#elcagm

[allisonwesterhoff]

This is me and Rev. Philip Knutson who served as my driving instructor, handyman, pastor, cultural context guide, colleague, and dear mentor while I was in South Africa. He gave a speech about me during the Banquet at the Summer Missionary Conference, as tradition to honor missionaries ending service. This picture depicts our personalities pretty well with him pensively looking up and me laughing mischievously. I'm so grateful for the humbling and powerful community of global missionaries who have, are, and will serve the ELCA. It was such an honor to get to know them, and be apart of such a faith filled community. May we know God's peace, an unsettling peace, that encourages us to bring justice and grace to all God's people. #theBIGthings #littlegingerbigworld #IAmLutheran #youngreformers #elca #elcagm #smc2016

[betweenandbeloved]

DIP Day 3: 4/16/2016

 Here I am Lord, is it I Lord?

I have heard you calling in the night.

I will go Lord, if You lead me,

I will hold Your people in my heart.

Today was a lot of logistical information.  We had a presentation about fundraising and all that good stuff.  There will be an online giving page for those tech savvy people and donations through the mail for everyone else. Once everything is finalized that will be up and running.  The program costs just over $13,000 to send 1 YAGM, and we make up 30% of the ELCA missionaries (which is pretty sweet if you ask me).  We also had a presentation on the logistical information (that was really fast paced and not informative), but it covered a bunch of the forms we will need to fill out at some point in the next few months.  Basically once everything is finalized we will be given a very extensive checklist.

I had my lunch and interview with Cambodia so I can finally start to process all the information.  Per my usual self I made pro and con lists for both countries hoping to find some clarity in my decision and call to serve.  Unfortunately this did not work and I ultimately decided not to decide.  I will genuinely be happy in either country placement and I voiced my concerns on my decision card and am going to leave it up to the country coordinators and God.  Ultimately, they know better than I ever could.

So here’s what I need from you.  Please pray for me and my fellow YAGM’s as we go into tonight and tomorrow voicing our preferences and making decisions for ourselves.  Please pray for the country coordinators and ELCA Global Mission staff to guide them in their decision making and placement choices for each of us.  Please pray for all the countries and the people of those countries who are preparing to receive us.