One Year

A lot can happen to a person in a year. On this day last year, I was waiting, because a few weeks previously I had submitted my application to the YAGM program. I knew that it would be a few more weeks until the application deadline, and then the interview process would begin. I was scared. I was scared to want it too much. But I got in. And this last year has been a whirlwind. Interviews. Placement Event. Weddings. Funerals. Traveling. Orientation. New friends. So many new friends. Moving to The United Kingdom. Living with Nuns, working in a church. It has been the most AMAZING year of my life, the most transformative, and wonderful. There's been some ups and downs, but I wouldn't trade it. This year started in Libby, MT, and will end with most of my YAGM cohort in London, England. Next year will begin with most of my YAGM Cohort in London, England, and will most likely end in Libby, MT. I am a different person today than I was at this point last year, but I think that's good. I am finally starting to believe that I am valuable, and that people like having me around. I still don't exactly know why, but I am learning to trust it. I am learning how to communicate what I need. I am learning how to live my best life, even on days when life is hard. I am learning how to stick up for myself. I am learning about what really matters to me. I am doing this life thing, because my life matters.

Christmas reflections

Christmas had a different feel to it this year. It's hard to describe, but it was definitely quieter than I am used to, but it was nice. I attended 3 church services in a 24 hour period, so that was interesting. Snow has fallen from the sky on a few occasions, but it hasn't stuck around. But I don't think that there was snow in Bethlehem when Jesus was born either. Christmas feels different this year, but I am trying to concentrate on the reason that I celebrate Christmas. Jesus is the reason that I celebrate Christmas, it doesn't matter what country I am in when I celebrate it.

29 Years

This year, my birthday was one of the most interesting birthdays I've ever had. It actually might qualify as THE MOST interesting birthday I've ever had. On October 24th, I was sitting in a cafe in Grindleford, with my friends Grace and Allison, and Matt, who is Time for God's equivalent of our Site Coordinator. Grace and Allison and I had just gotten off the train from Manchester Picadilly, and we were waiting for the rest of our YAGM group to arrive on the next train. So we were sitting in the cafe, and I was knitting a scarf, because that's a thing that I do, and Matt noticed that my phone case was a penguin, and the subject came around to the fact that penguins are one of my favorite animals, and I mentioned that I had never seen a penguin outside of the movies. So Grace and Allison had the idea that we would go to the zoo for my birthday, so that I could see penguins.

At 5:30 a.m. on December 16th, I woke up, and I walked out of my bedroom and there was a card on the table outside of my door. I opened up the card, and it was from my Nuns. They had glued two pictures of puffins on the inside of my card, because they couldn't find any cards with penguins, and so they decided that puffins would do. It was absolutely perfect. I left my house at about 6:30 a.m., and headed to the train station. We went to the Dudley Zoo, because, while Chester Zoo is closer, the penguin exhibit is currently closed at the Chester Zoo, so we went to Dudley. I had a pretty uneventful train trip to Dudley, and when I got off the train, I was greeted by Allison and Annie. Annie's birthday is three days after mine, so we decided to make the celebration about her as well. So then we waited for Grace to arrive, and Grace and Annie both gave me stuffed animal penguins for my birthday, and then we walked to a bus stop, and headed to the zoo. We saw so many different animals at the zoo, and of course the penguins was my highlight, but getting yelled at by the lemurs was pretty interesting, and watching Grace try to make friends with a peacock was just entertaining :)

After we were done walking around the zoo, we went into an area that had indoor seating, and Allison and I taught Grace and Annie to play Cribbage, although without a Cribbage board, which I thought defeated the purpose. I don't think Grace and Annie were impressed with our Cribbage game, but it was still fun. We then headed back to a bus stop, and got to the train station with about 6 minutes to catch our trains, Grace, Allison and I got on the train to Wolverhampton, and Annie got on her train. In Wolverhampton, Grace and I had to change trains, and Allison lives in Wolverhampton, so Allison persuaded us to stand outside the station for a few seconds, so that we coud "Be in Wolverhampton Together." :) Then Grace and I got on our train to Picadilly, and had a completely silent train trip back to Picadilly. We got off of the train, Grace kind of unintentionally walked me to my bus stop, and then she found her way back home. So overall it was a wonderful birthday, and seeing penguins is always better with friends :)

 This lynx was not impressed with us :) 

 This crocodile and the other crocodile were best friends, I'm pretty sure.

 PENGUINS!!!!

 MORE PENGUINS!!!!!!!

