02/13/2026
‘23-‘24 YAGM alum Madeline Trosvig was recently invited to share about her time serving in the Central Europe country program at Faith Fest, a middle school event hosted by Augustana University for youth from all over South Dakota. About her time presenting to around 100 middle schoolers she said,
“At the beginning of the presentation, I asked how many students had heard of YAGM, and only two middle schoolers throughout the 3 sessions raised their hands (though many leaders and the Augustana college students in the back did!). At the end of the presentation, I asked how many kids would now consider doing YAGM someday, and over half the room raised their hands each session!! Even a few of the college students in the back joined in. It was such a cool moment & even a few college students came up asking for more details. Yay!!
Sharing at this event was a wild full-circle moment for me. I first heard about YAGM when I was a middle schooler at a similar youth event in Minnesota & remember saying to my pastor, ‘I am going to do that someday.’ So getting to be the one introducing it to these kids felt really like a God-wink.”
YAGM’s core model of accompaniment is not just a set of vocabulary words repeated during the two-week orientation for each cohort, but is a set of values that program alumni like Madeline continue to embody as they journey with and serve God’s people for years to come.
