The Struggle, and the Learning, Are Real by Kirsten Laderach

The struggle is real. We might say in jest to reference the often superficial and even ridiculous. But it is. Struggle is real and present and reoccurring in our lives. It comes in waves, it stirs our beings, it disrupts our souls–yet it can bring us new life and new clarity if only we will listen and let it.

There is much I love and appreciate about the work I get to do in Madagascar with Young Adults in Global Mission (YAGM). Madagascar is not an easy place to live: it’s under-resourced, corrupt, dirty, confusing, at times mind-boggling and devastatingly poor… and yet while all of that is true it is also devastatingly beautiful. The people, landscapes, unique rhythms, creativity, surprising novelty… there is so much to take your breath away, to break your heart, to challenge your mind and somehow it can do this all while simultaneously reviving the soul. But none of this happens without openness, willingness, challenge and struggle. Living can be a contradiction in terms. Madagascar has taught me that.

I arrived in Madagascar in 2015, wide-eyed and naive. I came on faith, fear and fortitude. It has proven to be enough so far; I’m still here. But it didn’t prove to be all, thank you Jesus. Teachers presented and continue to present themselves to guide and guard, to clarify and confuse. I struggled a lot those first months and years, I still struggle, but today my struggles look different.

Working with Young Adults in an international setting brings many challenges and opportunities. Being in a unique place like Madagascar can, for some, mount and exacerbate the struggles they knowingly brought with them. Some will be blindsided by a whole set of personal struggles to which they were previously oblivious, and some will continue to fight the good fight of denial in the face of all struggle and adversity. Our humanity never leaves us no matter how far we are from our main home.

Through my time here, I have lived through and experienced much struggle personally and professionally and so have the many volunteers who have been here. Some struggled largely and openly with me, others kept most things to themselves. But we have all been teachers to each other. I may be the country coordinator, pastor and elder but I am human, just bumping around this life succeeding and getting bruised just like all the Young Adult volunteers. So I’ll share some of what this time has taught me and what I think and hope it might have taught the volunteers…

I’ve learned that some people’s desire to hold onto their own sense of dysfunction and righteousness can be immensely more powerful in their head and heart then the prospect of something better and more life-giving being just beyond those personal locales.

I’ve learned that we all need to hear the words that we need to hear. We are hungry for affirmation. Especially we need to be reminded that our faith is not ill-founded. We are known and loved, we are children of God, knit together in our mother’s womb. We were loved before we knew to love, we have been beautifully and uniquely created to live the life that God has called us into and to be. I have found that these words bring needed assurance and tears both to the recipient and to the one proclaiming them.

I’ve learned that we need and want to be heard. We need to be acknowledged in our struggle.

I’ve learned that in the struggles of our lives we are most tender and open when we are met with a similar soul who is willing to sit with us in our struggle, while we sit with them in theirs. And not in a form of transaction or deal, for both struggles might not even be spoken or known to each other. We instead just need to be present in the reality that we all struggle and we are all in the process of becoming whole.

I’ve learned that struggle comes in waves, that sometimes it feeds on other struggles and sometimes one struggle will push another more latent struggle to the raw surface.

I’m not sure I know completely what the Young Adults have learned through their time here, but I hope they have learned to be more patient with their own struggles, seeing that grace and space are more often than not what is needed and that pushing or forcing themselves through their uncomfortable feelings only results in those uncomfortable feelings and struggles being returned to their latent status, just waiting for a time to reemerge with even more negative power.

I hope they have learned that we all struggle, make mistakes and grow. It’s not a sign of weakness but instead a sign of strength. For anyone can ignore the challenges right in front of them. It’s the person with internal strength that picks up the struggle, wrestles and dances with it until they have learned the lesson the struggle came to teach.

I hope most of all that they have learned (or at least are working to learn) to trust themselves. I hope they have learned to trust the feeling in their gut which can guard and guide them throughout their lives. This is repeatedly a challenge for the Young Adults I see and work with, this lack of self-trust. We spend a fair amount of informal time trying to develop that sense of self-trust, trying to encourage confidence, trying to instill a sense that they are enough, that they hold wisdom, creativity, positivity and grace. They can make good decisions and when they do not, they are enough to make a new decision. One decision does not define us and our worth.

Maybe mostly for the Young Adults and me, struggles can give us an opportunity to open up and depend on people we might not have before. Struggles can simultaneously suffocate and open us up to solutions and ideas that we might not have previously seen. Struggle is a brilliant teacher. Stay open, willing and vulnerable to embrace all that our struggles are ready to teach us. Listen and let new life and clarity come.

The Rev. Kirsten Laderach is the Country Coordinator of a program called YAGM (Young Adults in Global Mission) in Madagascar. The YAGM program is a ministry of the ELCA Global Missions Division. She received her Masters of Divinity from Luther Seminary. She currently lives in the heart of Antananarivo, Madagascar.