My name is Elise Egbert (from Trinity Lutheran in Owatonna), and I recently returned to the US after spending a year in Hungary through the Young Adults in Global Mission (YAGM) program. YAGM is a program in the ELCA for young adults to spend 10 months abroad in service with companion churches and organizations. Over this past year, I was blessed to be able to accompany the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Hungary in the small town of Szarvas in the southeastern part of the country.
My duties as a volunteer in Szarvas were to help teach English at two local Lutheran schools. I helped teach grades 3-8 at Benka Gyula Evangélikus Iskola and grades 9-12 at Vajda Péter Evangélikus Gimnázium. I would lead small group discussions, develop and teach lessons, and play games with the students. Having very little teaching experience when I arrived in Szarvas last September, teaching was at first daunting, but quickly became an exciting challenge and something that helped build my personal and professional skillset. The students in Szarvas are incredible - not only are they extremely bright, but their kindness and enthusiasm for learning were infectious, and made me excited to go to school every day.
In addition to my duties as a YAGM, I found other ways to be involved in the community. One of my favorite parts of my experience was playing trumpet with the local Rezesbanda, a traditional Hungarian brass ensemble. I would join the band for rehearsals every Friday night, and at least once a month, we would travel somewhere within the county for a performance. Through the Rezesbanda, I not only had the opportunities to travel and perform, but also to experience traditional Hungarian culture more deeply and build lifelong relationships.
In addition to playing with the Rezesbanda, I also sang in the church choir, Luther’s Roses, which helped me build relationships and aided my language study. Fortunately, Hungarian is a very phonetic language, which makes it easy to sing. Unfortunately, Hungarian is considered to be one of the top five hardest languages for native English speakers to learn. I wish I could say I am fluent in the language, but the reality is that by the end of the year, I was able to have conversations with others, as long as they spoke slowly and used simple language. I really loved the challenge of learning Hungarian, though, and am interested in pursuing further study of it.
Perhaps the most challenging part of my year, though, was knowing that I’d have to come home. My YAGM year was not a vacation - it was a year of building relationships that I had to leave behind. I didn’t go to Szarvas to do what some may think of as traditional mission work either - I didn’t go there to save people, I didn’t go there to bring God (as God is surely already everywhere), I didn’t even really go there to teach English. My “job” in Szarvas was to be in accompaniment with siblings in Christ, to learn from them, and to be in relationship with them. I can only hope that I was able to give back a fraction of what the community of Szarvas gave to me.
I’m only able to share a glimpse of my experiences with the YAGM program here, but if you or your congregation is interested in hearing more about my year, I would love to visit. Please contact Kathy Chatelaine at the Office of the Bishop to learn how.
-
Southeastern Minnesota Synod Office