Friendship

There’s the pot holes, horrendous traffic jams, beaurocracy, cockroaches & mosquitoes which can all be frustrating at times, but none of these are what I find most difficult about living overseas and being involved in missions. One of the hardest things to deal with is that friends are always coming and going. We have now lived in Uganda for almost eight years and since many MAF folk serve for around four years we are the ones left behind, saying good bye. In the next three months MAF Uganda is losing two pilot families and one engineer family. There is only one replacement pilot so far, so we shall be even more short staffed for the remainder of this year it seems. The families leaving have some of the children’s closest friends and one of the wives is my prayer partner so saying good bye will not be easy. Recently, I had not been meeting quite as regularly with Jenny to pray. I realised that this was my way of ignoring the inevitable and trying to block the pain of the distance that will soon separate us. I guess I could choose to stay in my home and not develop these wonderful, deep friendships, but I know from experience that I would be the one missing out on all those precious shared moments in between. There is something special about having a friend to laugh with, cry with, share our hearts with. Jenny & I are praying that our friendship will stay strong despite the miles soon, and that we would each be bold enough to find a new prayer partner to share life's joys and challenges with.