Habari Gani?: Not Wanting to Say Goodbye

There are a few lines in a song by Switchfoot that say, “If it doesn’t break your heart it isn’t love. If it doesn’t break your heart it’s not enough. It’s when you’re breaking down, when your insides are coming out, that’s when you find out what your heart is made of.” Having to say goodbye to all my students, friends, and my Tanzanian family absolutely broke my heart.

Love.

It is a risk.

Every time, you risk getting your heart broken. Maybe that is why it is so special. Maybe that is why Jesus said that the world would know us by our love. It is that strong and fragile at the same time.

During packing, teaching last classes, and playing with the kids one last time before bed, you think to yourself as you are trying not to cry, if you have made a difference. Did my students learn any English? Did I enrich anyone’s life at all? Will they be okay after I leave? Who is going to teach them like I do? Who will keep the library going? Will little Eliza remember me? So many questions and fears run through your head. Whenever you're leaving a place, you just want to make sure that you leave things in a way that the footprints you made while there will start a path that others can continue to walk on after you're gone. I hope I have done that.

In one way you are reassured by a party given by the teachers where they give food, but most importantly their kind appreciative words. They make sure you know how they feel before you're gone. They tell you thank you for the specific things you did. Then when it is your turn to talk, you cannot. You just try to form a few words while crying, because really no words are good enough. In another way reassurance is given when you try to say goodbye and thank you to your Form 2 class, and all the girls cannot look at you because they are crying. It feels good to know that you mattered, but it hurts. Again, assurance is given when the father of your Tanzanian family sits in his truck crying after saying goodbye. Then, not having any money to buy gifts, buys them anyway for both your mother and father, and then brings them all the way to town to you having to pay an additional $7,000 shillings to arrive there on a daladala. It breaks your heart. It’s love.

There is one quote that I think sums it all up that my friend Melissa used on her blog and I have read over and over in the foreword by Beth Clark in the book Kisses from Katie. It says:

“People who really want to make a difference in the world usually do it, in one way or another. And I've noticed something about people who make a difference in the world: They hold to the unshakable conviction that individuals are extremely important, that every life matters. They get excited over one smile. They are willing to feed one stomach, educate one mind, and treat one wound. They aren't determined to revolutionize the world all at once; they're satisfied with small changes. Over time, though, the small changes add up. Sometimes they even transform cities and nations, and yes, the world.”

Somehow, maybe not successfully, I am trying to do this is Tanzania, but making a difference can happen anywhere. Whether it is taking the time to invest in the life of a friend, caring for someone who is sick, getting your niece or nephew to smile after a hard day of school, calling your mother just to say hello, or not giving up on that one difficult student in your class who would rather be home, it is declaring that individuals are extremely important.

You are saying that how you care for someone helps determine how they will care for others.

You are saying that people matter.

That one life matters.
That love matters.

I want to be known for my love, the kind of love that originates in God and cannot be contained.