This feels like the first big step toward Uganda. There have been a lot of steps leading up to this and in reality this is just another along the way. However, the nature of it makes it feel very different.
Moving, leaving, changing causes me to reflect (there isn't much that doesn't, if I'm honest) and as I spent time thinking about the people who have had such an impact on my family and I over the past five years, the thing that I regret, the only thing, is the shortness of quality time we spent with the quality people we were blessed to live and serve and worship alongside.
To our PA friends and adoptive family: we are better people because of the time we spent in your presence! The privilege to work side by side, to learn and grow together, to laugh and live in proximity has not left us unaffected or unaltered. The tears that we shed as we parted company were shed, certainly, out of sorrow for what was and will be no longer, but they were also shed out of joy and gratitude for the gifts that you have left in our lives and on our character. Praise God that, within the fellowship of Jesus-Followers, there is no permanence in goodbye. So, as we part company we say simply, but by no means irreverently, "see ya soon". At that great family reunion, at the banquet table of our our Faithful Father we will reminisce once again about the impact of our intersecting paths and the way those impacts altered the trajectory of our lives for the benefit of the Kingdom of Heaven here on earth! Be well. Be blessed. Be faithful and pray all the more diligently with us: "Lord Jesus, Come Soon" and we'll see you in a little while!
It is tough as I reflect on the speed at which the sorrow of leaving transforms, through the excitement of movement, to the joy of arriving. I feel guilty about being glad upon arrival as I still consider those we have left behind. It's true that separation is harder for the left then the leaver, and I have been, as of late, the leaver far more often. That being said, with no less sorrow in our hearts for those left, we are glad to have arrived here. As I held my new niece, with most of my family around, in the house where I grew up, I really was glad.
To our friends and family in MI: it is so good to be with you again! We are excited about catching up and reconnecting. We look forward to the conversations of where we each have been, and where we each are now; of how we, and things, are different now, and how they aren't. We are excited to see what will take place in us through the time we are together, short though it may be. We desire to savor this time with you and, like a good cup of coffee, as we sip on it together, we can be reminded that true community is eternal and intended to outlast just the time we'er together now.
