Even though Jill Disbro is originally from Ohio, she called the Virginia Synod home for the past four years while she attended Roanoke College. During her senior year, Jill learned that she had been accepted into the ELCA Young Adults in Global Mission Program (YAGM), a global mission program for young people ages 19-29.
Mexico seems like a natural appointment for the young woman, who just received her degree in Spanish in May. After studying the language for four years, Jill will be putting her communication skills to the test as she works with children in the town of Tepoztlán for the next year.
The eight eager Mexico YAGMs arrived in together on August 20th and have since been dispersed to their individual work sites. Now that Jill has had time to make the transition into the new culture, we contacted her to see how she was doing. This was her response:
“This past month has been a crazy transitional period full of orientations and new experiences. After a week of orientation in Chicago we arrived to Mexico on August 20th. We spent the first two and a half weeks with our group of eight YAGMs and two coordinators doing in country orientation, which included visiting everyone’s worksite and a full week of Spanish classes. The Mexico program is different from most other YAGM country programs in that here we are not affiliated with a church because the Lutheran Church does not have a very large presence here in Mexico; the country is about 90% Catholic. So visiting peoples’ worksites here meant visiting non-profits around the Central Mexico region. Two people in our group are working at migrant shelters that house people traveling through Mexico, often from other Central American countries, to the United States. Another YAGM in our group is working with both children and adults who are differently abled. One YAGM is working with an environmental organization that deals a lot with problems of water scarcity. Finally several of us are working with children and youth in different capacities and in different organizations.
After two and a half weeks of learning about Mexican culture and history, learning Spanish, visiting worksites, and trying not to get lost in Mexico City’s immense public transportation system our group parted ways on September 7th to head off to our permanent worksites. As of today
My time so fa
r has been dedicated in large part to getting to know the town of Tepoztlán and all of its traditions and getting comfortable with my family; however, that’s not all I’ve been doing. I have also begun working for a non-profit called La Jugarreta which focuses an increasing the participation of children and young people in their community by providing them with a safe space to play and a means of realizing projects that promote their sense of agency. I have been having so much fun spending time with the children and helping to plan events like our upcoming excursion to the children’s museum as well as our annual Festival of Games in October. It is a great organization with great directors and staff and I’m really excited to work with them the rest of the year.
This upcoming year is sure to bring new experiences, new relationships, and many surprises along the way. I will be tracking my adventures on a blog called Mi Vida Tepozteca (My Tepozteca Life), which can be found at mividatepozteca.wordpress.com. Refer to my blog to stay up-to-date on my experiences as a Young Adult in Global Mission in Tepoztlán and please keep me and my fellow YAGMs in your prayers!”
It costs $11,000 to support an overseas missionary, of which each YAGM participant is required to raise $4,000 in personal support. While Jill has met her goal, the ELCA invites people to support the work that she and all the Young Adults in Global Mission are doing. With this full support, the ELCA will be able to continue expanding the YAGM program to allow more to participate. If you would like to support ELCA Global Missions, email globalchurch@elca.org for more information.
