The end... of an era

My visa expires today, and somehow this brings with it a strange feeling of the end of an era. No, I'm not speaking about my visa for Spain. Thanks to the European Community, my Spanish residence permit is "forever." I'm speaking about my visa for South Africa. When I last renewed it, back in 2006, I didn't yet know that I would be returning to Europe in 2007. So my South African residence permit was granted for another three years... and those three years come to an end today.

At the time of leaving Cape Town, I discovered that it's impossible to pack fourteen years of your life into a 20 kg suitcase. There was so much that I had to leave behind in South Africa, and so I was thankful when a Swiss friend offered to bring back a box of books for me. (The books weighed 16 kilos.) There hasn't been an opportunity to retrieve them before now, though, and so my books have stayed in his house in Switzerland for the past two years. Being in Switzerland this month (I came here with only five kilos of luggage for the PCYM!) will allow me to reclaim my books and take them home with me. Finally getting all my stuff back this week has further added to this feeling of the "end of an era."

As I look back at my life, I feel so blessed to have had the privilege of living and working in countries that are not only very beautiful, but are also warm and sunny. (I'm a fan of warmer climates, as you might have guessed!) The top two photos above show the beauty of my "old home" in South Africa, and the bottom two show the beauty of my "new home" in southern Spain. Some things are very similar.... but others are very different, of course. And so it's the end of an era in some ways.... but the continuation of a new season in other ways. Whatever the season, it's so good to rely on the love and faithfulness of our unchanging God.