All seasons end

There are seasons in life, seasons of growth and change, seasons for rest, seasons for running harder than you every have before. Every season is different, with different shades and colours and sounds. The past six years have been one giant season full of a million microcosm. I leave this place knowing I am no longer the same person, no longer the girl who came. My opinions are stronger, my sense of self is deepened and my understanding of the world widened. I am no longer the same.Six years ago I boarded a plane after a night of vomiting and too many tears; fear and anxiety crippling me about a move I wanted to do, across a continent I didn’t really know. That girl has grown, and changed and lost some of her anxiety and fear.Now full of anticipation, expectancy and a little bit of confusion, I will board a plane in a month, no doubt with just as many tears and go back to the home on my passport.To explain or process six years in this place will no doubt take just as long, to fully see or understand the amount I have been impacted or things I have seen I have no idea where to begin.But for now there is a bitter sweetness in my mind at all times: this is the last time for this, or when shall I see this person again. There is beauty in a season ending, a finality of a chapter closed, a peace in the time to move on. For this is a place where a diverse family has grown and for this season I became part of it. For this season I was one with it. It will never stop being a part of me, never stop being something that shapes me, for this beauty village in this beautiful place will always be a home....It is two months since the above was written; the plane has been boarded - the ride home poetically similar to the first one. I've rested, moved and started a job, almost found a home and am wearing suit trousers and heels to work on an almost daily basis. I'm amazing at how life just moves forward. It has felt like each day has tumbled into another with no time to think. Tonight feels like one where I could sit and type out every process and every thought. But I am leaving it at this...The God I know and trust is larger and more faithful that I can every understand. His ways are wilder and better and beyond all my wildest dreams. This next season has started and all I wonder is what God has planned because I could not have fathomed all that happened in the last one.R./ 

candy coated unicorns are hard to find...

i took up running in February...okay so maybe jogging at a push, but consistently 3 times a week before work i have met up with the beautiful Tori and run around our little town.so when our friends suggested a 5k colour-run we signed up along with them. Queue a bus trip to Timisoara, a walk across the city, crazy dance music, tutu's, temporary tattoos and a crowded warm-up....5k later we are covered in chalky paint, sipping beers waiting to be told its time to throw the paint packs in the air and be covered all over again.it's worth doing, i promise...the tag-line as the happiest 5k might actually be true. We ended the day tired and happy, vowing to make this a tradition.

not until you look behind

It happens so quickly this time thing. The seasons change behind you as you move through day to day and suddenly it's 'how many weeks until you fly?' 'When are you coming back, are you coming back?' And 'how do we finish this well'.The summer crept up on me this year, somehow the endless blue skies didn't give it away. There have been fewer goodbyes (thank you Dumnezeu) and no thoughts of a summer alone in a house. This year has passed a bit like a dream, one dreamt a million times over which you only realise actually happened when you are looking behind you. The time moves on and on and somehow I'm here, planning time off to sleep and dream bigger, travel a bit and then return...hopefully with more fire in my belly and better language skills and dreams and plans a bit bigger and wider and higher than before. We sat on the balcony of the green/blue house the other day; Looking out at the view, praying for this time apart that we have before us... And I found myself being in awe that somehow I had become one of them. The ones who just stayed a bit longer, and suddenly in 3 months I'll be into the fourth year here... the one who is meant to know how it goes. Working with these people, I don't know how to explain it, it's beautiful, heart breakingly, joy bringingly beautiful. I've realised more than every now that change happens slowly and gently and often in a way you don't realise until you look behind you. I'm spending the week at Tauț, helping with cleaning and organising and making sure the visitors have what they need. It's a different type of work and it's the most beautiful place to be. R/

Year 3

  I started my third year here a few weeks ago. Another year and another version of my job, this time more changed than before, more what I thought I would do when I stepped onto the plane 3 years ago. I wouldn't do it any other way though, even if it seems to have taken a while. I wouldn't change the lessons I've learnt, or the people who have taught and surrounded me. I feel lucky, no, blessed to have had that chance. Most of them have left now and I feel a little like they taught me to fly and flew next to me for a while before dropping off and letting me go. A friend from home recently released a song 'Masks' and something about the vulnerability of it got to me. It fits with everything at the moment, putting down crowns and being completely transparent, and knowing identity in God above all else. So tomorrow I start in a new sort of office (hopefully less office and more community), with a new team and a new agenda. And in a week or so I will move into a freshly painted and refurbished home. With the risk of being completely clichė I guess I am saying I'm entering a new season. A beautiful, wonderfully fresh new season. R/