YAGM: A Year of.....

This past January, I participated in a two day retreat just outside of Pietermaritzburg, South Africa. The retreat was held at a place called Solitude, and the grounds looked like a scene from a lake house in northern Minnesota. It felt as though somewhere along the 45 minute drive, we were transported through a wormhole and back into Bemidji, Minnesota and on our way back, we traveled through the same wormhole to end up in South Africa again. The retreat was specifically designed to be heavily focused on ourselves and what this year means for us. I shared the retreat with Andi, one of the other members of the South Africa group, and together with Tessa, our country coordinator, we dove headfirst into our lives and into what this year really means. During lunch on our last day of retreat, the three of us began discussing the program and how to define the program. Tessa asked a very poignant question to the Andi and me, “Should we call your YAGM year a year of service?”

This seems simple enough, a normal knee-jerk reaction would be to answer yes, but after only a short time of deep thought, I realized that in reality, it was much harder to put a name to what YAGM actually is. To call this experience a year of service seems to sell the program short of what is really happening around the globe. First, before I get too far into what are some options to call this year, let me explain what YAGM really is. Young Adults in Global Mission (YAGM) is a part of the Global Missions program in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). The YAGM program gives people between the ages of 21-29 the opportunity to serve in one of 11 different countries worldwide and to serve in a community within that country.

This year, we have 85 volunteers who are serving in Mexico, Argentina and Uruguay, The UK, Central Europe, Cambodia, Rwanda, Madagascar, Senegal, Southern Africa, Jerusalem/ West Bank, and Australia. As a volunteer, we are assigned a site placement within our country and some people live with a host family, and some people are placed in a flat within a host community for the year. During our year, we are asked to volunteer at a non-governmental organization or a church or school for 35-40 hours a week, close to a full time job. My country program is in Southern Africa, and I am currently placed in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, where I am living with a host family, and I am splitting my time between the Erica House Place of Safety, and the Lutheran Daycare Center that is part of the Parish I was placed in. I am working around 35 hours a week and I am learning each day about our community.

The YAGM program could be called a year of learning. Our learning started back in April at our Discernment/Interview/Placement weekend (D.I.P.) when we were first taught about the programs model of accompaniment, more on this later. Each day I step out into the community, I am shown something new. I learn more about the Xhosa traditions in the areas that surround me, I learn more about the history of the Colored people and more about the Khoi people from whom some Colored people originate. I learn more every day about what it means to be a white male and how my privilege has sheltered me from many of the realities of real life.

To call the YAGM year a “year of learning,” would again, sell the program short. We are learning every day, but we are doing more than learning, we are experiencing. There are some things that we are seeing that cannot be put into words. At our orientation in Chicago, we even had an hour long session on how to communicate our journey to people back home. Though the session mostly spoke about different social media platforms and ways to write our newsletters, it also tried to help us all understand how to better share our journey, which for many will be misunderstood. So then, should we call this a year of experiencing? We are, after all, experiencing an entirely new world, one that looks drastically different than everything we have known back in the United States. We are experiencing the stories of many people who come from places we could never imagine. We are experiencing the life of people that the world has forgotten about and we are experiencing the roll that we play within their lives. We are also experiencing what it means to be a Christian in a global sense, especially in a program like Southern Africa that is tied so closely with the church.

“YAGM: A Year of Experiencing” doesn’t quite fit the bill either. We are experiencing things, but that sounds like we are just sitting by and watching these things take place, when, in fact, we are living amongst people in our communities and we are sharing our lives with them. So then, maybe we can call YAGM a year of sharing? One of the most powerful ways of communication is story telling. By sharing stories with someone, we can get to know them on a much deeper level. Story telling becomes an invitation to see who a person really is. It is an opportunity to hear where a person is coming from and to hear the life this person has lived. Sharing stories is a way to share culture with people as well. When I hear stories about a Zulu wedding and about the gifts that were presented to the bride and the groom, I get to hear about the culture around marriage in the Zulu tradition. When I share stories about how my dad loves to cook for thanksgiving, I get to share the tradition of celebrating an American holiday with my Zulu family.

