ending and new beginnings

Yesterday at Jeevit's House we moved boxes and furniture and all the different odds and ends one accumulates living in a space and took them to the campus. There's been a whole process leading up to this decision that is good and wise and has been prayerfully sought, but it doesn't make the actual day any less difficult.

It's the ending of a season is what I tell myself, but it's a bit of a disheveled ending and the next one is not quite figured out yet. It's a making of a bit of a nomadic season and in so many ways I'm not even involved in the daily business of it and I have not been for a long time, but yesterday was more difficult than I anticipated it being.

As we were packing and sorting last week we came across all sorts of things I had forgotten about. Some brought smiles and some were reminders of sad things that have happened in the 7 years since Jeevit's House has begun.

The morning we got there to actually load up the boxes and move them to the campus one of the families came to get their rice. I talked to the mom briefly, but I didn't take the time to actually stop and have a conversation with her. I should have. I used to talk to her all the time and one of her daughters is one of the first kids I met when I moved here. Seeing her again led me to thinking about so many of the families we have worked with over the years. Some I never got to know well, but some of them are good friends of mine. Some of them I laugh with and share stories with and we pray for each other. Some have moved away to something better than what their lives were here and I'm so grateful. Some have seemingly disappeared... a neighbor heard they were moving here or there... or the neighbors don't even know - they're just gone.

After all the boxes were moved and most of the walls stripped bare the boys and I walked through the house again. The rooms were filled with memories of all that's happened there over the years. I remember riding our bikes around the city looking for places to rent. I remember finding this one house and making a contract with the landlord. I remember walking through the house in 2010 and dreaming of all that could happen there. I remember choosing to rent the house and the countless people who volunteered time cleaning and painting and weeding and working to make the empty rooms look like a home. I remember bringing home Rain from the hospital and the day Ruen came to visit and ended up staying forever. I remember Sophea and Sokly and Rung'sey who each lived there briefly. I remember the first VBS there that first summer and how children tumbled out of the tuk tuk like it was Mary Poppin's bag and how they came from every direction filling our house with their smiles and laughter as they were taught about Jesus. I remember Rain learning to walk, to talk, to ride his bike there. I remember Ru always wanting to climb to the roof of the playground and learning to speak English there. I remember the girls learning to sew in the office and the parties where kids were clambering over the gate waiting for it to be opened. I remember being greeted with the sun and a family needing help in some sort of crisis. I remember so many things.

There are so many memories from Jeevit's House. It was hard to say goodbye, but it was only a house. And what I must believe is that while this does bring a definitive ending to one season of Jeevit's House that it also brings a new beginning to another season and it will continue to grow and it can now flourish in ways that maybe weren't even imagined in 2010 when we first saw met that house.