Our sweet friends and teammates are leaving India. Sometimes you gotta just get out and they are. But, oh, we'll miss them. They've struggled, laughed, cried, and worshiped with us. Their kids are ours and ours are theirs. We spent our first (very hard) Christmas away from family with them. C came bearing gifts that day and cooked in my dingy kitchen. She wore a smile when I could not.
She is the most consistently encouraging person I think I've ever met. She believes that life will work out and she makes me believe it too. She's a girl's girl, a listener, and a gift-giver. On my 32nd birthday she made me a little poster and wrote out Psalm 32 in glitter glue. It was a psalm of hope, of love, and of a future and I loved it more than the store bought presents I received.
JM is a thinker and a doer. He believes in things passionately and he cares about people. He has laughed with my J, been a friend, accompanied and worked with him to do things that seem impossible. He stood in the gap for us here when we were away in the States. He's been an uncle to our boys. He's listened to them when they talk on and on about video games, and taught them lessons from the Bible as we all sat on the couch.
JM and C's little girls will leave a hole in my heart and in G's, especially. Those little imps are lit up from the inside, full of laughter, and mischief and emotion. How many times have we spent with all six kids around the table, watching them eat as they try to make each other laugh and spit out their juice?
Love is painful. But it is still worth it.
Go with God, friends. Thank you for making an imprint on our hearts and on the hearts of our Indian friends. We love you.
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