Good bye, Jalingo!

I have clearly been in denial about being home. It's as if by not posting my "I'm home" post, it wouldn't be real! Obviously, not the case.

The last few weeks I had in Nigeria were filled with so many friends! I'm SO glad my roommate from Texas, Angie, came with the group of missionaries from Iowa to work at the UMCN Primary School because she was able to meet many of the people who are so important to me in Jalingo and get a sense of the life that I'm missing during this transition.

My school had a "Send Forth" (going away party/ceremony) for me where the kids sang some songs, did a skit and there were many kind words of appreciation spoken both by them and me with an awesome meal afterwards. There were multiple other occassions where people had spent hours preparing amazing food to share with us as a show of their gratitude for my time here. While I continued to try to find ways to show them how much I had appreciated them.

It was tough in the last few weeks trying to make sure to see everyone one last time. I feel so blessed to have been in such a kind, loving and accepting place for the past year. It's really hard to describe the feelings associated with leaving so many people. I like to speculate that the difficulty I found was because when you are in an intense/high stress situation with a group of people tight bonds are often formed. From my perspective, life in Nigeria was really intense, especially in the beginning, because everything was SO DIFFERENT! However, these people, taught me how to survive in my new environment. While I tried to contribute in my own way, I had to trust them for EVERYTHING! Thankfully, they were ridiculously helpful, dependable and giving of their time, resources and friendship. Hence, I left a part of me with my friends back in Jalingo and definitely brought a part of them with me back to the US.