Kristen and I rounded the corner, where the vineyards abruptly stopped and we found ourselves back in the quaint town of Holzen, the transition a bit jarring but also completely normal in our Black Forest valley.
“So, after 14 years here, do you ever get comfortable with all these good-byes?” she asked earnestly.
I couldn’t help but sad-smile. It’s been a question ringing through these hills for nearly 70 years because, as much as every school experiences loss when students graduate and teachers retire and people move, nothing can quite compare to the upheaval at a TCK school every summer. What keeps me going is definitely not comfort. It’s also not the truth that new people will be coming to replace the ones who left. While I always find a new friend or two, I rarely look forward to the arrival of new staff with the anticipation and hopeful excitement that I probably ought to.
A phrase rings in the back of my mind, something my mom once said. “What keeps us on the field day after hard day, year after struggling year, is obedience.” Until God calls me to the next location - and someday he will as I have evidence of every year in other people’s stories - I am here, walking loops through these Black Forest valleys. That calling will mean glorious hellos in August and heart-wrenching good-byes in June.
Honestly, there are no guarantees I can give to Kristen as she faces her first trip through this routine upheaval, other than normalcy. That doesn’t mean the obedience is less jarring, especially this summer as I face some significant losses, some who’ve been here over half of BFA’s lifetime and some who know me deeply. 14 years in, and some summers are just hard. But there’s a faithfulness in the regularity that I cling to. That God would be so good to allow the cynical me, who wasn’t ready for new people last August, to experience depth of relationship with others who have the same calling.
