End of Service Sites

I am now done with my time at Walk in the Light.  Tonight we stay in a Zulu Village, then safari Monday through Wednesday, then off to Cape Town on Saturday.  I can't believe there's only a month before returning home.

We finished the house just in time and it was so stinkin satisfying.  I haven't finished processing my past month of work, so I may post more later about what I learned from it.  Here's a couple things I've been thinking about the last few days.

First thing, I'm starting to really enjoy change.  For the last two years, every set of four months has been completely different.  I have lived in 4 different places and so many changes have occurred even when the place where I lived had been the same.  But sometimes I think I might be too used to change.  During class, I was counting down the days to service sites.  During service sites, I was counting down the days to Cape Town.  Now, both flew by, and I'm looking forward to going home for summer.  I love it here.  And I love it at home.  I want to go home, but I also want to stay.  I enjoyed service sites, but I was still looking forward to the next thing.  Sometimes, I think I count down the days until the next thing for no reason other than the fact that a next thing exists.  I don't really like that.  Being an incredibly adaptable person is awesome, but I don't know if it's worth it if it means missing out on good stuff going on in the present.

On Wednesday, I met this kid whose Zulu name I can barely say, yet alone spell, but his English name is Patrick.  He was about 13 years old, and he spoke great English and was very articulate.  We just sat and talked for 20 minutes and it was awesome.  We asked each other about our homes and families.  I felt one of those weird connections to Patrick like we could've been really close, and I kept thinking about how I wish I would have met him earlier.  I'm really sad that we didn't meet until my second to last day at Walk in the Light.  I've been thinking about Patrick a lot.  I don't know what to make of it.  So many people, after mission trips, talk about the one kid that sticks with them, but I would have expected that to be due to a consistent progression of a friendship, not one 20 minute conversation.  I wonder if Patrick will live in the township his whole life, or if he'll go off and do something amazing, or if we'll ever see each other again.