Saturday night we had a BBQ with Jireh Children’s Home. We spent the evening watching Despicable Me 2, eating cow tongue (You heard that right. Here it’s a delicacy for special events like weddings.) and goofing off. I taught the some of the girls different steps from my dance classes way back in the day. We played Water and Ice (aka freeze tag). It was a blast.
At the end Ashley played a video she made of highlights from the past few weeks. I had a lot of mixed feelings while watching it. On one hand it totally warmed my heart. Looking back on so many good memories and seeing the progression of how we’d wiggled into each other’s hearts was nice. On the other hand, it broke my heart to think about how I’m going to have to leave these precious friends of mine on Wednesday.
I can’t pin point when they became important to me. All I know is I love these people. And while I wasn’t as excited about being in India as some of the other countries we’ll be going to, I am leaving with a much different perspective of this beautiful country and its people. If I could pack all these kids in my pack and leave my stuff here, I would in a heartbeat.
Part of me hopes leaving will get easier in later countries (because I feel like leaving is going to rip my heart out). On the other hand, I hope it’s hard every month. I don’t want it to get easier because that would mean I’m not throwing myself into this 100%. I don’t want to have any reservations or hesitations about sharing Jesus’ love or building relationships. And I don’t regret one minute of anything this month.
My prayer is that every month as God shows up lives will change and connect. While it’ll be sad to leave, it will be even more joyous to know I have this huge family all over Asia. And even if we never see each other again here, we will all be united in Heaven. And that will be one sweet reunion.
