Learning to be a Servant

Hello from South Africa!!! It’s been a week and a half since leaving home and so far I’ve spent the time in two states, three countries, three continents, three hemispheres and four airplanes. Needless to say, life has been a little crazy.

All 57 of us in the Young Adults in Global Missions (YAGM) program met in Chicago for a week of orientation and preparation for the year ahead. While at first feeling like a week wasted in waiting to leave, it was a necessary time to reflect, refocus, and prepare. It was a great time to be reminded over and again that this is God’s work, not our own and that we are giving this time to be servants around the world.

The distinction was also made between what it means to serve and to be a servant: a verb vs. a state of being. We reflected collectively quite a bit about what it means to embody the selfless attitudes of servants who give without receiving personal benefit. They help in any situation and don’t give a thought to whether or not a task is below their level. As a group of mostly college graduates it feels natural to seek opportunities that make use of our education level while this may not necessarily be the case in where we are volunteering. The ELCA’s (Evangelical Lutheran Church of America) motto of “God’s work, our hands” was thought provoking to me in these moments. As Christians we are God’s hearts and hands in the world to love as much as we can while here. In this year of living in South Africa one of my biggest hopes is that I can learn to be a servant that loves with an open heart.

While we had lots of time to listen, discuss and refocus, there was still down time as well. We got to go on a scavenger hunt through downtown Chicago to find a cool African restaurant one night and another day we had completely free to explore the city. Of course, I managed to find a park with live Swing music so I taught about fifteen other volunteers how to dance on the sidelines and dragged them onto the dance floor with me soon after.

Now, I’m in South Africa!!!! (finally) after over 40 hours of travel time and a 9 hour layover in Frankfurt, Germany. My South Africa crew and I spent the time in the city walking around the cobblestones and eating frankfurters on a floating barge in the river. It made a fantastic break to the eighteen hours of flying before and after. Thank you to everyone that was praying for me while travelling, one of my bags with half my clothing got lost in one city, causing us to almost miss the next flight, and then magically turned up on the baggage carousel in the next city.

For now, it’s another ten days of in-country orientation and then off to the cities we’ll be staying in for the next year!

Hope all is well at home!

Love from South Africa,
Jen