“YAGM: A Year of Story Telling” also doesn’t quite seem to fit. It is part of the program, but that title somehow makes it seem like we are constantly drinking tea and eating biscuits while telling stories. We do quite a bit of that here in South Africa, but that’s not everything we do. We do actually work with these people and walk along with them on our journeys. We are accompanying these people in their everyday lives. So then, can we call this a year of accompaniment? That is after all what the YAGM program is modeling. Accompaniment is a wonderful word that carries with it the difficult task of defining what exactly it is. Accompaniment is so much about action that it is exceedingly difficult to define in words. The journey of walking side by side with someone and sharing your life, just as you are, while also listening to another person share their life is close to what accompaniment is.

“YAGM: A Year of Being.” Much of the early part of our year was learning how to just be alive. We had to unlearn the very American way of viewing each day as the opportunity to accomplish something, and learn that each day is the opportunity to live. We are given only so many days, so instead of trying to accomplish something all the time, why not just do what we love? If we spent each day doing something we loved, we would be much happier. I spend each day playing with kids, reading books, and learning more about a culture that is very different from my own. While we spend a lot of time just being instead of doing, that still doesn’t quite match up with what our year is all about. It is a large portion of the year, but not all of it.

 YAGMs are considered missionaries, and with that title comes a heavy weight, especially here in Africa. Missionaries have, in the past, come to Africa and told people that they need to change in order to be accepted. The YAGM model attempts to change that idea of what we are as missionaries. We aren’t here to change people, we are here to understand people, to learn more about what is happening in these different corners of the world, and to see new ways in which God is working around the globe. In this way, our communities are serving us, because they are helping to teach us how to better serve our world.

So then, we are back to the original question, should YAGM be called a year of service? Yes, I think it should, but not because we are here to serve the people in our communities, but rather because we are learning how to serve our world through the love and the accompaniment of the people within our communities. Before I left for South Africa, I was so confident about what I had to offer this community. I have been playing music for over 20 years, I have extensive experience with youth ministry, I have outdoor ministry experience, I have ecumenical knowledge about the church, and I know quite a bit about South African history. I felt that I had a lot to offer to this community.

 When I arrived in Port Elizabeth, I realized that very little of my experience actually mattered. I thought for sure I could play the music in church, but with almost all of the music here being learned by ear, there was very little I could do for services. The youth operates very differently from the United States, so while I know quite a bit about working with kids, I found that on my own I was completely useless. My knowledge of South African history served me only as far as being able to ask questions. I had read the history from one perspective, and not through the eyes of people who had actually lived it. Books can tell you only so much, the stories of a whole community can change everything you thought you knew.  That, for me, is the final piece of accompaniment. Listening louder than I speak and hearing what the world actually needs. If I come into a place and think that I know how to serve these people who are from a very different cultural background from me would be arrogant and doomed to fail. Coming in and listening to these people and hearing the stories and hearing what these people actually need has taught me how to better serve the world.

So, yes, YAGM should be called a year of service, but only because a year of “experience, learning, sharing, story-telling, getting your butt kicked every day, being, realizing you might have some things wrong, living, seeing the world, experiencing God in new ways, and loving” is a little too long to fit onto one small pamphlet. “YAGM: A Year of Service,” only gives a small taste of what the year actually has in store. 

Sit Down, Shut Up, and Cry

My YAGM orientation started in Chicago on August 16^th, a very exciting day, but one that had a nearly two hour delay right off the bat. After the lengthy delay, the buses arrived at the airport, and all of us YAGM’s were whisked away to the University of Chicago to finally start orientation. Most of our orientation stuck to schedule, except for our departure date. We were supposed to have orientation from August 16^th through August 24^th, with the last day being the departure of all the different country groups. As the 24^th drew closer, the chances that the Southern Africa group would be departing on time began slipping away, slowly but surely, until the 23^rd, when it was confirmed that due to Visa issues, we would not be leaving with the rest of the groups, but would be staying in Chicago for a short time longer.

