Goodbye?

The final day of training is always bittersweet, but the flavors are even stronger when you have been with the many of the same participants three times, as Judy and I have on this project.  To make it even tougher, this is the last training of the current phase of this project.  While there is a chance that there will be one more training later during a second phase (for which approval is pending), there is no guarantee even then that the same participants – or trainers – would return.  So as we conducted our “graduation” ceremony this morning, there were many, many tears.  Three of us choked up completely while reading a scripture passage and sharing a personal message, and there were piles of used tissues under the participants’ chairs.  Even so, no one would address the “elephant in the room” – that we may never see each other again.  It’s just too painful to consider right now.  I have more close emotional ties to people in that group, including some with poor to negligible English, than I do in Cincinnati!  Because no matter the ethnic, cultural, or socio-economic differences between us, our hearts beat as one.  We are passionate about the same things.  We have learned, worked, laughed, cried, and, most of all, loved together for over a year now.  We have mourned together over the loss of a dear colleague, and we have rejoiced together over the birth of Mesfin’s baby daughter.  We have experienced the presence and power of God in astonishing and marvelous ways.  As I told them this morning, nothing – not time, not distance – will ever separate our hearts.  I will love each of them forever.