There is a time for everything,
    and a season for every activity under the heavens:

    … a time to weep and a time to laugh,
    a time to mourn and a time to dance,   (Ecclesiastes 3:1, 4)

    …a time to say goodbye…

The goodbyes started when I returned from CIT in early March. My first goodbye was my dear friend, Cecile, from Pennsylvania. She moved there many years ago with her husband and children, but we have stayed in touch over the years – usually meeting in Ohio for a video weekend a couple times a year. Linda, my BFF, Cecile and I – the Three Musketeers – have laughed, cried and talked our way through the years. Our last weekend was no exception – filled with all the good things of friendship and then the tears when it was time to say goodbye.

Then came some work days and goodbye to many of my belongings as I get ready to say goodbye to my house. My Wild Women small group helped one night; my family another.

 

 

 

 

 

After my family work day, eleven of my fourteen grandkids spent the night at my house – the First Great Meema Sleepover. Most I will see again before I leave, but Monday I watched my daughter Becky, her husband Brad and their three children, Megan, Scotty and Cassidy drive off. They live north of Detroit and there won’t be time for another trip to visit them.  Becky is expecting their fourth, another boy, in August. Goodbye to a baby I haven’t yet seen.

 

Next was Montana and goodbye to Jay, his wife Tommie and their girls, Dani and Andi. Now it is Katie in Colorado and another goodbye.

When I am back in Indiana, I will have 12 days and the goodbyes that have been a trickle will turn into an avalanche.

                      …and a time to say hello

But these goodbyes, though difficult, aren’t the end of the story. On the other side of these goodbyes come the hellos. Hello to Guatemala, a host family, my Kids Alive cohorts from CIT, my instructors at the Christian Spanish Academy and, of course, hello to Spanish.

 

 

Hello to the Dominican Republic, Jarabacoa, the Kids Alive team members and all the kids and families I will get to know there. Hello to a new world, a new way of living, new friends. Hello to so many things I can’t begin to think or imagine.

And, there will be a time when it will be hello again for those to whom I am now saying goodbye, and I will be richer for all that has happened in between.

 

But you will not leave in haste or go in flight; for the Lord will go before you, the God of Israel will be your rear guard.   (Isaiah 52:12)

This I know to be true…Amen and Amen.