Bitter Sweet, How it Should be : )

Well this is the end… some days it felt like it would never get here and other days it felt like time was slipping away faster than I could grab on to it and really understand all that was going on around me. Here is the play by play from the last week in the bush!
Monday we went back to check on the little boy who we’d given medicine to. He seems to be doing fine. There was a big nice tree on the road on the way back to our home compound so we took the opportunity to climb it and look around and really take in Africa. The smells of freshness in the air, the sounds of women pounding in the distance, the feel of the sun on my skin, being able to look around me and not see any buildings on any side of me but just clear land with a hut dotting the horizon every few kilometers, our big shade tree; these are all things that I’ll treasure as we head home. When we got back to our home compound that afternoon one of our moms told me that one of the toddlers had said my name! We haven’t ever heard her say actual words before. She’s still in the cute babbling trying to talk stage so it was really sweet that my name was one of her first words! I spent that evening with “Linda” and her husband joking with them about being old. I started calling her husband “dotijo” an old man and she got a big kick out of that and laughed real hard! She said that’s right because he didn’t go to the dance party the Monday before and all the old men and women stay home and sleep. He tried to defend himself and say that he went to another village to dance, but I have friends in the other village and I told him them didn’t see him there either! So we all laughed about him being and old man… he’s 28 and says he is still a kid because he has no hair on his face… silly. It was a fun night.
Tuesday our fill in supervisor came out to spend some time with us and say good bye to the lady who had prayed to follow Christ, but she was out at her sister’s compound because she was having a baby so we got a little lost and ran across a knew compound and met some new people which turned out to be fun. We said goodbye to another lady on the way back to our home compound.
Wednesday morning was good bye time for our host family… that was the hard one. My little boy looked so cute in his new sweater that I got him at market! I told his uncle to tell him every day that I loved him and he told me he would : ) We also gave a little something to everyone in our immediate family. We went out on moto taxis and I left first. I hugged all the women and waved at the men then our mom called me back over to her and she was crying and told me to greet my family for her and thank them for letting me come live with her. I cried a few tears when I saw her eyes welling up. The rest of the day I spent packing and cleaning… staying busy.
Thursday we got to go back out and say good bye to the new believer since we didn’t get to see her on Tuesday. She was excited to see us and we gave her a parting gift too. She wasn’t near as hard to say good bye to because I know for sure I’ll see her again! That night Lauren and I and the other two girls we’ve been working with in the other village had a bon fire and roasted spam and played with glow sticks and pop rocks and listening to music. It was a great final night in our town in the bush.
Friday we came into the capitol city on the bus… always an experience. The bus didn’t have any more seats but the driver let us on anyway and we just sat on the floor. Then I got hit on the head by a big metal bar! The driver stopped the bus to check on me gave me some gum and called him my poppa b/c he checked out my head! Silly.
The weekend we spent resting from the bus ride and sleeping off the big bump on my head. Saturday night we had carolers at the mission compound! Sunday night we went to a Christmas play and caroling at church! Today is Monday and we started debriefing! Tomorrow we’re doing some souvenir shopping and a debriefing session. Wednesday we have our last debriefing session then that night we go to the airport!!! Debriefing has been neat to process everything with other people and articulate the things that the Lord has done. I’m real excited to get home and tell you all so many stories that I couldn’t write here, and show you pictures! Please join me in praying for traveling home. I would really like to not get stuck in JFK because of weather and I would really like for all of our connecting flights to be on time. If all goes as planned I’ll be in Texas late Thursday night!! There really is no place like home : ) It will be so sweet to be home and to see christmas decorations and hug all of you, but there is a bitterness in leaving these people we shared this part of our life with. But I guess that's the way it should be. If I wasn't sad to leave here or happy to come home something would not be right about leaving. Biiter sweet... See you soon : )