i am waiting for you

less than five hours until departure!
i leave you with a poem that summarizes beautifully orientation, thoughts for the year, and things yet to be experienced.

Pack nothing.
Bring only your determination to serve and your willingness to be free.

Don't wait for the bread to rise.
Take nourishment for the journey, but eat standing.
Be ready to move at a moment's notice.

Do not hesitate to leave your old ways behind--
fear, silence, submission.
Only surrender to the need of the time --
to love justice and walk humbly with your God.

Do not take time to explain to the neighbors.
Tell only a few trusted friends and family members.
Then begin quickly, before you have time to sink back into the old slavery.

Set out in the dark.
I will send fire to warm and encourage you.
I will be with you in the fire and I will be with you in the cloud.

You will learn to eat new food and find refuge in new places.
I will give you dreams in the desert to guide you safely to that place you have not yet seen.
The stories you tell one another around the fires in the dark will make you strong and wise.

Outsiders will attack you, and some follow you, and at times you will get weary and turn on each other from fear and fatigue and blind forgetfulness.

You have been preparing for this for hundreds of years.

I am sending you into the wildernessto make a new way and to learn my ways more deeply.

Some of you will be so changed by weathers and wanderings that even your closest friends will have to learn your features as though for the first time.

Some of you will not change at all.

Some will be abandoned by your dearest loves and misunderstood by those who have known you since birth and feel abandoned by you.

Some will find new friendships in unlikely faces, and old friends as faithful and true as the pillar of God's flame.

Sing songs as you go, and hold close together.
You may at times grow confused and lose your way.

Continue to call each other by the names I've given you, to help remember who you are.
You will get where you are going by remembering who you are.
Touch each other and keep telling the stories.

Make maps as you go remembering the way back from before you were born.
So you will be only the first of many waves of deliverance on these desert seas.
It is the first of many beginnings --your Paschaltide.

Remain true to this mystery.
Pass on the whole story.
Do not go back.
I am with you now and I am waiting for you.

-Alla Bozarth-Campbell

the beginning

hello dear readers! welcome to the beginning of my blog, as well as the beginning of my adventure into the next year of my life.

i write to you from my dorm room at the university of chicago, as i am preparing for my time abroad. i am spending the week in chicago with 49 other yagms (young adults in global mission) for orientation. we spend our days at LSTC (Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago) in discussion, song, worship, and fellowship. we have sessions and small groups each day on ways to prepare us spiritually and realistically. overall, it is quite enjoyable spending time with the other yagms, but also a bit of a roller coaster to begin to comprehend all that we will experience in just one week.

a little background about what i will be up to for the year...

i am spending my year volunteering through young adults in global mission with the ELCA. the program is intended for young adults, such as myself, ages 19-29. this year there are volunteers in slovakia, hungary, the uk, south africa, malaysia, jerusalem/west bank, argentina, uruguay, and mexico. placements range from working in the church, education, to social justice. i will be teaching english to seminarians at Sabah Theological Seminary in Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia. i will be living with one other yagm in an apartment at the seminary. there are six yagms total in Malaysia; we will all be in close proximity. four others are teaching kindergarten, and one is working at an orphanage. on sundays, when we are not teaching, we will attend one of the local English speaking churches, and help lead a boys and girls brigade.

our departure date is wednesday (for almost all the yagms!). we are flying from chicago, to los angeles, to singapore, to kk (short for kota kinabalu). the time is 13 hours ahead, so we will arrive in malaysia on friday-- one week from today! the expectation is growing as we discuss what cultural rules will catch us by surprise, what it means to walk in accompaniment, or how we will share our own views on faith, politics, and calls.

prayers for safety, confidence, and solidarity. more soon to come...