Sorry for not getting this one out earlier. I hope you can all forgive me for being a little selfish in wanting to spend some more time with the kids. We are getting closer and closer to the kids with each and every moment. I can’t remember if I wrote this earlier, but I’m kind of glad that we will be leaving in the early morning. Regardless of the way of exit, my heart will leave a little heavier than later. I am not ashamed to say that I will have tears in my eyes. I have become very close with a couple of kids, one plays a mean air guitar when I sing, another plays a ruthless game of keep away. I have spent most of the time with the older children, and have enjoyed reading them bedtime stories, one after another until we leave for our evening devotions.
Onto our progress! Concrete is being poured in the rooms and hallways of the clinic. Wednesday saw the completion of the plumbing and continued work on the facia and roof. I was surprised to see the rafter beams raised when I walked over this morning. We played with the kids in the morning and brought out some chalk and bubbles. They had such a great time drawing, one girl drew a hopscotch grid and other kids joined in. They bubbles proved amazing entertainment as thousands of pearlescent bubbles floated in the swirling wind. The wind made it difficult for the kids who wanted to catch their bubbles. Speaking of wind, it was never stopped blowing since we came here. This has made sound recording for my video work more difficult than I had anticipated.
Going off of something I said earlier about reading to the kids, as we were leaving one of the girls came up to me and hugged me tightly and said “tomorrow” and I replied shakily “tomorrow.” You may wonder why I responded shakily, but here is the reason. All I could think about was about the same time tomorrow when she comes up to me, hugs me tightly and says “tomorrow?” and I have to say “tomorrow, I’ll be gone.” How will I say this, what do you even say to an eight year old. I will make sure to correspond to Rehoboth and all the children that we have met, but that will not make it easy. Tomorrows ride up to the airport and the five hour flight to Tokyo will be a somber one. Many of us have gotten close to the kids, some more than others. The further we get from here the more that my heart will be stretched.