that others are unique and completely original in their own way apart from us. The consequence of this is a failure to recognize the value in someone else; that they are just as important to the world as we are. The whole purpose of the YAGM program is to remind all those that go to other countries, all those who support them in their journey, all those in the host communities that accept them, all those who read the newsletters and blogs, all those who hear the story of the YAGM experience that we are all a part of God’s creation together, no worse or better than anyone or thing, and are loved fully and unconditionally.

That’s why the ELCA practices the accompaniment method.

Chicago, one of the train lines, I can never remember which.

Accompaniment

I graduated with a degree in Mechanical Engineering. It was a long and winding path that I could never really understand why it was the one God led me down. I always lover roller coasters and wanted to build them. I worked for this ideal of success in being an engineer partly because of the way society conditions youth, but also because I just wanted to build rides. And then, I didn't. After a roadtrip in between my sophomore and junior year, my perspective was changed and I saw how many more things I could do. I experienced a different way of living that I preferred to the one I thought I had wanted. 

I didn't know if I would ever find that way of living again. I was worried at the ripe age of 19 that I had already experienced the most amazing thing I would ever do. At least, that is the way everybody I talked to about the trip made it sound. But I found it again, unexpectedly at Lutheridge. Summer camp showed me what I had been looking for, if only for a moment, and it gave me the language to describe what had made the roadtrip so special. It is the community. It is a place apart. Both the roadtrip and camp took me away from my regularly scheduled life and put me in relationships with other people and places that can only happen when the nonsense and white noise of living is pushed aside. But, at the turn of summer, camp also ended.

When I went on to intern at Universal, I was somewhat disenchanted from the world of themed entertainment. I had fun throughout my time, but it could not stack up to the importance and meaningfulness of living that I had experienced elsewhere. I left on great terms having done well, but unsure of my desire to return. I joined a community at a church in Orlando called Salem Lutheran Church. I kept afloat, drifting through the engineering work like tubing down a river: enjoying it but not really feeling like I’m doing much.

Through the next year, I went back and forth on how I felt about a lot of things; life, faith, engineering, summer camp, travel. I wasn’t sure how it all fit together. There are many things I thought I could do and many more that I wanted to do than actually possible. It all looks like a hundred roads spread out in front of me no one better than the rest. It didn’t and still doesn’t make sense from a religious perspective why God would lead me down one path such a long way and then take me backwards nearly just as far.

The last year of my schooling held just as many twists and turns and many loops as well. I studied a lot, worked even more, and slept very little. Somewhere I found time for my friends, without which I probably would not have made it. The end came faster than I could anticipate, it raced by tackling me and throwing me to the ground. You’re in school for so long and then al of a sudden the door is wide open to a cloud of dense fog.

Luckily, I had applied to YAGM. A year of service somewhere very interesting, somewhere I could step away from everything I knew completely. I passed through the summer after graduation at Lutheridge once again. I prepared a few things, but mostly kept to the work in front of me, doing a job that I love and that doesn’t really feel like doing any work at all. I looked forward to some time to think. Some time to figure a few things out.

Orientation in Chicago. It still didn’t hit me that I would be leaving for Madagascar for a year. A thought like that is too big to get into a person’s head quickly. It takes a long time for it to wriggle in through the ear. It really wouldn’t be for much later that I had an inkling of understanding, and even now, ten months more abroad doesn’t make much sense. It certainly wasn’t in my mind the first day.

Dan got up to speak. (He is the YAGM program director.) In our first introduction to the next year of our lives he explained what we would do. At least, sort of. We are missionaries who accompany. We go where we are invited and do what we are asked. He told a story about the years of his youth. In them, I found something a bit similar to my own. He loved to play with Legos. He and his friends each had a set. They would build things on their own and take them to each other’s houses where they each would play with their own set. They would build really cool things with all the pieces they liked best and show them to each other. One day while playing, someone had the idea to put all the Legos together so they could build a roller coaster. However, it meant they had to take apart their best creations. They had to dismantle the things they like best and mix them in with everyone else’s pieces. But they did it, and in the end, they had a fully functional roller coaster. Dan told us that’s what we are doing with accompaniment in this next year. We are taking the best part of ourselves, our language and culture, and sharing them with someone else to create something even more incredible than what we can do with only our own lives. He said what we are doing as missionaries is building roller coasters.

The Chicago skyline from Promontory Point, where we had a campfire and s'mores Sunday night.