Saying Goodbye

One of the difficult things about missionary life is the goodbyes!  God calls people for specific tasks or times.  We work together, pray together, laugh together, and sometimes cry together.  But seasons change, God's plans are fulfilled, and goodbyes must be said.

Jeremy, Delani, and Jameson Howard

Tonight our dear friends Jeremy and Delani Howard will board an airplane in Capetown that will eventually take them back to America.  We will miss them so much!!  I had the special privilege to spend an extra couple days with them last week driving them and some of their belongings to Capetown where Delani's mother lives.  The long drive gave us time to talk and (hopefully) bring some emotional closure to the very special relationship we have shared.

We had a heavy load.  Some things will be shipped to America,
others are to be stored at Delani's mother's house.

With our roots in the arid West of the U.S., Jeremy and I especially enjoyed the mountains and scenery of the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa.  Here are a few pictures from along the way.

There is a cross on the top of this mountain.  It was planted
there many years ago by the military using a helicopter.
(You can't see it in this picture.  It is quite small.)

Towns are few and far between along the route we took.
A week or so before we traveled, there had been a lot of rain.
The landscape was unusually green and flowers were blooming.

Some places this purple flower grew so thick it seemed a whole
mountainside was purplish-gray.

One of the larger towns we passed through was Graaff Reinet.
Andrew Murray grew up in this lovely Cape Dutch house in that
town.  He was a godly man who wrote many books on prayer and
led a great revival in South Africa in the 1860s.

The Dutch Reformed Church in Graaff Reinet

Even though the land is dry, there are scattered farms along the road.

The main "crop" is sheep and goats.

Some farmers have also been quite successful raising ostrich.

We saw quite a bit of wildlife as we drove.  Springbok, eland,
steinbok, another kind of antelope, and some large tortoises. 

The sunset over False Bay was beautiful and the pizza was some of
the best I've eaten.  Thanks Tannie Melinda!

Dear Jeremy, Delani, and Jameson, we'll miss you!  Travel safe, and may the Lord bless you as you start a new chapter of life in the USA.  Hurry back!  Never forget that your real home is in Africa! :-)