 That time that Grace and I spent 10 seconds in Wolverhampton with Allison :) 

Winter and Depression

"The bravest thing I ever did was continuing my life when I wanted to die."-Anonymous

Winter has always been a season of constant contradictions for me. Growing up in Montana, there is usually snow. Not always a lot of snow in recent years, but it's usually there. Winter can be the most beautiful time of the year, when the sun is shining, and the sky is blue, and the snow is sparkling, and it's the perfect snow for building a snowman, or sledding, or having a snowball fight. Winter is also good for knitting hats and scarves while drinking hot cocoa or hot apple cider while watching Christmas movies. Winter is also Christmas, my birthday, and New Year's Eve, all of which should be happy occasions.

There is, however, a downside to winter. It gets dark much earlier, sometimes the sun disappears for days or weeks at a time, making it incredibly hard for people struggling with depression. The holidays can be hard if you have recently, or even not recently, lost someone that you loved. The holidays can be stressful if you are struggling financially, or if your family gets stressed out and yells at each other a lot during the holidays. Winter is full of contradictions, but still, it's one of my favorite times of year.

This winter, I am living in Manchester in the United Kingdom. They say it doesn't snow very much here, and when it does snow, it doesn't stick around very long. I have yet to see snow here, but hopefully it will happen soon. It gets dark here a lot earlier than it does during the winter in Montana. I haven't seen the sun in a few days, and it's getting to me. I fight my depression a lot more during the winter, but I keep fighting.

I've been fighting depression, consciously, for about 12 years, give or take a few months, but there was a time, a little bit less than 10 years ago, when I seriously considered giving up the fight. It was sometime in February of 2008, and there were a lot of things going on in my mind, and I was feeling like a burden, and I didn't want to die, but I wanted my pain to end, and I thought that everyone that I knew would be better off without me, or maybe eventually they wouldn't even notice that I was not around. It only ever got to the seriously thinking point, though. I never attempted suicide. The thing that made me continue my life was knowing that if I killed myself, someone, I didn't know who, but if I killed myself someone would find me, and I could never inflict that kind of trauma on anyone.

Suicide has a stigma though. Often times, when someone dies by suicide, it's not officially reported as a suicide. A lot of people think that people who die by suicide are selfish, but I'm not entirely sure that's fair. A lot of times, when a person is in so much pain, physically or mentally, that they think that dying is their only way out, it's something in them telling them that, and they literally can't picture their life getting better. It's incredibly hard to continue on with your life when you want to die. Sometimes I think people should get points just for getting out of bed, because sometimes that is incredibly hard.

Looking back on that time, almost 10 years ago, I am incredibly glad that I didn't choose to die. I would not have met a lot of the wonderful friends that are part of my life now, I wouldn't be living in the United Kingdom right now, and a lot of other things would not have happened. This year I am learning to not bottle up my feelings. I am learning how to tell people what I need. I am learning to be vulnerable. All of these things are hard. I never knew how much I thrived on hugs, until I moved to the United Kingdom. The British aren't really big on hugging, so I don't get nearly enough hugs, which is hard. I also really don't want to have to be that person who needs constant reassurance about her value in the lives of others, but right now, I am that person. I hope someday I will need to be reminded less, but right now, this is where I'm at, and I really need specifics. I NEED to know SPECIFICALLY why I am SPECIFICALLY important to YOU. I need to know what exactly it is about me that makes you willing to keep putting up with me and all of my nonsense. That is what I need. Sometimes I need advice and input and thoughts, other times I just someone to listen while I ramble. This is where I am at in my life. Sometimes getting out of bed is hard, but everyday I get out of bed. Living with depression requires a different kind of bravery, a different kind of strength, but I think I'm strong enough to keep fighting.

Cambridge and Thanksgiving

On November 10th, I got on a train at 7:40 a.m. to Cambridge, to visit my good friend Rachel Reckin, who I hadn't seen in over two years. She showed me the colleges, and libraries, and chapels that may as well have been cathedrals, and it was just really good to get to spend a couple of days with her :) Then I went about life as usual, the weekend before last I built a blanket fort, which is pretty impressive, actually, and last Thursday, the 23rd of November, was Thanksgiving, and some of the people at the church remembered that, and I thought that was really nice. On Saturday, 7 of us in the U.K. YAGM group got together here in Manchester to celebrate Thaksgiving at Grace's house in Salford...it was the first time I had been to Salford since I've been here, and I was meeting our friend Sarah at the train station and then getting her and I from the train station to Grace's house in Salford....we only got lost for a little bit, but then we found the right bus, and it was fine :) It was a very nice Thanksgiving dinner, with turkey, chicken, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, macaroni and cheese, green beans, and stuffing, and lovely people to share it with. That's my life up to this point, more soon :)

 Rachel and I outside of King's College.

