As I am writing this, I have been home for just over 24 hours, and I can’t believe it yet… It’s so weird to see all the new faces, and to know that the faces I have grown so familiar with and have loved – the faces of my brothers, sisters and friends – are thousands of miles across the ocean. In fact, there is only one person from Senegal that is still with me here in the States: Jesus.

I am realizing especially now that everything passes. Places, people, memories, every second and day and year will pass away, every friend, even the closest – even I will pass away one day. Nothing but Jesus Christ abides really and truly eternally. Nothing. Nobody. And yet, the great hope in the pain of this detachment is the fact that He is the source of everything else. I like to think about how every single person is a small glimpse into the image of God. Thus, the families I left behind in Senegal were just certain reflections of God’s qualities, a couple of tablets in the mosaic of the heart of Christ, which I was given for a season. But although these reflections have passed, the one thing that does not pass is the source of the reflections: God Himself. And so, the tenderness I loved in Anouck, the honesty I loved in Damien, the joy I loved in the friends, every beauty they possessed, were but a reflection, weakened in their broken humanity, of the totally pure tenderness, honesty, joy and beauty possessed by the God who will not pass, whom I will never lose. Is this true? Yes, it is. Does it comfort me? A little bit. Does it still hurt? Yes. A lot. And yet, this pain is love.