How can it be?

How can it be that we are in week #10 of 10? It is true - we are near to our departure from Rwanda. There have been many times when I have thought, over these past 10 weeks how we needed to post a blog about our adventures, friends, questions, and new perspectives. But, I think we have been so caught up in the moment, we have not paused to share all of these things with the rest of you. We are sorry. And we know we have a lot of "back-blogging" we need to do.

We knew heading into the summer that 10 weeks would be just enough time for us to start feeling settled, as if we lived here. And we also knew that as soon as that happened, it would be time to leave. While we were accurate in our anticipation, it doesn't make it easier to say goodbye or to return home, feeling like we are starting over again.

When we return home there is much that will feel familiar, much that will be the same. But there are many things which will have changed. We have very dear friends who have moved to the east coast and one to Southern California (practically a different country!) whom we will miss greatly. There are new courses to be taken, a relatively new job to dive into. Our senior pastor has taken a new position elsewhere, so even our church will be different when we get back.

Goodbyes are never easy. But, there is something which we have learned from friends here this summer. This hello and goodbye (mwiwiwye and mwiwirwye) is the journey of life - people come and go. And as one of Ryan's dearest friends here said to him on Sunday as we traversed to his house for an afternoon visit, "I feel you in my heart." It was this same friend who said later that day, that life is not flat - it is some of the flat but also a series of hills and valleys. He is correct indeed.

So as we wind down our last week here, there are many things and people that we "feel in our hearts." We feel in our hearts the friends at the IJM office, the staff who have kept our home safe and clean. We feel in our hearts the joy of great iced mochas, the many children who pass us on the street in the afternoon but say "good morning," eager for this attempt to practice their English. We feel in our hearts the enchantment of mountain gorillas, the surprising joy of meeting friends in unlikely places, the reminder at a vibrant charismatic church service that "worship never ends."

We feel in our hearts the stories of loss, pain, and suffering which will never be shared, the scars of 15 years ago. We feel in our hearts the now-familiar call of the many birds which, along with our evening guard, rejoice in song at the rising sun. We feel in our hearts, the place we have only begun to learn - Rwanda.