 Inside the King's  College Cathedral or Chapel, I don't remember. I thought this was just a plaque, but nope. It's a gravestone. There's actually someone buried under there.

 My blanket fort that I spent most of a weekend on.

 Thanksgiving!!!!

Recent Shenanigans

I have now been in Manchester for over two months. Last week, the 11 of us YAGM's reunited for the first time since we've been in the U.K. We went on a retreat to Cliff College, which is in Calver, Darbyshire. We were there Tuesday through Thursday, and on Tuesday afternoon we hiked up to the cliffs and took some wonderful group photos. On Wednesday afternoon, we went to Chatsworth House, which was used in the movie "Pride and Prejudice", or so I've been told. I haven't seen the movie. On Thursday we went home, or elsewhere, and in between all of that, we talked and talked and talked and talked, and slept a little bit. This past Tuesday, October 31st, I had the chance of a lifetime to see Celtic Woman in concert at Bridgewater Hall here in Manchester, and it was an AMAZING concert :) I also figured out how to get into the cellar, and it was not as exciting as I had hoped, it did not lead me to Narnia, or anywhere magical, actually, but I do know, now, where to go if I need to find a ladder. Also, on October 19th, I got to meet Michael Rosen, who is a children's book author, he is the author of "We're Going on a Bear Hunt", which I read when I was in elementary school many many years ago, or as my friend Allison would say, 900 years ago, and he's written a bunch of other books as well. That is all for now, but enjoy some pictures of my recent shenanigans.

 Michael Rosen and I

 Baby cows up on the cliffs.

 View from the cliffs.

 Danielle and Sarah B. and I like to live on the edge.

 We like group photos :) 

 I mean, we really like group photos :) 

 I found a smaller version of Pride Rock.

 Sarah B. and I found Mr. Tumnus :) 

 I found the Stairway to Heaven, I really need to tell Led Zeppelin :) 

 Turned out to just be an ordinary archway, but I just feel like there has to be way to Narnia somewhere over here....

 An album cover photo, obviously. This is the most serious that we have ever been, and we are missing some people from this photo.

 I didn't find Narnia, but I did find Aslan....

 And Aslan is apparently friends with Mufasa :) 

Annie and Matt and I put on a puppet show in the gift shop, Matt was the pig, Annie was the cow, and I was the chicken.

 It's important to take time to notice the sunset :) 

Me Too

"For those who understand, no explanation is needed. For those who do not understand, no explanation is possible."-Anonymous

Sexual assault is an interesting thing. It can show up in the form of rape, of someone in a position of power using their power to force another person to do things that they would really prefer not to do. Or it could show up in the form of a babysitter, thirteen years old, telling the eight year old girl that she's babysitting to do things that the eight year old doesn't really understand, and maybe the thirteen year old didn't actually realize that what she was doing, was something that she actually should not have been doing. 

When I was eight years old, my babysitter had me participate in things that I'm not going to describe. It only happened one time, and that person continued to be my babysitter for several years. I don't know if she remembers it, and we've never talked about it, but we are friends now, which probably seems really twisted, but right after it happened, I told my Mom and my Grandma about it, but then I never talked about it again, and I actually forgot about it, until earlier this year. I think maybe my Mom and my Grandma may have forgotten about it too. Anyways, we are friends now, and I don't really connect the person she is now, with the person that had me do that back then, and if she doesn't remember it, if she doesn't know that this post is about her, then I don't think it will ever be necessary for me to ever bring it up to her. I just want to move past it. It's interesting though, because when you think of sexual assault, usually there's an obvious villain, a rapist, a pedophile, someone in power abusing someone not in power, but in circumstances like the one I just described, there is no villain, at least not from my perspective. It happened one time, and then never again, so I think maybe it bothered her at least as much as it bothered me, if not more so. So it definitely might not be the type of thing that someone would normally think constitutes sexual assault, but according to my dictionary, it fits, because while I don't actually remember if I actually consented to anything, I do know that at eight years old I wasn't legally old enough to consent to anything, even if I did say yes to something. 

So...yeah. This is my story. This is one of many things I'm working through right now. I've survived a lot of things, and I'll survive this too.

Hidden Doors....

"You never know which door will lead you towards your dreams, until you have the courage to walk through it."- Anonymous


My responsibilities at work are many and varied. Today I found a hidden door. I did some asking around and found out that it's the door to the cellar...maybe the cellar goes to Narnia....

