Michelle Moyer is one of the Young Adults leaving in August; she will be spending a year in Central Europe. Read her story below:
My name is Michelle Moyer! I am a lifelong Lutheran -- I grew up attending Advent Lutheran Church in Westminster, CO. I just graduated with a B.S. in Zoology from Colorado State University, where I actively attended and participated in Lutheran Campus Ministry (LuMin). In my free time, I watch Rockies baseball, study birds, and sing.
I was first introduced to the YAGM program the summer of 2013, before I started college, when I was lucky enough to be a part of the team visiting the Rocky Mountain Synod's companion synods in Madagascar. For three weeks, we traveled around the incredible island, meeting as many people as we could to develop a more genuine and productive relationship between our churches. One of these meetings was with the YAGM country coordinators (at the time) and one of the current YAGM volunteers of the Madagascar program. As they spoke to our group, describing the basics of the program and some of the amazing experiences they'd had as a result, a little voice in the back of my head piped up.
"This will be you someday," the voice insisted. "You're going to be a YAGM."
Flash forward 4 years, and I have accepted a call to serve in Central Europe as a YAGM volunteer! I don't know my exact placement yet, but I am excited to learn a new language and culture and way of life. I have felt disconnected from my faith lately, and this new journey is my way of intentionally rediscovering that vital part of who I am. I want to allow myself to feel vulnerable, and force myself to rely more fully on God's love and grace. I want to be challenged, and to discover who I am without the labels I have so carefully constructed for myself in Western society. I want to stare my privilege in the face, and try to use my gifts for the benefit of others in new and unfamiliar situations.
By making faith an inescapable and intentional part of my daily life, I am seeking to actively strengthen that connection with God. This mission will challenge me deeply, and push me farther outside of my comfort zone than I have ever been. But I am also hopefully that it will remind me of how much I need my faith, and how much God loves me. I will see God's love in the faces of those who support me when I cannot speak the language, those who frustrate me when I struggle to understand their culture, those who show me new lives and ways of living them. I will learn, and I will grow, and I will, hopefully, find my true faith again.
If you want to follow Michelle's year of service in Central Europe, you can subscribe to her blog here!
Michelle also
needs to fundraise $5000 of the approximately $15000 it takes for her to go to
Central Europe. For a donation of $20 or above, you can choose a day of the year, and Michelle will send you a postcard from that day describing what she did, and what life is like in Central Europe for that day. If you’d like to support her financially (and receive a personal postcard!), the link to her
personal page is below!
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