Leaving for the Race, I prepared myself for several goodbyes. I knew that every month, I’d have to say goodbye to each and every person we met. You only get to stay in each place for a month, so I knew that goodbyes would be inevitable. I thought saying goodbye to my family, friends, coworkers, and church would be enough practice, because believe me, it was awful; it really did hurt every single time. It was hard to tell people that you love so much that you won’t be seeing them for almost an entire year. In fact, it was down right miserable.
But on the Race, when you say goodbye, it’s not for a year. It’s likely for the rest of your life. Most of the people that I know that have done the Race have never seen their ministry hosts or the people they served ever again. So that changes things. And the weight of the goodbye seems a little too much at times.
This morning was no different for me. I had to say goodbye to Pastor George and his wife, Venny. We had to tell their six beautiful children goodbye through our tears and hugs. And it was hard. It hurt miserably to tell them and our translator, Deo, goodbye, because the truth is, I may never see these people again. And that makes my heart hurt in a way I didn’t know was possible.
It also changes how I love. I get at most 30 days to love people like crazy. I get one month to forgive people for staring at me because my teammates and I are the only non-locals that live in an African village. I only have that much time to make sure that the people I meet know and understand that my entire purpose for leaving home for 11 months is to let them know that they matter to Jesus. And they matter to me. Though it’s only a minor thing, how I treat these people for one month may be the only representation they get of Jesus.
So what did we do? My team loved like crazy. We visited homes, prayed for healing and saw it happen, taught English, danced and sang, and preached about Jesus’ love. We also made banana-nutella-chapati pancake tacos for our hosts and friends so they knew, if only just for a moment, how much we loved them. We shared tea in homes, even if it tasted like Fruity Pebbles (we still aren’t sure about that one). We got to a name a cow, and appropriately we chose Mzungu (because it was white like us). We let tiny babies sneak onto the porch while we were working out. We shared dinner in homes and genuinely listened to people. We taught silly English sayings, simply because it made us all laugh (if only I had a video of our hand-hug lessons). Basically we did whatever we could to show people that we love them and that Jesus loves them.
My team isn’t perfect. We are a crazy mess at times (a lovely, beautiful mess actually). But I wouldn’t trade this month with these 6 other Christ followers for anything. Because as with every place we have been since we left, we have loved like crazy. Maybe I just noticed it more this month than the others, but we loved hard. And in the end, it hurt. It hurt to leave, but I left with such a good lesson. Even though it seems like people will be in our lives forever, like time is slowly creeping along most days, it’s also all the time we have with anyone.
So today, go love somebody. And love hard. Love someone so much that when you have to say goodbye, that it makes your heart hurt. Go play with a child, or go on a date with your spouse. Help someone who needs it, maybe in the grocery store or at your workplace. Love someone today, because that’s what Jesus did. And I’m convinced if we could live a little more like Him, goodbyes would always be hard and the world would be a better place. If you have a chance to love someone today, take it.
Maybe even give someone a hand-hug. Trust me, it’ll be worth it.
