This poem was given to us on our first day of YAGM orientation. It embodies the ELCA and YAGM's hopes and guidance for us in the coming year. I hope you will pray this for me. This poem applies to us very much and I absolutely love it. 

Passover Remembered...
by Alla Bozarth-Campbell

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 take time to explain to the neighbours.
Tell only a few trusted friends and family members.
Then begin quickly, before you have had time
to sink back into 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, fatigue, and blind forgetfulness.

You have been preparing for this
for hundreds of years.

I am sending you into the wilderness to 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
who feel abandoned by you.

Some will find new friendships in unlikely faces,
and old true 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.
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 the desert seas.
It is the first of many beginnings -
your Paschaltide.

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

Here are some pictures from our first day in London. Got to do some sightseeing before our placements start later in the month. London is a gorgeous city. I am honored to see such an amazing city I have loved since before I ever laid eyes on it. Dream come true.

Ashlyn and I in front of the Tower Bridge

Skate park on the south bank of the Thames. Thought it was cool.

When I saw her, Big Ben, I openly wept. (The clock tower's official name is Elizabeth Tower)

So beautiful. I have waited my whole life to see it.

The London Eye.

The next two pics are just traditional London. <3

When we were on the London Bridge, or as they call it the Tower Bridge, it came up. That was very cool.

This is the Tower of London. The roses were just installed earlier this month and serve as a memorial to the first World War.

Tower Bridge

For lunch we had Fish and Chips! 

The Union Jack and the Gherkin.

On the Millennium Bridge. For those who don't recognize it, it is the bridge in the Harry Potter movie The Order of the Phoenix I believe, that the Dead Eaters attack.

Hello everyone! I am glad I can finally connect with you after a week. We didn't have internet access where we were staying so I couldn't make any updates. However, now that I have wifi…because I am in LONDON!!! I can share with you again. Like I said, we have made it to London. Woohoo! (More info on that to come). Before talking about arriving in London though, I wanted to share a tiny, smallest of the small, snapshot of this past week of YAGM orientation in Chicago, Illinois…

The week of YAGM Orientation was one that I don’t think any of us were expecting. When we, the YAGM’s, first arrived in Chicago, we unanimously agreed we had no idea why we were there and what on earth we were going to do in the next week between saying goodbye to our families and preparing to leave the country for an entire year.

It became pretty evident in a matter of hours however, we had begun an amazing week that none of us realized that we needed until we clung to our time together desperately. From the opening worship Wednesday night, to devotions and our first presentation with YAGM alumni the next morning, our worlds were turned upside down. In the moments that we began to spend together as 63 not so seemingly similar young adults, we realized quickly that there was something very powerful bringing us all together. We realized that we were all very much the same and felt at home with one another. Some people even saying that this was the first time they ever felt truly at home or free to be themselves in their whole lives. We also began to realize that the year we were about to experience was no trip or fun vacation. The worlds we were about to enter were dangerous, intense, and filled with conflict. It was a huge reminder that what we were doing gave no guarantee that we would enjoy our entire experience or be happy entirely in our decision to do this. There would be times when we would be very much alone. There would be times where we would be incredibly angry about what we saw happening and couldn't do anything about it. There would also be times when we would bear witness to amazing acts of love and kindness. We would experience people and moments were God is clearly present in that space. Our experiences were about witnessing. Seeing another way of life that is different from our own so that we could change and be changed by it.

The group of 63 people I came into this week with are now some of my most beloved brothers and sisters. These are friends that I have shared a very deep connection with very quickly and it’s not like anything I have ever experienced before.

It is hard to explain and I am sure it is quite perplexing to understand, but all I can really say about the experience was that my fellow YAGM’s and I changed. Like I said, it’s hard to muster up the words from my orientation week and the surprising emotions it brought up in all of us and I apologize for that. I am honestly, at this point in time, trying to figure out how to write about this awesome experience, even thus far, when I am finding myself at a loss for words for most of it, or at least a loss for words that do it all justice. I have never been very good with words so I apologize for that too. So much has happened in so little time and it’s hard to break it all down. I guess what I mostly want you to come away with from this blog post is…even here on my first day in London I am already not the person I was when I left you. The phrase I would use to sum up my week of orientation preparing for my YAGM year would be profound awakening. 

Here are some pictures. The first one is this years group of YAGM's. The second picture is the twelve of us going to the UK.

So, the blog is up...which means I am finally free to write about this experience. I will start by saying thank you to all of you for supporting me! I haven't even gotten to England yet and I already feel like the journey is well underway. I can't tell you how excited I am for this experience. It has been something I have wanted to do since I was young and it just feels like the right time in my life to do it. I am so thankful to the ELCA and the Young Adults in Global Mission (YAGM) program for giving me this opportunity.

Over the next year I will be living in Streatham, England with Pastor Rob Powell and his wife at their vicarage next to the church (St. James). I will be working in the church,as well as in other churches in the community, with children,young adults, and a variety of other groups. I anticipate my blog being mostly about my experiences with the English culture and my faith journey through the St. James church community. Here's to a hopefully intriguing and entertaining blog.(that's free of spelling and grammatical errors as possible :D) Cheers!