Fire around Me, Fire within Me

“The trouble is, you think you have time."-Buddha

"There are wounds that never show on the body that are deeper and more hurtful than anything that bleeds."-Laurell K. Hamilton

"The things you hide in your heart eat you alive."-Anonymous

"She's been through more Hell than you'll ever know. But, that's what gives her beauty an edge...You can't touch a woman who can wear pain like the grandest of diamonds around her neck."-Anonymous

Ten years ago, on this day, I was eighteen years old. I was living in Missoula, Montana, and was a few weeks into my first year of college. Wednesday, September 26th, 2007 was a day just like any other day. I woke up, went to my classes, did my homework, went to the Wednesday night worship that I usually went to, I had no idea that on that very day, my life had changed dramatically.

On the afternoon of Thursday, September 27th, 2007, I was sitting at my desk, doing my reading for my Introduction to Psychology class, when my Mom called. I answered the phone, and said "Hi Mom." Or something similar, and she said, "Jasmine, your brother John just called. Your Dad died yesterday." My Dad had been fishing with a friend of his, and his boat capsized, and my Dad was holding onto the boat, and his friend was trying to pull the boat and my Dad back to shore, and at some point my Dad's friend looked back and my Dad wasn't holding onto the boat anymore. It seems that my Dad had a heart attack, and drowned. He was 53 years old.

My Dad was a man that I never got to know. He left before I was old enough to remember him, and the next time I saw him, I was 15 years old, in the summer of 2004. I saw him for maybe an hour, possibly less, and then after that, he didn't stay in touch. I had this plan, though, that when I was old enough, and had time, I was going to go back out to Michigan, where he lived, and spend time with him, and get to know him, and let him get to know me, because my theory was that if he got to know me, he would want to be involved in my life. However, he died when I was 18, so I never got the chance to know him, which is something I'll always regret. The logical part of me knows that I was 18 when he died, so there wasn't a lot I could have done to build a relationship a that point, but there's another part of me that just thinks I should have tried harder to have a relationship with him, even though I don't know how I would have gone about that. 

A couple of years before my Dad died, I started dealing with depression. I'm not going to talk about the things that led up to it, because that involves more people than just me. I didn't realize it was depression at the time, but looking back, I'm pretty sure that's what it was. When my Dad died, I fell farther into my depression, but I didn't really talk to anyone about it, because I didn't know if it was okay for me to feel that sad about it, considering I didn't know him that well. I kept most of my feelings bottled up back then, and I still keep a lot of my feelings inside, but I am working on talking about them more. I still get depressed sometimes, but I have ways of coping with it now, and most of the time, just talking about it makes me feel so much better.  Knowing that I am being listened to, that someone hears me, and that my feelings are valid, it just makes me feel better. It bothers me when people tell me to just pull myself up and stop being sad, because, sometimes, just getting out of bed feels next to impossible. But I do. Everyday I get out of bed. It might not seem like much of an accomplishment, but somedays, it is. 

Sometimes I struggle with low self-esteem. Not really sure why, but sometimes I feel like I don't have anything to offer anyone. Like I don't have anything to offer the world. Sometimes I'm not sure why people like having me around, or why they are my friends, because I feel like I have nothing of value to offer them. But my friends obviously see something in me that I don't, because they keep sticking around. Maybe one of them will tell me why, someday, because it would be nice to know exactly what people see in me that makes them stick around. But, also, sometimes I feel like people don't actually notice when I'm not around. Feel free to prove me wrong on that. I'm afraid to fall in love, because I sometimes feel that I am just too much for anyone to put up with, but hopefully someday I will meet a guy who can handle me, bad days and all. Anyways, this blog post took an unexpected turn, but I've been keeping it inside and most of my family and a lot of my friends don't know about any of this, but they will now, and it's just time that it's all out in the open. "You don't know my story, but one day I'll be brave enough to tell it"....It looks like that day is here.

Anyways, Dad, I hope Heaven is great, and maybe when I'm there too, in the very far distant future, we'll finally get to know each other.

Burning down the House

So, I have been in England for almost 4 weeks now, and I think I have spent more time in these last 4 weeks, crying uncontrollably over large spiders being in my bedroom, than I have in the entire course of my 28 years and 9 months of life. I've lost count of how many spiders I have come up against in the last few weeks, but it's been at least 7. They are large spiders. Probably about the size of my palm, factoring in the body and the legs and the head. Maybe a bit smaller than my palm, but you get the idea. These spiders are not small. You would think that I would have gotten used to them eventually, but  no. Every time I see a new one, my blood runs cold. Peppermint oil seems to be working, so long as I spray it daily around my room. 

