My hands are cupped around a mug of perfectly sweetened warm ginger tea. It’s comforting on this cold lonely evening. One week ago I met three wonderful people who came here to my country with one purpose in their hearts. They came to help. It was so fun to see them make friends with the little bitty orphans. The eagerness and gusto that surrounded their beings were contagious. They worked so very hard. They gave so very much. Was there ever a moment that they did not have huge smiles on their faces?
And now they are gone. It is true that they left bits of themselves here in this land. The impact will be a lasting one. But they also took with them bits of me; and it kind of hurts. Why does it hurt when they took with them such good things like memories of fun times, touching moments shared and love?
I miss my new friends. It’s not like I will never see them again. They will go on living their lives and I’ll go on living mine. We’ll write. Yeah, we’ll try to keep in touch. It’s all good… or at least it will be…
on 
on 
on 
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
mmm… i can totally relate. that seems to be one of the “occupational hazards” of running ministries like ours. we are always having people come in for varying degrees of short periods (two weeks, two months, one year), and it’s always difficult to say goodbye. i don’t even want to start thinking yet about saying goodbye to our interns in december…
i’m sorry that you are sad and missing friends. i hate missing friends
Doesn’t it seem that when you’re partnering w/ people in Kingdom business that the connects we make can go so deep, so fast? It’s cool though- that eventually we’ll all be praising together.
Funny to think about…but all three comments on this post are from our Botswana trip…11 years ago…and we still maintain a connection.
Thank you Amy – you made my day.