Friday, March 25, 2011

Saying Goodbye

From the time we found out we were leaving until the time we left we had 6 weeks. 6 weeks to sort, sell, and pack up 5 1/2 years of life, and 6 weeks to say goodbye. 2 1/2 of these weeks we weren't even in Jarabacoa (boy's house trip and vacation with Petersons). During the 3 1/2 weeks we were in Jarabacoa we took special care to say goodbye to special people, places, and things. We knew this was necessary to close the door to our time there. So, even if it was silly we had some special "Dominican moments" (like trying food we'd always said we would but hadn't!). One day a friend watched the boys so we could go on a "day date." We went to the park, bought some souvenirs, bought some yummy Dominican food and ate it in the park, then drove to the river and walked along it. Other goodbyes included: visiting the Ark, visiting our church in town, having lunch or dinner with friends, having a goodbye party for Jer in his class at JCS, attending E.C. retreat, making gnocci at the boys' house, church at E.C., eating pica pollo and chimi burgers (and pina juice!), and having one last motorcycle ride (it'd been a while!). And, of course, taking pictures of random things.
This time of closure was critical for us, and I'm glad we didn't let the stress and business of packing up and selling things keep us from those special moments!

1 comment:

ashley said...

I'm glad you got a chance to say goodbye! And I'm glad you got pictures of all those things. One of my regrets is that I don't have pictures of a lot of things about Peru... like our car and house, and places that had special meaning to me. Especially things that aren't very similar to the States... I try to explain but I wish I had a picture. :-)