saying goodbye, saying hello

In 2 weeks we will say hello to friends and family, most of whom we haven't seen in over 2 and a half years. We are very excited. Rachel is a charmer. Ben and Naomi, yes you'll be surprised at how much they've grown. We will all look different I'm sure. And I'm sure we'll be shocked at all the changes in you our friends as well. Three of our sending churches have gone through a major building projects, and 3 have also changed lead pastors. And I don't even know how much an egg-nog latte costs now, probably can't afford it anymore :)

One of the things we're so looking forward to is worshiping in our heart language again, with other people. We sing and pray together in our home, but it's just not the same. And I'm looking forward to being able to preach and teach in English. I won't have to be thinking, "did I just say that right? did they get my joke, or did I just use the wrong word?"


But we're also saying goodbye for a number of months to good friends. This is our small group from church, Fico and Roxanna next to Daryl, Omar and Anna on the left, Ximena and Tito on the right. We've been in each other's homes for meals and birthdays, now for church too, we give each other rides to and from church, Dan and Fico lead worship together, Anna bought traditional Bolivian outfits for us to bring back to the States with us, we've laughed together, shared life together, and we will miss worshiping with them in Spanish.

And this is our Wednesday night Bible Study with Shirley, Shara, and Osman. We celebrated our last time together with Frankfurts (a local restaurant that puts American burgers to shame, mmmm so good). Shara's getting married in January. Osman just graduated from college. Shirley is changing jobs. We'll miss sharing Christmas and the New Year with them.

God has been good to us. We feel very blessed with friends all over the world.