Saying goodbyes...

We have officially begun the process of saying goodbyes. Sigh. There are always mixed feelings with saying goodbye. For us, it is sad to say goodbye to people we have grown to appreciate so much here. At the same time, we are anxious to say our goodbyes so we can get back home and be reunited with people we have not seen for two years. We are so looking forward to those reunions.

Last Saturday we attended our final English Club. We hosted it here at the Elikya Center and surprised them with a movie, Cokes and popcorn. We watched Kung Fu Panda in English and the group thought it was great.

The English Club that started last year.
Pray that they keep it going even though we will be gone.

One of the most difficult goodbyes is with Mowa's family. We spent last Saturday afternoon at their home sharing food together. We brought some special gifts for each of the kids and for Luta, Mowa's wife. Their family has been through so much in the past year and we have walked through very sad times with them before and after Mowa's death. We will see them again to officially say goodbye before we fly out on Saturday, but this was a very special, tearful time with them.

Luta, Jim, Joseph, Tresor, Sam, Hannah and Sarah.
They have four other children who are studying in Kinshasa and another son who was
out playing soccer when we took the photo.

Yesterday we attended a meal with the Elikya Center staff and were surprised that they set aside time to thank us and say goodbye after the meal. So many people said such nice things to us and we were all a bit choked up as we shared our appreciation for the friendships we have built with those who work at the Elikya Center. We also ate dinner with the President and Vice President of CECU.

This afternoon our local church is coming out here to have a going away service for us (if it doesn't rain!). Tommorow we will spend the afternoon fellowshipping and praying with the Hospitality Team. In the midst of all of these goodbyes we are finding time to pack and clean. Whew!

On a completely different note, we want you to check out these fantastic photos that were taken by Ben McMullen when he and his wife, Karen, were here in Congo last month. They are beautiful photos and we had to share them with you.

This is what Hannah was doing to keep busy...

while we were doing this.

Packing Up

Here we are…our final days in Gemena. It does seem like such a long time ago that we were packing up our home in Rockford to come here. But, about two years ago, this is what we were doing. Now we are doing it all over again so we can go back home.

Sorting through our items and deciding what to pack and what to give away.
We are giving away much more than we are taking home

Only two years have passed, but it sometimes feels longer because so much has happened and changed over the past two years. We know that a lot will happen in these final 10 days in Gemena and we have barely made a dent in all the goodbyes we need to say.

So...pray for us as we wrap everything up, pack our bags and say many goodbyes.