Prayers for our daughter

My youngest daughter 21years old leaves toward Madagascar Wednesday 8/13/14.
She graduated from college this past spring, and wants to begin earning her Masters of Social Work when she returns Fall of 2015.
My wife and I won't be surprised if she ends up at Seminary. But, that's Ellen's dialogue with God, not with us.
The ELCA (Lutheran Church) is sending her, and several dozen others every which direction around the world.
While they are officially listed as missionaries. Their real role is to "walk" with the people and learn that while the world is large and complicated, people are people regardless of their socioeconomic status. People giggle when they are silly, cry when they hurt, etc. Her assignment is to teach English at a school. She has a friend who will be teaching welding in Nigeria.

If you get a chance please include her, and her peers, in your prayers.

Should you want to occasionally follow her blog you can check in here:
http://ellenmadagascar.blogspot.com/p/about-me.html

Yes, I'm a little nervous. Perhaps even afraid.

Thank you,
Daryl
MN

Fear not that which God has deemed. Be blessed and your daughter shall be so.
 
My youngest daughter 21years old leaves toward Madagascar Wednesday 8/13/14.
She graduated from college this past spring, and wants to begin earning her Masters of Social Work when she returns Fall of 2015.
My wife and I won't be surprised if she ends up at Seminary. But, that's Ellen's dialogue with God, not with us.
The ELCA (Lutheran Church) is sending her, and several dozen others every which direction around the world.
While they are officially listed as missionaries. Their real role is to "walk" with the people and learn that while the world is large and complicated, people are people regardless of their socioeconomic status. People giggle when they are silly, cry when they hurt, etc. Her assignment is to teach English at a school. She has a friend who will be teaching welding in Nigeria.

If you get a chance please include her, and her peers, in your prayers.

Should you want to occasionally follow her blog you can check in here:
http://ellenmadagascar.blogspot.com/p/about-me.html

Yes, I'm a little nervous. Perhaps even afraid.

Thank you,
Daryl
MN

"Yes, I'm a little nervous. Perhaps even afraid."

Can I add to that, that you should be proud. Our kids make choices that we may not have made, but will hopefully better the world. My prayers are with your family and daughter.

David
 
Update:
Ellen spent this last week in Chicago at a large group orientation.
She left Chicago today enroute to Madagascar.
Her clear emphasis is to learn about people and all of their complexities.
This is not about religion, skin color, or sexual orientation. Her trip is about people and the fact that we all have the same needs.
She clearly hopes to be a better citizen of our USA on return, and wants to be more effective at helping to solve our problems.

A week ago, my my parting words to her were:
"I am proud of you not because of what you are doing, but rather who you are (actions come from inside a person). Be prayerful, and know you are loved."

I am grateful to all of you for your many prayers.
I cannot imagine what the parents of soldiers endure.

Daryl
MN
 
i did a google search of madagascar and read of its history and current status in the world. very interesting. very poor people and lots of them. i had never considered this as anything other then an area where very rich people in big sail boats disappear in the nasty ocean around the island. .
talk about culture shock ? a very interesting journey she is on. . . . God be with her. . . .
 
I have hesitations about filling the dialog box with OT content.
But, I've received some emails about how Ellens doing.

Attached is a cut/paste from her blog available at:
http://ellenmadagascar.blogspot.com
Thank you all for your many prayers!

Daryl
MN
[h=2]Friday, August 29, 2014
I can only tell my story.
[/h]
Now, we have been in Madagascar for about 6 days. The other MadYAGMs and I flew into Antananarivo a day late because of a missed connection in Johannesburg, but all was well. After loading two cars, including the roofs, with all people and all of our baggage, we drove to a conference center that is run partially by the Malagasy Lutheran Church (FLM) and partially by Norwegian Missionaries. The center is about 4 hours from the capital where we flew into. Over the days, we have had 20 hours of Malagasy class, which has resulted in a lot of notes and not so much actually stuck in our heads, but that will come with time. We have also been to FLM church. On our first morning here, we decided to dive right in and go to church, the service was short, only about 2 hours long, and we didn't understand a word, but we did our best to follow along with our hymn books and English translations of the liturgy. We have also eaten lots of rice, fresh fruit, and some Malagasy street food; we have received more information about our sites (I will write more about that when I arrive there, don't worry!) and we went on a hike to the top of a very large hill. During this time, I have gotten a very small picture of what Madagascar looks like.



Someone asked me the other day, what is the country like? This is a huge question. I can only speak to what I have seen in the last four days in the town that I am in from the perspective of a vazaha (foreigner).


There is beautiful land here, on the way from the capital to where we are staying now, we got to see the countryside, and the land is beautiful. There are also beautiful people, even with more extreme poverty than I have seen before. Even though there doesn't seem to be enough money or other things to go around, there is always love.


Learning Malagasy is hard. We have definitely made progress, and our teacher is wonderful but outside of class everyone speaks so fast! Another volunteer and I went to a bookstore to buy English - Malagasy dictionaries today, we succeeded, but hand motions and our knowledge of French was definitely more helpful than our Malagasy.


The Malagasy people are so patient. We keep hearing this from our coordinators, but, today at the bookstore it was made more clear. The workers could tell that we aren't Malagasy, so we were greeted in French, "Bonjour!" We replied with the Malagasy, "salama!" And the worker smiled, she was so happy we were trying and worked with us to make sure the got the dictionary we needed. Or, tonight when our country coordinators sent us out for dinner to use our Malagasy language skills, the staff knew great English, but they asked us if we are learning Malagasy and helped us practice our skills and correct us as we went.


The fruit is great, no fruit bought in the United States will ever taste good again. Maybe that is an exaggeration, but we will have to see.


The architecture and streets have French origins. There is little infrastructure on the streets here around the conference center, but, the gutters, roads and sidewalks that are still here look very French.

Traffic is chaotic. The roads here are much less busy than in the capital, but between buses, bikes, pedestrians, cars, and pus-pus (they are like carts that the drivers can pull people in), there is a lot happening. There are a lot of potholes to avoid. Pedestrians do not have the right of way. Walking to Malgasy class each day is an adventure.


I cannot speak for this country, I can speak to what I know. I cannot judge what Malagasy do, because I am not Malagasy. I can love, walk next to, and learn from the Malagasy.
 
thanks daryl, keep us in the loop. . . . . besides the blog.
 
Daryl

My prayers & thoughts are with Ellen, May God bless her on her chosen path, She has been sent to do good for these lovely people, Only if the rest of the world like Ellen lived by the Lords command "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself" How much better things would be.
 
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