In Conclusion...

It's nearly done. My time in New Zealand; nine and a half months; 283 days; some ridiculous amount of hours, minutes, and seconds; is nearly done. Tomorrow I'll board a plane in Christchurch that will take me to Auckland, then back to the busy and hectic world that is the USA - my true home.

This morning, I enjoyed my last back porch coffee and sunrise, said my hard good byes to the few students who were still at school, paid my respects on a final walk around the property, said good bye to the house that's been my home, and took one last trip into the tiny town of Geraldine where I boarded a shuttle that brought me here to Christchurch. I am still in New Zealand, but at this point I have left all the aspects that made my life down here my life. It's hard. It hurts.

I feel  like there is this deep well of joyful sorrow that is waiting to burst at any moment, and I'm just waiting for it to come. The tears didn't come two weeks ago when half the students left, and it didn't come today when I said goodbye to the other half of them, the staff, the school, and the town. Maybe they'll come tomorrow when I board a plane and leave the ground. Maybe not.

It's tough. You spend nine months of your life investing yourself into the lives of people, a church, a program and atmosphere that you hope is healthy and thriving. You pour into relationships - letting yourself be seen and earning the trust of others so that you can see them. You open yourself up and get close, get honest, and let your true colors, the pretty and the ugly, show You leave the comforts and tendencies of your old surroundings to get comfortable in your new one and then you say goodbye only to do it again. You give so much and end up loving so deeply. Then, although you know it's coming, it ends, and just like that it's done.

You love every minute of your experience though. Even though your pour yourself out and have to say goodbye in the end, you cherish what your time here was.  Every challenge, every question as to what drove you to move 6,000 miles away from home, every doubting moment of how am I going to handle this, the wrestling that comes with pursuing growth. While its hard now, it's all worth it. All the energy, time, love that was given and taken, whether a two way street or not,  you have no desire to trade it back. It is in loving and giving of ourselves, in looking past our own comfort and what we want, that we truly begin to experience life as we were created to.

I'm excited about going home. I'm nervous too though. I'm curious to see how the transition goes from living in a tiny town where there are probably 50 times more sheep than people, and not a no cell phone or a car to busy, fast paced America where everyone wants a piece of your time and stillness and quiet is as foreign of an idea as life before Facebook. How will summarize and present in a nice, single size, five minute serving how nine months in another country was when people ask?  In coming down here I feel like I put my life back home on pause, but I know that's not the case at all - everyone has gone on living quite happily. I wonder how its going to be picking up relationships again? Will I have any one to relate to about my experience? Then again, I had heaps of questions about moving down here and it all worked out "sweet as." I'm very excited to see my family and friends again.

One last thought... seeing how the students grew and changed this year spoke to me in huge volumes of God's active and faithful involvement in our lives. They truly took ownership or their relationship with him and sought Him out whether that was through class, reading the Bible on their own, prayer, discussion, probably all of the above. I realize that growth is a part of everyone's life and that often times people change their behavior to match their surroundings, conviction of convenience if you please, but the change that took place in the students lives this year is a lot deeper and a lot bigger than some sort of surface altering, self help based, human effort.

God is active in our lives. He changes us and grows, especially when we give Him the permission to have the reigning role in our lives that we're better off with him having anyway. Often times we miss out on him because our expectations of who he is or how he should act towards us is incorrect, unhealthy, or even untrue. God wants to be known and the best thing anybody can do for themselves is to get to know God and fall in love with him. He has blessed us with so many ways to do that. It's not about behavior modification, trying your hardest to please God, being a diligent commandment keeper, or following the latest trend in Christian pop-culture. It's all about Jesus, knowing him, and loving him.  The rest will stem naturally from that

I am so grateful for the time I had hear in New Zealand.