*** NEXT SEASON OF HEARTBREAK ***
We roll up to a bustling care point. Children who were laughing and waving started taking a few steps towards our bus, hesitating to run up to us. We just found out, and little did they know, it was our last day at ministry. It was an answered prayer to have all the kids there the whole day.
The day flies by. I try to stop time… I try to hold on tightly with white knuckles to every little moment. Every single game is precious, every single song is priceless. In little moments throughout the day, my nose tingles (it does this whenever I am about to cry, it is normal for me) – a tear or two trickle down as I try to process the fact that this is the last time. A last time to laugh with our shepherd, the last time to hold my children (that reciprocate love) and the last time to attempt to hold the children (who does not). I couldn’t believe that this was the end to something that became so normal to me. A tiny, dirty hand shocks me from my thoughts. They wipe away my tears and push back the wisps of hair in my face; they whisper something so sweet and so gentle. I don’t know what though – it was in SiSwati. The older children rush home after hearing it was our last day, much to our confusion. We were a little shocked and felt as if they were indifferent to our very existence, but then Phindile said “they are going home so you don’t see them upset.” Yep, there I go, my nose is tingling. I wanted to comfort them, I wanted them to feel safe and to express their emotions. It hurts me that they feel the need to run.
Then there was ten, ten children left, ten of which were crying. Nomzamo is hunched forward sobbing. Her back rises and falls with her sighs of anguish. She holds the note I just handed her, still folded, in her hand which is slightly opened. Tears fall on the piece of paper. Her named, inked on the outside, smears a little. My heart breaks for my dear friend. I cry with her. Amathie, my little baby girl, hops off my lap and runs around the building much to my confusion. Simelay, who is sobbing as well, shows obvious pain, then gets up, goes around the building, picks up Amathie and brings her to me. Amathie is straight-up weeping. I kid you not. Tears, snot, huffing, red-eyed, hunched over weeping. Yep, there I go again, I lost it. I started crying, my nose was tingling (this is normal, don’t worry) as I hold every single kid that I can possibly hold. I prayed over them and told them how loved they are. I tried to read the note I wrote for Nomzamo to her without my throat tightening. I tried to comfort them as I was being comforted (by God).
Seven of them were missing behind the church building. My team expected playful and disinterested children, instead we found all of them lined up crying hysterically. We realized how much they truly cared about us, and how much we meant to them. When we cried with them, I would like to think that, even through the language barrier, they realized how much we adored them.
We were their first long term team, they were our first family abroad. Heartbreak, it is universal, and it is real.
In that complete and utter heart-wrenching-mess-of-emotions we all came to the same realization: They aren’t crying because they will miss us necessarily, but because they felt God’s love through us. We will be remembered for our love. We aren’t crying because we loved them out of the goodness of our hearts, but because we loved them through God’s strength. This occasion of heartbreak taught us what it looks like to let God’s love overflow through us into other’s lives.
While it was a hard goodbye, it was a good one. I would relive that over and over if need-be. If that is what it took to love these children, it was worth every tear.
We know that perseverance produces character and that finalizes in maturity and in my trials and heart ache, I have grown. It is so exciting to see how much more I will continue to. However, I don’t want to give an organization any credit because it is not the World Race Gap Year and it is not Adventures in Missions that grew me, it was and it is the Lord.
I grew in the area love through this heartbreak. I began to understand what it looks like to love completely abandoned and completely selfless. I learned to love.
So I am thankful for heartbreak
Thanks for reading! Love you all.