After orientation had ended and all the other groups had left for their countries, the Southern Africa group sat outside of the University of Chicago and waited for another two hours to be taken to our hotel. Finally, the transport arrived and took us to our destination. With hopes that we wouldn’t be in Chicago for more than a few days, we all settled in and went out as a group for dinner.  What was supposed to be a few short days in a hotel however eventually turned into three full weeks in the hotel.

While it was nice to have a few days off, three weeks was too much. It was like being stuck in a hamster cage with nothing better to do than to meander over to the hamster wheel, a Target store across the street, and walk around and around and around, not really accomplishing anything other than killing an hour or two of our day. I was so frustrated, I hadn’t signed up to sit in a hotel and do nothing, I had signed up to go over to South Africa and to learn and see how life is really like outside of the United States. I had signed up to go and learn about myself in a global perspective, more so, to learn about God in a global perspective. How could I learn anything in a global perspective when my world for three weeks was limited to room 271, room 248, or room 413?  We all had to trudge through the endless days of sitting and deciding whether to have pizza, sushi, Chipotle, or Culvers for dinner. But eventually, all was settled, and eight of the ten member of the Southern Africa group left for in country orientation.

I thought all of our delays were finally over; we were on a plane and headed to South Africa to finally start our YAGM year, the thing that I had been awaiting restlessly for the past three weeks. The first week of Orientation was great, full of new lessons to learn, new cultural things to understand, and the beginning of our language training. The second week, however, began with news of another delay. My original site placement in East London had fallen through, so I would have to stay back with Tessa, our coordinator, for an extra week. That week elapsed, and I finally departed for my new site, Port Elizabeth, with hopes that I was finally done with delays.

No such luck. 

When I arrived in Port Elizabeth, the only thing that was ready for me was my temporary housing with Pastor Mdluli, his wife, and their 3 month old son Izi. Pastor and I had hoped that things would be settled before the family left for a two week vacation in a month, but again, no such luck. So here I was, living in South Africa, stuck in a house all by myself for two weeks with no work, no car, and no one around the house to talk to. Though from time to time I was invited out to a meal, or someone had cooked a meal and brought it to the house for me, I had a four day stretch where I had no human contact. This was not at all how I had pictured my YAGM year beginning

I was angry at this point. I couldn’t believe how many delays had come up and how long I had been waiting to get started with my year. I signed up to be in the program to be working in a community, not sitting either in a hotel room or a parsonage and doing nothing. I hadn’t left everything I knew back home to come to South Africa and just sit, I wanted to be out in the action and I wanted to be doing something right then and there. I had seen pictures of other YAGM’s in their sites both in Southern Africa and around the world. Everyone was doing these really cool things and had been taking awesome pictures of the friends they had been making and saying how cool their YAGM year had been so far. Yet here I was, reading almost non-stop or watching The Office for hours on end, not doing anything cool, not doing anything interesting, not doing anything related to God. Then, on Tuesday afternoon, the day before pastor was slated to return, God asked me an honest question. “Is your heart really ready to serve me?”

Back in March of 2016, only a few weeks before the YAGM interview weekend, a very dear friend of mine, KariAnn, committed suicide. A person who I considered to be one of my best friends, who was planning to come to Chicago with me for the YAGM interviews, had killed herself. KariAnn had suffered for a number of years from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and anxiety.  For years I had witnessed KariAnn struggling to drag herself out of the house to go to church, something she was unbelievably passionate about, I had watched KariAnn turn and sprint down the street in terror at the sound of a car horn, I had watched KariAnn go from a bright and “life of the party” kind of a person, to a puddle of tears in a matter of seconds, all because of PTSD. And finally, after four years of daily struggle, several stints in the emergency room because of suicidal thoughts, KariAnn finally lost her battle with this destructive disease.  