Also, my house is haunted. There are times, when no one else is home, that I hear voices, women's voices. The names of the voices are Edna and Esther. Usually they are arguing about the importance of matching towels in the upstairs bathroom, but yesterday they were discussing going to Stratford-upon-Avon to have tea with William Shakespeare. I asked my nuns about Edna and Esther, and they said that they don't know anything about them, but they have heard them talking, but usually the ghosts don't speak if more than one person is home. There was also a glowing orb by my head one night, and my nuns didn't have an explanation for that, but I haven't seen it again, but we'll see if it makes a reappearance. I think that the ghosts are friendly, so as long as they are friendly, I don't mind them. 

Grace's birthday was on Thursday, so on Friday Allison came over from Wolverhampton, and Grace, Allison, Izzy and I had dinner at Tampopo's in the city of Manchester. On Saturday, Allison and Grace and I met up at the Manchester Cathedral, and Allison had planned a "Surprise Adventure" that lasted for 9 hours 😊. We saw the National Football Museum, John Ryland's Library, the Victorian Arches, and a lot of other things.  It was a lot of fun, but I was definitely tired by the end of the day. So yeah, that's my life up to this point, stay tuned for further updates.

Never Let Age Extinguish the Fire of Your Inner Child

"One way to find out if you are old is to fall down in front of a lot of people. If they laugh, you're still young. If they panic and start running to you, you're old."-Anonymous, but this definitely happened to me yesterday.


A few hours ago, I got back from our "Preparation for Service Conference" in Leeds. Actually it was in Headingley. At the age of 28, I am one of the oldest YAGM volunteers this year, I am the oldest in the United Kingdom YAGM group, and I was definitely the oldest at this conference. The U.K. YAGM program is unique in the respect that while I am serving as a volunteer for YAGM, I am also serving as a volunteer for Time for God, which is YAGM's partner program here in the United Kingdom. So at this conference, there were 8 of the 12 United Kingdom YAGM group, we really missed the other 4, and then there were other Time for God volunteers from Hungary, Germany, Uganda, and also other places from around the world, and a lot of the other Time for God volunteers were 18 years old. There are two of us in our group who are over the age of 25, so we don't qualify for the Rail Card, which gives a pretty significant discount on train tickets. Our friend, Allison, likes to tease the two of us about being "old", by saying things like, "Does it bother you that there are people here who are decades younger than you?" And of course, every time Allison talks, she changes our ages. For instance, when we started Orientation in Chicago a little over three weeks ago, I was 28. By the time Allison and I parted ways today, I was 903. But last night at dinner I was 1,224. So sometimes my age decreases too 😊.

We traveled to the conference in Headingley on Monday, and we had to change trains in Leeds. Well, turns out that all 8 of the YAGMs heading to the conference had to get on the same train from Leeds to Headingley, so we reunited sooner than we thought, and we were all so happy to see each other, because most of us hadn't seen each other since we got to the United Kingdom, two weeks ago today. A lot of the other Time for God people were on our train too. So we got off of the train in Headingley, and we had to walk from the train station to the University Campus where the conference was being held. That was an adventure. We got settled into our rooms, had some snacks, and did some introductions and had dinner. Then we had worship after dinner, and then we had some free time that night. Our group of 8 quickly became known as "The Americans". We were also broken up into small groups that night, of five or six people in each group. Our group of five became known as "The Adventurers".

On Tuesday, we had some free time in the afternoon, so our original plan was for all 8 of us to go to lunch in town, and then go to the Kirkstall Abbey ruins. Well, four of us ended up going to the ruins, and it was definitely worth almost being late to the meeting that was supposed to start at 4:30. The meeting actually ended up starting a few minutes late, and we got there at 4:32, so we weren't really that late.

Yesterday, we were supposed to go into the city of Leeds and do a scavenger hunt. We were walking down a hill, and the grass was pretty slippery, and I fell down. Don't worry, the only thing I hurt was my pride 😌. There were about 20 something of us at this conference, and we all decided to take the bus into the city. We were trying to find the right bus into the city, and we had asked one bus driver which bus was the right one, and he let all 20 of us get on his bus and he drove us to the right bus stop, for free. You won't find that happening at too many places in The United States. Then we got to Leeds, separated into our different small groups, and kept bumping into the other groups at various places, and we did that for a few hours and then went back to the University. We then went over the scavenger hunt, and we broke up into our country groups for part of that, and Grace pulled a bag of carrots out of her backpack, and shared them with us, and it was really random, but also really great 😊.  Last night, our small groups had to do presentations to the rest of the group, about different aspects of culture in the United Kingdom.  Our topic was travel and transport, and our presentation was not perfect, but it was less of a train wreck than I thought it was going to be 🙂.

T

The Adventurers at the Corn Exchange.

