How do you say goodbye to the children you have spent the past 2
months with, 7-10 hours each day? How do you say goodbye to greeting them every
afternoon with hugs when they get home from school? How do you say goodbye
tutoring them and to the children who don’t understand the English language yet
are being taught in English every day at school and are making bad grades? How
do you say goodbye to the children who fall asleep in your lap? How do you say
goodbye to the cheek kisses and the goodnight, I love you’s? How do you say
goodbye to the tickle fights? How do you say goodbye to the kids that are sick,
not going to the doctor because its too expensive? How do you say goodbye to
leaving the kids sleeping on the floor every night? How do you say goodbye to
many games of 5 stone and throw throw? How do you say goodbye to nightly prayer
time and hearing the boys sing their hearts out to Jesus? How do you say goodbye
to Gupta who once called you Mommy? How do you say goodbye to Sanjeev who is
constantly asking, “Auntie, Tomorrow Coming?” And you have to say no, tomorrow
not coming, not coming back.
All the answers
to these questions I do not know, and I have yet to wrap my mind around. A new
level of trust between God and I is forming. I have to know that just as he
cares for each and every one of us, he is doing the same for them, even after
we leave. He is taking care of them beyond what my earthly eyes can see. As I
write this I hear God saying, Alise, I was taking care of them before you even
knew them. I am trusting in God’s sovereignty, in his perfect and pleasing
will that I can not see fully. I hate
goodbyes and the thought of never seeing them again. But, I do know, that if I
do not see them again on this earth, we will meet again in Heaven.
Isaiah 41:17
says “When the poor and needy seek water, and there is none, and their tongue
is parched with thirst, I the Lord will answer them; I the God of Israel will
not forsake them.”
I am resting in
this promise of the Lord’s that he will never leave these precious boys. I am
thanking him for his grace in bringing me here to Barasat, India and enlarging
my vision of Himself and His kingdom.