Like anyone who has been through an unexpected death, I decided the best course of action was to continue on with my life, to keep the emotions pent up and not let them out. There was nothing I could do to change what had happened or bring Kariann back, so why dwell on it any more than I had to? Her funeral was the week before the interview weekend, but I didn’t let that affect my ability to interview. At the interviews, I informed both of my potential country coordinators what had happened. I spoke with a calm demeanor and as factual as I could. This is what happened, this is how I am doing, yes, I might struggle with this during my year of service, nothing more, nothing less.

After I had accepted my position in the YAGM program, I returned to work at my summer camp for the third year, simultaneously a great place and a horrible place to grieve. At camp, I wanted to get through my five stages of grief as quickly as possible over the summer. Denial on Monday, anger on Tuesday, bargaining on Wednesday, depression on Thursday, acceptance on Friday, sleep all day Saturday, campers come on Sunday. It was the perfect plan, but of course it didn't happen that way. Grief doesn’t work like that, especially not when someone so close to you has died so suddenly an unexpectedly.

My emotions hadn’t come yet, so I continued on with life, moving fluidly from one thing to the next with no stopping to think about what I was doing with myself or my grief. Acknowledging my grief came second to my plans that I laid out over the next year. I was doing fine, so why should I stop and take time to grieve? I didn’t want to do it, so God made me. He forced me to sit still in complete isolation for two weeks and do nothing, just so I could finally come to terms with the fact that KariAnn is gone and there is nothing I can do to change it. I can’t fix it, I can’t make sense of it, I couldn’t have done anything to stop it, so just cry about it. And cry I did.

After finally realizing why I had been delayed so many times, I hopped in the shower and quickly melted into a sloppy mess of tears, crying so hard that my head hurt. My heart was desperately trying to heal, and I had been ignoring it for long enough, letting it bleed every day.I was reminded by the crushing weight of my emotional damn bursting that I am human, and I need to feel things. My dear friend had committed suicide; she had lost her battle with a nasty, ravenous disease that takes life without any consideration for the person whatsoever, a disease that is just as dangerous as any other physical illness, something that many people suffer from. I needed to admit to myself that KariAnn is gone, and yes, this sucks, a lot. She fought so hard for so many years, and in a matter of minutes, her battle was over.

It will take many years to come to terms with the KariAnn’s death; I may never be able to fully come to terms with it. But, God sat me down and forced me to really look at myself until I could see just how much I was hurting. All of the delays, while undoubtedly frustrating, were for a good reason. My heart wasn’t ready to serve yet. I needed to finally admit that my heart was still bleeding from the blow it was dealt in March. Though  the YAGM year that I had pictured for myself didn’t materialize, I was still living the YAGM life. God was trying to get my attention so he could heal me, and he finally did so by telling me to sit down, shut up, and cry. Part of YAGM is discovering who you are, and healing is a part of that process. I had been living out my YAGM year in a real way, I just needed to acknowledge my suffering so that I could finally see what God was doing in my life. 

Even as I sit here and type this in February, almost a year after her death, my heart is still broken. KariAnn was a beautiful person inside and out. Through her suffering, she always made sure that everyone had food when they couldn’t afford it, she made sure to show love to people who she knew didn’t deserve it, and she had several copies of the bible around her house, each with almost all of the margins filled in with her own notes and thoughts. She was an incredible human who was made to fight a disease that no one deserves, least of all her. I miss her every day, but the healing process has finally begun. Though my wounds have not entirely healed, my heart is ready to serve God because I can finally admit that I am hurt, I am broken, I am nowhere near whole, but this is how I am, take me and use me as you see fit, God.

Thank you for your love and your grace KariAnn, you are missed every day.  

KariAnn, myself, and her service dog Sonya.
My family has now adopted Sonya, and she
is working her way towards becoming a
therapy dog.