In my farewell "address" to the kids, I talked about pockets. After making sure they knew what a pocket was, we talked about what most people put in them. I asked if anyone had anything in their pocket, and Leo produced a broken part of a plastic toy he'd found on the road. I talked about how important it must be to Leo to have picked it up and put it in his pocket for safekeeping.
Then I told them that before I had left America to come to Uganda, many people had called and expressed a desire to shrink down small enough to fit in my pocket so that I could bring them with me. They got a kick out of that visual.
I went on to say that now that it was time for me to go, I wished I could shrink each of them down to a size that would fit in my pocket so I could could take them home with me.
I reminded them that, of course, this isn't possible, but then I told them that the most important pocket of all is one that you can't even see. It's invisible, but it is deep and wide and holds so many important things. That pocket, I said, is in our hearts. And lucky for us, sometimes it is so full it feels like it's bursting at the seams!
So that no matter how far away we are from each other, no matter how long it has been since a special CTT friend has visited, even if someone isn't ever going to come back to visit, we all know that we're carrying each other around in this special pocket - and because of that we'll always be right there for each other.
In her good-bye letter to me, Queen wrote that she wished she could fit in my real pocket, but that she knew I'd always be close by since she was in my heart pocket and I was in hers. I'm glad she "got it" and I hope the other children did, too.
No comments:
Post a Comment