Sitting in our downstairs floor in our home in India, I looked around the room at the faces I was surrounded by to see my teammates, our incredible hosts, and ministry friends but really and truly all I saw was family. The hours were ticking down and I knew it that soon I wouldn’t be seeing these faces any longer.
I would no longer wake up and go out onto our porch for morning Jesus time and see the milk boy, wave at the mama from across the street, and the little kids go to school or the Korean neighbor doing his morning run.
I would no longer walk down the streets of India, surrounded by the hustle and bustle of all the commotion that India brings.
I would no longer have my morning chai at the bakery down the road.
I would no longer take goofy pictures and tickle little Jerusha that lives downstairs.
I would no longer laugh endlessly with my Pastor and his sweet family.
I would no longer see the beautiful faces of the friends and connections we cultivated this past month.
I would no longer be in the place that I feel the most alive, the home of my heart.
I would no longer.
While I was smiling and laughing my mind and heart was silently saying goodbye to each face sitting around me that night. I was trying to take in each last moment of this family that surrounded me. How had my heart grown so attached, so fast, so deeply to this city and this ministry? This isn’t supposed to happen, this isn’t supposed to be so difficult.
I really hate saying goodbyes and when India is involved my heart avoids every bit of it. It is place and people my heart cannot bear to leave. After many pictures, laughs, and tears the dinner was over and our friends had disappeared back to their homes and I was left sitting on the edge of my bunk bed, sobbing and gasping for breath. I wasn’t ready. Not yet. I can’t say goodbye to India.
For the past two years I have waited for the moment when my feet would hit Indian soil again and the time had came and gone and I wasn’t ready. And even now with six days into Nepal I am still partly not ready. I am still gripping onto India and each day that goes by I can feel the grip getting looser; knowing that I have to let go right now and look forward.
Each day that goes by I learn how much I need Him, how desperately I need His refreshing everyday. I have to have Him, I have to be with Him or else I will drown. I know that for the moment I am saying goodbye to India but not indefinitely. As the plane took off early that next morning I left with tears in my eyes and heartache within my heart but filled with hope of a later day coming when there won’t be goodbyes.
Until that moment I want to look onward to the gold that He has placed in this next month in Nepal. I believe there is something here for me that He has purposed. I am ready to dig out the gold, to find the treasures that He has hidden along the journey.