The first Marks and Spencer stall. It was opened in 1884.

The Adventurers with Equus Altus. The Equus Altus is a sculpture by Andy Scott. It represents how packhorses were used in Leeds' wool and textile industry in the past. 

One of the owls from the Leeds Owl Trail. Not really sure what it's all about, but I intend to find out at some point. 

Taking selfies with giant chess pieces is hard.

United Kingdom YAGMs eating carrots. Photo Credit to Paul Webster, who obviously found this entertaining 😊.

This morning we packed up our stuff, had a closing worship and some closing activities, took some group photos, and headed back to the train station in Headingley. We then parted ways at the Leeds train station, Izzy and Allison and I got on the train back to the Manchester Picadilly station, and then Allison and I wandered around Manchester for a bit before she had to catch her train back to Wolverhampton, and then I had a late lunch at Subway, and caught the bus back to Longsight. And now I am at home with my nuns, who I missed over the last few days. I've gotten used to having them around. So yeah, this was a long blog post, but I think it was worth it. It was great to see some of the other U.K. YAGMs again, and ALL of the U.K. YAGMs will be reunited in October 😊, at which point I will probably be 907, but we'll see what Allison comes up with 😊.

Setting Things Ablaze

Travel isn't always pretty. It isn't always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts, it even breaks your heart. But that's okay. The journey changes you-it should change you. It leaves marks on your memory, on your consciousness, on your heart, and on your body. You take something with you...Hopefully, you leave something good behind.-Anthony Bourdain

It's amazing how fast your life can change. Two weeks ago I was still in the small town of Libby, Montana, packing for a year in Manchester, England. I then spent eight days in Chicago, engaging in discussions about topics of varying degrees of intensity. Now, I am in Manchester, England. I am living with two nuns, Sister Jean and Sister Lynfa. Sister Lynfa has been out of town since I got here, so I haven't met her yet, but Sister Jean is very nice. They make wine, and they are going to teach me how to make wine in a week or two. One of my fellow YAGM's, Izzy, is staying with me for a few days because her hostess is out of town, and yesterday Paul and Mark, a couple from the church where Izzy and I will be working, came by with their friend Caroline and they took us to brunch, and then they took us to the Gay Pride Parade. I've never been to a Gay Pride Parade before, but it was really fun. Manchester knows how to throw a parade. This morning we went to church at the church where we will be working, and met a bunch of new people, and one of the ladies from church came over after church and made us lunch, which was delicious. The people at church are all very nice, and welcoming. I think I'm going to LOVE this. Now, if I can just convince the two very large, very unwelcome, spiders to leave my bedroom, that would be lovely.  

Seek Those Who Fan Your Flames

Christ has no body now, but yours.
No hands, no feet on earth, but yours.
Yours are the eyes through which
Christ looks compassion into the world.
Yours are the feet
Through which Christ walks to do good.
Yours are the hands through which
Christ blesses the world.-St. Teresa of Avila


This is it folks! The day, the very day that I have been waiting for for months, is here. I have already said goodbye to some of my new friends, and later today, I will be headed to England, along with my new friends Allison and Heath, Annie and Izzy and Rosina, Danielle and Katie, Sarah and Sarah, and Grace and Molly. Tomorrow morning, Grace, Izzy and I will land in Manchester airport, and we will all begin this next phase of our lives. I have gotten to know these people pretty well over the past few days, and I am so excited to share in this journey with them. I know that some people often wonder where exactly are the young people in the Church? Well, today, 93 of us are heading to eleven different countries around the world, to live in relationship with people of cultures different than our own, in order to get to know them, and to live with them in community. So yeah, we, the young people of the Church, we are out here, and we're doing something real.

Fire within Me

Life is short. Do stuff that matters.-Siqi Chen

In two days, I will be getting on a plane headed to Manchester, England. I've been preparing for this for months, but it hasn't felt real until now. The last few days have been a whirlwind. Right now I am pretty exhausted and emotionally drained, but it's all going to be worth it, because in two days I will be headed to Manchester, and it is going to be a year full of laughter, and community, and new friends, and maybe some hard times and sadness and exhaustion. It will be an adventure for sure, and I am looking forward to every moment of it. This will probably be my last blog post written from the United States, my next one will most likely be written after I get to England and settled in a bit. I am SO READY for this.

Fire Burns Brighter in the Darkness

She new she was playing with fire. And fire inevitably burns. No matter how beautiful it is when it's burning, it always leads to destruction in it's wake.-Smriti Brar

Today has been a pretty intense day. A large part of our discussion centered around race relations. That's a difficult topic for a lot of people. As a girl of mixed race, I sometimes feel like I don't have a voice. A lot of times, especially in the past year, if someone said something offensive about people of color, and if I said anything about it, I was told that I was being oversensitive. So a lot of times, I say nothing, because a lot of the time, I don't feel heard. I don't feel like my opinion matters, but it's not even just about race.

