Ministry and its cost

Every time we make the decision to love someone, we open ourselves to great suffering, because those we most love cause us not only great joy but also great pain. The greatest pain comes from leaving. When the child leaves home, when the husband or wife leaves for a long period of time or for good, when the beloved friend departs to another country or dies ... the pain of the leaving can tear us apart. Still, if we want to avoid the suffering of leaving, we will never experience the joy of loving. And love is stronger than fear, life stronger than death, hope stronger than despair. We have to trust that the risk of loving is always worth taking. Henri Nouwen Bread for the Journey

The trouble working with internationals is many leave or become busy and distracted and disappear. Saying goodbye is always tough and more the so when you know that it is unlikely you'll meet again. All the hours and time invested in developing relationship with them means that they take a piece of you with them. Alfred Lord Tennyson in one of his poems wrote :

I hold it true, whate'er befall; I feel it, when I sorrow most; 'Tis better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all. (Section 27)

This is from section 27 of 'In Memoriam A.H.H.' and the initials standing for Arthur Henry Hallam. Hallam was Tennyson's close friend at Cambridge who died aged 22. The poem is more a collection than a cohesive unit and Tennyson uses the analogy of a father losing his son, a mother losing her son or a woman losing her boyfriend to try and understand grief. The sections after 27 start with Christmas and then reflect on the death of Lazarus in the context of the passion of Easter .

Yet still in this age of technology an email or a phone call out of the blue is a special moment. It feels like a moment of new life and hope and an affirmation that the relationship was and is not a mere shadow.

My own dim life should teach me this,
That life shall live for evermore,
Else earth is darkness at the core,
And dust and ashes all that is; (section 29)

In bringing many sons and daughters to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through what he suffered. Hebrew 2:10