Tim and Pablo (our host brother) are at the bus station trying to get all of our junk sent off to Lima. Taza is downstairs trying to provoke the other dogs to play with her. My voice echoes off the walls in my room. It's feeling pretty empty and lonely up here. You'd think after all the leaving we've been doing I'd get better at it. It doesn't seem that way.

This leave strikes me as particularly difficult for a surprising reason. I am leaving a place where I don't really have deep friendships and going to another place I don't really have deep friendships. I do know people in both places, people I care about and who I think care about me, people I enjoy spending time with, but I when it comes to sharing hearts and lives, I'm batting pretty low. It reinforces the transience of all of this. When we left Charlotte, we left something significant behind. I felt the same way about leaving my work, leaving my family, even a little about leaving CIT (missionary training). This time I don't feel that in the same way, and the absence of sorrow makes me a little sorrowful.

Will Puerto Supe be different? Oh, I hope so, and I have high hopes that it will be. I believe 100% that God wants to craft of my missionary team not only coworkers but friends. And I believe also that He will give me unique and significant relationships with Peruvians that will be not only a place of ministry but also a place of mutual support and love. If and when we leave Puerto Supe, my hope (strangely enough) is that it will not be easy, that we will have relationships that make leaving painful.

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