"Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass. It's about learning to dance in the rain."1/18/2017 " 11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." Jeremiah 29:11 .
The spring of my senior year of college, my campus pastor told me to look up this bible verse. Like so many other students in the last months before graduating, I was really struggling with what the future held. I had just been diagnosed with anxiety and had not gotten in YAGM. I was trying to figure out what to do after finishing my internship that fall and felt that all the plans I had made were falling through. After finishing my internship, I applied for YAGM again and was wait listed. I was disappointed and hurt after being turned down twice, but knew God must have different plans for me. A few weeks later, I got a call from the ELCA YAGM office, saying I had been accepted to the program. I was ecstatic. In the weeks leading up to orientation and moving abroad, I was terrified of leaving everything that was comfortable. I was going to a country that I didn't know much about and was going to be living alone. However, God always has a plan, good and bad. This last Monday, I was diagnosed with Bronchitis. An illness that I have had multiple times, I knew what was wrong before the doctor told me. Having bronchitis literally thousands of miles away from your parents and from healthcare you are familiar with is terrifying. Being this sick is a learning curve as well for my parents. In true Hungarian fashion, I didn't know what time I was going to the hospital. I just waited until i got the message that we were going. Being parents, mine worried that I didn't have an appointment. We just showed up at the hospital and the doctor helped me. I knew it would work out and I would see a doctor. I just didn't know the path that I would take to get there. The community I am living in has been wonderful in making sure I am cared for mentally, emotionally, and physically. My mentor has touched based with my principal, making sure I have everything I need. After posting on Facebook that I didn't have a toaster, the principal showed up at my door and told me he was getting me a toaster. I smiled when this kind man told me "when he asks if I need anything, literally anything, that includes a toaster." It was touching that he and my mentor made sure I had food, medicine, and was resting. An English language teacher brought me to the hospital to help translate what was going on and what I needed to do. This gave me a chance to get to know a teacher I hadn't had a chance to get to know. Jeremiah 29:11 applies so much to my YAGM year, often not knowing what is going to happen or what is going on. But, God always has a plan. He is showing me how to let go and trust that things will happen. In Hungarian fashion, things never go as I plan them. But, things always work out. Being a volunteer in YAGM, I am learning to allow others to help me, whether that's a ride to the train station, my principal showing up with a toaster, medicine, and a thermometer, or a teacher bringing me to the hospital. My parents were astounded at my brother and I when we were recently all together because so often the two of us were so calm when we didn't know what was going on. We both just trust that God had a plan and the people in our communities would help us.
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Elaina JohnsonI am from a town on the border of Minnesota and Wisconsin. I grew up in Hudson, WI, where I had the privilege of returning after graduating from Winona State University with a degree in Therapeutic Recreation. Archives
December 2016
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