People are prejudiced against all kinds of things. Skin color, appearances in general. Sexual orientation. Whatever. I have written similar things before, and some people might be like, "Jasmine, get off of your soap box, you're beating this into the ground." That's the thing though. If people would stop oppressing and persecuting people who are different than they are, these things wouldn't have to be beat into the ground. Because, like it or not, black people, white people, Asian people, Irish people, gay people, bisexual people, transgender people, Muslim people, Jewish people, Hindu people  and all other people, we're all people. We all bleed red, we all have heartbeats. We all want to be loved, and we want to be accepted for who we are. We want other people to get to know us before they decide whether we are worthwhile or not. We all want to and deserve to be treated like human beings, with dignity, and respect. We need to stop making generalizations such as all (insert group of people) are (insert negative or positive characteristic). Because not everyone of any certain group of people is the same. We are all human beings, we all have good things about us, we all have flaws, and within each group of people, there are good people, and bad people. You can't just decide someone is a terrorist just because they are Muslim, because, some Muslims are terrorists, but a lot of them are not terrorists. So, yeah. We all bleed red, we all have heartbeats, we are all human beings and deserve compassion. 

Light the Fire

Light the fire, in my soul.

Fan the flame, make me whole.

I don't know where I've been.

Light the fire in my heart again.-Light the Fire-Bill Maxwell

The last few days have been kind of a whirlwind, but in a good way. Saying goodbye to my family, coming here to Chicago to this orientation, being together as a group of 90 something people again, reconnecting with the people that I met in April, getting to know my country group, talking with people that have served in my placement before and people that are familiar with my placement, getting so much information thrown at me. It's kind of exhausting. And overwhelming. But pretty soon, I'll be in England. It's going to be an awesome year, and also challenging, and it is all going to be amazing. I have never been more excited for anything in my life. Let's do this!

Fire is the Main Comfort of the Camp

So, I'm going to be living in St. John's Rectory, on St. John Road, in Longsight, Manchester. And that's not even the most exciting thing. The most exciting thing is....I'm going to be sharing a house with.....two nuns. I'm so excited about it. It's going to be an incredibly interesting year :)

I See Fire

"If it's both terrifying and amazing then you should definitely pursue it."-Erada Svetlana

It's been a crazy few weeks, ya'll. I have found out that my placement will be at St. Chrysostoms Church in Manchester, England. I am aware that some of you will be, and some of you already are, extremely nervous about that, considering recent events that have taken place in Manchester, and, also, London, but don't worry, because I am absolutely positive that I will be in no more danger there than I would be anywhere else. Bad things can happen wherever we go. I mean, when we think about it, we risk putting ourselves into danger every day that we wake up. Bad things can happen anywhere, and good things can happen anywhere, and I am going to Manchester to do good things. So now I am just waiting to get my Certificate of Sponsorship from Time for God, which is YAGM's partner in the UK, so that I can apply for my visa, and then I have to get fingerprinted at the Department of Homeland Security, and I should be finding out my living arrangements soon too. I am very excited about this next phase of my life, just pray that all the preparations go smoothly.

Set Your Life on Fire

      "Our willingness to wait reveals the value we place on what we're waiting for..."-Charles Stanley

      It seems that I have spent the majority of the last few months in anticipation. I decided to apply for Young Adults in Global Mission (YAGM) in early October, but the application wasn't available until December 1st, so I had to wait until then to apply. I applied on December 1st, and got my references lined up, and then I had two interviews. One in the middle of January with an alumna of Young Adults in Global Mission, her name was Kelly Bergman, and then at the end of January I had an interview with the Program Director of Young Adults in Global Mission, Julie Rossate.

         I felt like both interviews went really well, but I also knew that I was probably up against between 150-200 applicants, and that about half of those would be accepted, and I was pretty sure that I wasn't going to get chosen. One of my friends though, was an eternal optimist every step of the way, thank you Bree Wallace! I was told that whether or not I was accepted into the program that I would be notified between the middle and end of March.  So then there were a lot of weeks of waiting, and waiting and waiting, and doubting that I would be accepted, and Bree telling me that of course I would be accepted, and just continuing on in that cycle for weeks.

