Elizabeth McDonald completes mission work in Slovakia

Elizabeth McDonald has a passion for Africa. The 1998 Rogers City High School graduate has served as a missionary for parts of the last half decade in Russia, Germany, and Slovakia, but if the opportunity to work in Africa were to present itself, she would be on the next plane. ?I would love to spend a couple of years in Africa,? said McDonald earlier this week during a short stay in Rogers City to see her parents Richard and Marie McDonald. ?It is a culture completely different from what we know.? She has offered to travel to Africa, but was told she was needed elsewhere. ?So I said, ?okay, I?ll go to Europe.? So they sent me to Slovakia,? she said.

THAT IS WHERE she spent more than two-and-a-half years. Using the skills she learned studying theater and education at Concordia University in Ann Arbor, she presented skits and music to break down communication barriers to reach out to people, while looking for the opportunity to tell people about Jesus Christ. That often would start by building up trust of the people she met, but there were other obstacles. ?We could not say ?we are here to tell you about Jesus,? ? said McDonald. ?The agreement was, if someone asked us why we were there, we could tell them slightly, but we could not say we were here because of Jesus.? An inspiring moment during her 25-month stay, occurred during conversations with a 16-year-old girl named Zelmira, who told McDonald ?you know I don?t believe in that kind of thing.?

McDonald told Zelmira that regardless of her feelings, she would love her just the same, much the way Jesus does. McDonald told Zelmira, ?I wish you would take Jesus as your Lord and Savior, but I am not going to push.? Zelmira told McDonald that she was different than other Americans that stopped talking to her when she told them what she felt. McDonald said the biggest moment with Zelmira came when the teenager asked Elizabeth to pray with her, even though she did not ?believe anything right now.? She stayed in Slovakia from August 2003 to July 2005, but returned for five months from January to June this year.

MCDONALD BECAME interested in missions when some college friends at Concordia invited her to join a mission team headed to Germany. When the group returned, one of the people on the team wanted to do more, so a trip to Russia was planned. McDonald was not interested in going until she was told they would be visiting a baby orphanage. She went to St. Petersburg, Russia for three weeks and spent another two weeks in Novosibirsk, Siberia. On the trip to Novosibirsk, she made contact with the people that would eventually place her in Slovakia.

McDonald ended up in the narrow mountain village of Tisovec (pronounced Tee-so-vits). Even though she did not have a teaching background, she was given a fulltime teaching position from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. at a Lutheran High School. It was like a boarding school, because the students would stay at the school during the week and return to their homes on the weekends. When the opportunity presented itself, missionaries would invite students to the church for a devotional hour full of music and skits presented in Slovakian English.

?MY BIGGEST highlight was, after being gone for six or seven months, when I finished school (December 2005), and I was asked to come back, my first day back and the welcome I had, it was amazing to know how m

uch I was missed,? said McDonald. She made several friends in the country and would return ?in a heartbeat.? The most difficult aspect for missionaries is the long time spent away from family. ?There were times when you felt as if you were forgotten,? she added. ?You felt that nobody back here knew you were there.? Currently, she is spending time with a family member before interviewing for a couple of positions with the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod headquarters in St. Louis. And on that list of life?s ?things to do? remains that missionary trip to Africa. She said it might not happen until she finds a husband.

?Single white females are not so safe in the world these days, so it is good to have somebody on your side,? said McDonald. ?It?s good to have someone on your side. It?s also good to have that companionship.?