I’ve never loved goodbyes. They’re hard and emotional. A big part of the World Race is saying goodbye. Every time we leave a country or a ministry site, there are so many goodbyes. 

My team had the privilege of working with the sweetest kids at a private Christian school in Heidelberg, ZA. We worked in the classroom with these kids for three weeks. We also did a sports program after classes and each of us had a day to coach the children our favorite sport. Once a week, I got to coach soccer to the sweetest kids. 

For three weeks, we were very involved with the school and grew close to the sweet kids there. We were expecting to spend another week there before moving on to Cape Town. However, we got sudden, unexpected news at the end of the day one Friday. 

About ten minutes before the end of school, we found out that the school would be closing for a week due to rising Covid cases in the area. We had to say sad, quick goodbyes to all the students because we weren’t sure if we were going to see them again. 

We thought we were going to have another week to spend helping in the classroom and teaching sports. Our time was cut short and our goodbye was sudden. It was confusing and disappointing. 

As a team, we had a decision to make. We could leave Heidelberg early, or we could stay a little longer, hoping the school would open back up. After praying as a team, we decided it would be best to start heading towards Cape Town. We felt peace about moving on rather than waiting for something that might not even happen. 

Before leaving this town that meant so much, we decided to do a parade around town to say goodbye to everyone. Since it’s a small town, we were able to walk around to the people that we’d connected with over the past two months. We prayed with each family and celebrated the time that we had together.

It’s hard saying goodbye, especially when you’re not sure if you’ll ever see them again. But this piece of comfort came from every family: "If we don’t see each other again on this earth, we’ll see each other in Heaven". It’s a wonderful thing, having a family of believers all over the world.