       On Thursday, March 23rd, I got the e-mail. I said "Dear Jasmine, we are pleased to invite you to Woodstock, Illinois for the Discernment, Interview, Placement (DIP) Event April 20th-23rd." Or some variation of that, I can't remember the exact wording at the moment. In the e-mail it said that I would be interviewing with Jerusalem/West Bank and also The United Kingdom. So I had been accepted to continue on in the process, so I was excited about that, because it meant that I was most likely going to end up getting a placement, but the e-mail also said that there was a small chance that I would end up not getting a placement, so, me being me, I prepared myself for that possibility.

      So my flight left at 6:14 a.m. on April 20th, so Bree, rock star that she is, drove me to the airport at 4:00 a.m. I got to the airport in Chicago at 12:30 p.m. Chicago time, had lunch at McDonald's in the airport, got confused for a moment by the price of my food, because I have lived in Montana for most of my life and I always forget that other states have sales tax, and then I found my way to the Bus/Shuttle area of the airport, because that was where the buses were picking up me and the other people participating in YAGM to take us to Woodstock, Illinois. Also, Woodstock, Illinois, is not the location of the music festival thing that happened in 1969. That was in New York. We got to Woodstock at about 5 p.m., had introductions, had dinner, checked into our rooms, had a welcoming ceremony,  had worship and then the rest of the night was free. My roommate, Danielle, was interviewing with the same countries that I was, so that was cool.

    Friday morning started out with breakfast, then devotions, then a presentation on what YAGM was all about, and then I had to go to the country presentation on The United Kingdom, where I learned about the program in The United Kingdom. Then we had lunch, and then I went to the country program on Jerusalem/West Bank. The alums of YAGM talked about their experiences with YAGM, and the interviews started. Everyone had different interview slots, so we had a lot of downtime when we didn't have interviews. My first interview was with The United Kingdom at 4:00 on Friday afternoon, and I thought it went pretty well. We had dinner on Friday night with our country coordinators if we hadn't interviewed with them, so Danielle and I and a few other people had dinner with Josh, who is one of the country coordinators for the Young Adults in Global Mission in the UK, because that was the night everyone had dinner with one country coordinator or another,  and then I had to get my picture taken at 8:32, then we had Prayer around the Cross, and then the rest of the evening was pretty free.

    Saturday morning started out with breakfast, and I had my interview with Jerusalem/West Bank at 10:00. I thought that went pretty well, then we had a session on raising support, and then we had lunch with country coordinators, and I had lunch with Colin, one of the country coordinators of Jerusalem/West Bank,  then the rest of the day was spent on other people finishing up interviews and getting pictures taken, learning how to set up a fundraising page on the YAGM website, then learning about the specifics of paperwork that we would have to do for applying for a visa and such, then we had dinner, and I was invited to a special dinner for participants that identify as people of color, then at 7 Pastor Rafael Malpica Padilla, who is the Executive Director of Global Mission in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, talked to us about Accompaniment and Mission. After that, we had to turn in our comment cards, which we had been asked to fill out with our names, the countries that we interviewed with, and anything that we wanted the YAGM staff and the country coordinators to consider while they were in their meeting to decide where each of us was going to be placed. I simply wrote that there were things that excited me about both country programs, and things that made me nervous about each country program, but that I would be equally thrilled with either program, and that I was leaving it up to God, and to them. We were told that in the event that they decided to not give someone a placement, that person would be notified sometime on Saturday night. The YAGM staff and the country coordinators went into their meeting, and the rest of us had worship. We then had free time, so I went to check out the bonfire for a little bit, and then spent most of Saturday night hoping that no one would come to find me to tell me that I wasn't getting a placement.

     I woke up pretty excited on Sunday morning, because no one had come to find me on Saturday night, so I knew that I was getting a placement. We had worship, then we had breakfast, we packed up, did a group photo, then at 11:00 a.m., we had our placement announcements. They announced us in alphabetical order by last name, so I was second, and when they said "Jasmine Allen-United Kingdom", I was thrilled, and ecstatic, and every other good feeling. My roommate Danielle also got placed in The United Kingdom. Then we had boxed lunches that we took to our country meetings where we got more information about our placements, and then we got on buses back to the airport. I then spent about 4 hours hanging out in the airport and calling people and updating people on Facebook, and then I got on the plane, and landed in Kalispell at a little before midnight, and then Bree picked me up at the airport and took me home.

      So now, I am fundraising, my grandma made a quilt that we are selling raffle tickets for, and I have a fundraising page through YAGM, and I have some other fundraising ideas up my sleeve as well. I will be finding out my specific site placement within the next few weeks, but I will definitely be somewhere in England, Scotland, or Wales. So wish me luck on this next adventure, and if you would like to support the cause, feel free to do so, the link is posted below 😊

Help Me Get to The United Kingdom!