Leaving Familiar Grounds

I know Alan's working on his goodbye note to all our dear brothers and sisters in Creative Ministries. So I'll just give my take first. For the longest time, I have been associated to CM purely as a spouse (of someone who is actually serving in CM). I had also been recognised on the streets as the wife of that worship leader, etc. It felt a little strange and I was pretty adamant about losing my ID at first. As the years went by, I just got along with it. I thank God all the time for blessing us with a bunch of close friends from CM - they made all the difference for me and the family.

In the last 6 years, Alan and I grew in stature and the ways of the Lord with a group of really good friends - fellow Levites in the Church. We saw each other through weddings (and many wedding anniversaries), our pregnancies, the birth of our first, second and for some of us, our third child. We upheld each other in prayers when our kids were sick, we went to our kids' birthday parties. We went on holidays together, babysat each other's children, organised Mom's Days Out where we had massages, manis and pedis, movies. We talked about the problems we had with our hubbies and their ministries. We cried with each other when we felt we couldn't move one more step. Our children grew up as close as siblings, they wore each other's hand-me-downs! And we know that if we ever needed an extra pair of hands or someone to share a piece of good news, these buddies are just an sms away.

Friendships forged like this should never change. I hope they never will! I would like these friends to continue to be a part of our children's lives and vice versa! But leaving Creative Ministries also mean that we will have to "leave" these friends who've somewhat become our comfort zone. We'll have to go to Geo District and join another cell, make new friends (this is for us and the kids too!), get comfortable with sharing, and start serving in a whole new arena (we tried imagining Alan in a luminous green vest directing traffic!). How long will it take for new friendships to be formed? It seems like the older we get, the harder this becomes. But you know who you are... our beloved brothers and sisters, we hold the memories of our times together close to our hearts!

We will miss the times we sat at Ps Bea's feet and listened to her talk about God. We always left L-cell more confident to lead and closer to God. We were challenged to not be satisfied with what's enough, but to go deeper and search, chase, seek and find God. Ps Bea's life, stories, views and examples inspired us to create, challenged us to be different and called us to be faithful. I will miss this terribly.

We just wanna say thanks to you - if you've been one of the fellow Levites in CM of TCC. Thank you for depositing in our lives, for giving us the opportunity to sow back in yours/your children's lives. It's been an honour to serve the King with you.

Sal :)