one week.

I am one week away from driving away from my hotel for the last time. 

I am one week away from stepping on a plane that will take me back overseas to Texas. 

I am one week away from not knowing the next time I will see my beloved kids here. 

I leave Zambia in one week. 7 days. My 63 days turned into 7 so quickly; my 9 weeks in Zambia turned into 1 in the blink of an eye. I am so torn and have so many mixed emotions about having to leave. 

On one hand, I am so excited to finally get to hug my family again and see their faces. I can’t wait to see my friends and laugh with them and hear about their lives this summer. I am so looking forward to the LONG overdue Chick-Fil-A breakfast that has my name on it. I also am so ready to say goodbye to the dirt that, even after showering, still finds a way to get under my skin and in my lungs. There are so many things that I can’t wait to have back in my life, and there are so many things I can’t wait to kiss goodbye! However, my heart’s deepest joy comes from loving these kids. It is hard to explain, but I have never experienced a fulfillment like what I feel in this capacity, in this country. I could ramble on and on about how it is so close to God’s heart to love the orphan or what it feels like to do so, but to make a long story short, I’m dreading leaving it. Even more so, I’m dreading saying goodbye to my Tree of Life kids. All 360 of them (yes, the Tree of Life has that many kids now!). This year, I have made many new friends and become closer to older friends, I have had to discipline them and gotten to encourage them. I have seen them for three days each week this summer and gotten to hug and kiss them on a regular basis. For some of these kids, I have gotten to watch them learn and grow and change for the past 4 or 5 summers. When I leave, the sweet familiarity of seeing their faces and loving on them every other day will be instantly taken away, ripped out from beneath my feet. Ugh even typing this out is making me so upset that it’s coming so soon. I feel so blessed to have gotten more time with these kids than most others, but it will make our parting so much more painful. So like I said, I am so torn. I have so much to look forward to in getting on that plane next Monday morning, but I know how much I am leaving behind me. 

We begin our week of “lasts” tomorrow. We have our last Monday morning rostering, our last Tuesday rotation set, our last Thursday community day, and our last Friday of chaos from beginning to end. I am praying that this week would be our smoothest.. our 7th time to do everything should be the smoothest, but sometimes that just isn’t the way it goes. My prayer is that I would go all out on my last week, taking advantage of every opportunity since I won’t have any more this year! I am praying for God to use this week to teach me even more than I’ve already learned and to reveal answers to questions I have asked Him. This is going to be a great week.. difficult and emotional, but great. And I know it is going to be gone in the blink of an eye. 

So, with that said, I’ll see you soon, America.