Manry Family

My family and I have been living a nomadic life. Since early May, we’ve traveled over 18,000 miles by plane, over 8,000 by car, and slept in 23 different beds. But these numbers don’t tell the story of the past few months as much the countless people, familiar and unfamiliar, we have been able to share life with along the way. Unrooted from the comforts of home, we’re discovering how blessed we are in relationships. If wealth was measured by mere associations and the company one keeps, I suppose I’d be one of the richest persons in the world.

The downside to experiencing all of the connections and reconnections we’ve made on the road this summer is the temporary nature of them. Lori and I have a growing awareness that our time here is limited before we ship off to Uganda. This week I said goodbye to my family in Florida. It will most likely be two years until I get to see my father and my brother and his family (including his three children who don’t stop growing). But I’ve been blessed even by our sad farewell. This summer I spent more quality time with my family than I’ve been able to since my college days. For the first time in eight years, seeing my dad, mom, brother and sister became a part of my ordinary, everyday life—at least for a little while.

Saying goodbye to my family kick starts what will be one long and intense goodbye to many friends and family that have graced mine and Lori’s lives. I’m not sure what adds to the gravity of these goodbyes but they are different than the average farewell. It may be the long distance that will soon separate us from our loved ones at least seven time zones away. It may be the strangeness of the place we are going which makes it difficult for people to imagine us there. For me, it is the anticipation that when me and my family return to the people we are leaving we will be different people. And so we’re saying more than goodbye to our friends and family. We are saying goodbye to life as we presently live it, knowing that our time in Uganda will transform us beyond our own imagination. There is both joy and sadness in this uncertainty. We find comfort in knowing we are in the hands of a God who has been shaping our lives and relationships long before we have ourselves.