It’s now November.  I leave next October.  So I’m officially in my last year, and I’m now aware that everything that comes around annually is, this time, my “last” time.

My last Thanksgiving in Thailand is around the corner.

My last cold season is about to begin.

We are about to start planning for my last church Christmas party and my last church camp.

It’s a strange thing to invest deeply in a place, feel at home somewhere and as though you are adopted into a second family, and yet know that you will leave– not just to the neighboring town, but across the ocean.  I will return to visit– I’ll have to– but in a year I will move and make a new place my home.  This will be the family I will communicate with from afar.

I’ve been here four years and I have one more to go.  Really, a year is a long time.  Particularly now that I’m in full stride, with a good handle on the language and at home in the culture.  But still people keep asking, “how are you feeling to be going home soon?”  “Didn’t it go by so fast?”  “What will you do next?”

It’s hard to keep a good and healthy balance.  I don’t want to take on the attitude that I’m practically done so I can’t expect much fruit out of the time that’s left.  And yet sometime soon I will need to start planning my transition, handing off my roles, saying my good-byes.  I don’t want to get taken off guard by my departure date, nor do I want to spend a year anticipating it.

I’m excited for what’s next.  I’ve been invited to help with field administration in Pomona, California, as the assistant to our executive director.  I love the area and the community there, and I’m glad to have a continued role with this organization and mission that I believe in so deeply.  I’m excited to be back in the States where my health is stronger, where my family and friends are closer, where I can begin to plan for further education and the next steps God has.

And yet this last chapter here is bittersweet.  My teammates who left the field before me went with an expectation of return, and so I feel like the first from our team to be saying a long, final good-bye.  I don’t really know how to do this well.  This city that took so long to warm up to, these people that are at times like a dysfunctional family, have gotten under my skin.  I’ve fallen in love in spite of myself.  And soon I have to move on.

I guess I wouldn’t have wanted it to be too easy.