YAGM

Dear Friends and Family,

I wanted to inform you of a major recent development in my life. A couple of months ago, I applied to participate in the ELCA's (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America)  Young Adults in Global Mission program. This is a year-long service opportunity for people in their twenties in conjunction with an ELCA church overseas or a partner organization. YAGM sends young adults to one of nine different countries, where they do anything from congregational ministry to teaching english in a school to working on agricultural and environmental sustainability to doing some kind form of social work. Basically, participants in YAGM get to do a lot of cool stuff.

In any case, I found out yesterday that I have been asked to participate in the Discernment, Interview and Placement event for the YAGM program next month in Chicago. At this event, I will learn more about the program and I will interview for the two countries I have initially been selected for: RWANDA and MEXICO. In other words, unless I fall madly in love and run away with a girl or the ELCA finds out that I am a crazy lunatic plotting to take over the world, then I will be living and learning and serving in either Mexico or Rwanda next year!

I am very excited for the opportunity to participate in this program, which would begin in the middle of August. I am also very excited for the service opportunities that I could be a part of. Mexico's opportunities include working at a shelter for migrants passing from Central America and Mexico to the U.S., fighting for the rights of Indigenous people, teaching English, working with at-risk youth and orphans, supporting women who are/have experienced domestic and sexual violence, or being a part of community development projects in sustainable agriculture and ecological sanitation. Rwanda's opportunities include working in a church, supporting and developing outreach programs to youth, working in a vocational training school, teaching basic Bible and Theology classes, working on community health and development projects, working and teaching in a Lutheran high school, and working for women's economic development and support groups.

I will definitely be informing all of y'all of the results of the Discernment, Interview and Placement event on April 19th. In the meantime, thank you for all of your love, support and encouragement!