I have less than a month left in DC before I head to CO for MTI training and then of to Bujumbura Burundi for the duration of two years where I will be working with World Relief. Everything is so surreal to me as my time is winding down. Good byes are hard, and giving up ones life is too crazy to even wrap your mind around. Everything that closes up and finishes for good: a job I loved, moving out of a neighborhood in NE where I lived, passing off the refugee resettlement ministry I started with my friend James, saying goodbye to my teens....
The things that are hardest for me to give up arent the warm showers, or air conditioning. I think it's the relationships that I have with my teens that I have been with for the last 1.5 yrs and the Burundian Refugee Family that I have been working with for the past 9 months.
I found myself in tears on Sunday night when my Kirundi translator and friend called me to tell me that my Burundian family was wondering if I was going to stop by and that they missed me (I had just been to their place 2 days before for 6 hours!) Talk about the killer....when the kids whisper "dakakunda Jewian" (I love you Jillian) in my ear and start giggling as they call themselves my Mzungu baby.
Or the fact that the baby literally looks at me and rambles of mamamama with an outstretched arm and cries when I walk to the door. Its painful. However I cant help but smile as I think about them and how they remind me every time I'm at their house that "Jillian go Burundi." The parents have taken to giving me Kirundi lessons, I have a whole list of words that they are teaching me. The Father has such pride in teaching me his native tongue. I think he truly treasures and enjoys that he is helping me with his language, as I have been teaching him English for months. How will I say goodbye to my sweet sweet Burundian family here in DC....
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