‘I needed to accompany
them in their brokenness and sadness.’
… was also an opportunity to get warm. Many people didn’t have doors and windows.”
Building relationships Titze lived five minutes from the children’s house so he was oſten able to build deeper connections with his Roma neighbors who came there with their children. “I needed to accompany them in
their brokenness and sadness,” Titze said. “It was the hardest part of the year and the hardest thing to walk away with at the end of the year.” Accompaniment, a model of
ministry involving mutuality, interdependence and solidarity with neighbors around the world, is a key element of the YAGM pro- gram. Each year the ELCA places 60 young adult volunteers like Titze in one of nine country programs. Each year these young adults return home transformed by all they have learned from their companions. “At its core, the Young Adults in
Global Mission experience is about learning to live in deep mutual relationship with others from whom the volunteer is very different,” said Heidi Torgerson-Martinez, YAGM program director. “It’s about seek- ing and finding the face of God in people and places where most would never think to look. It’s about learning how to follow Jesus, whose life and ministry were characterized by radical relationships of love.” Titze developed special relation-
ships with his host family and his supervisor Györfi, who became both a friend and spiritual adviser. Since his return to the U.S., Titze also has kept in touch with his host brother, Little Sani, through Facebook. “When Tad arrived, he was a
boy. When he leſt he was a man,” Györfi said. “He experienced hard
times and joy with the Roma. He grew in his faith and Christian devotion. We miss him very much, despite the fact he was only here a [short time].” Titze is glad he made the deci-
sion to serve for a year. “Te [YAGM program] has affected me profoundly and changed the way I think about church and com- munities,” he said. “Each and every day we have a chance to recommit ourselves to living with purpose, humility and compassion.”
Thad Titze and his host dad, Rózsa Sándor (left), pose by a lake in the Carpathian Moun- tains in the Ukraine while on a three-day trip with the Hungarian Lutheran church to visit Roma camps in the area.
Author bio: Strybis is a marketing manager for ELCA Mission Advancement. She and her husband belong to Resur- rection Lutheran Church in Chicago.
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March 2015 41
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