for everything there is a season

Last weekend I spent several hours assembling boxes filled to the brim of files and envelopes. I've been working with Student Sponsorship for 4 1/2 years now (the last 3 years from my home) and it was time to say goodbye. My desk is clean for the first time in 4 years, my garage is empty, and I have $200 worth of filing cabinets that are barren. I know that every season has its ending, but it is still sad to see it all go.

It was hard to decide what is essential and what is disposable while packaging it into boxes. I know that the program is closing down, so all info on past schools and past sponsors are pretty worthless if we are not still promoting the program. But it was difficult to trash pictures and files and artwork from kids that I have watch grow and have prayed for and loved personally and professionally for the full extent of my post-Africa life.

They meant so much to me, especially because I was able to love a village's orphans for the year prior. When I returned state-side, I felt that all of the details and workings of my life were so vain and meaningless without those children. So it was easy to love these kids. It was easy to dedicate all of my work to their wellbeing. It's been a beautiful and wonderful season of my life. It has been my joy and my job to be an advocate for those kids these several years and it is so sad to watch them fall through my fingers and those that I have been able to hold on to, hand them to someone else who already has her hands full. But that's the breaks.

They are out of my hands now. I mailed 9 boxes to headquarters. And today is my first work holiday where I got to stay home from work and not face work. Sure, I took days off these last few years, of course I did. But it's really amazing to be home from work today and actually be away  from work. It's  freeing to end a work day and return to a home that is a haven from my work place. Yeah, it's pretty awesome to sit here at this desk right now without a sponsorship "to do:" list beside my computer.

I recognize that although this was a difficult and sad transition for me, it might turn out to be a really great one. On to the next great work at a wonderful non-profit: birds.