When we moved out to Newberg, OR, four years ago, we knew the day would come, before long, when we would have to leave. We also knew how difficult it is to become a part of a community and then to uproot yourself from it. Nonetheless, we made a conscious, if wary, decision to invest ourselves in our new home. And we did. And then, after but a year, we moved to Portland, and, fools that we were, we did it again.
Our last week in Portland was busy but exhilarating: I had friends in from out of town; we had another friend’s birthday party; my work threw me a good-bye party; our Home Community prayed over us; Esther, Katie and I went to an art ‘event’; Katie P threw us a good-bye party; and a whole slew of people helped us load the truck before meeting us over at the Horse Brass for a last-night hurrah. The whole week, then, was thematized by people loving one another, and we went to bed Sunday night feeling full, like God was trying to prepare us to love a new set of people.
By the same token, there was a little of, “Why in the world would we ever leave all this!” About the best take I could make of it was something Blake mentioned to me—that our leaving, and the events leading up to it, gave us all a chance to reflect on and celebrate the relationships we had all formed here as a church and Home Community. Without breaches of this nature, one rarely formally marks one’s friendships, though they be among the most important relationships of one’s life.
So, even though I wanted to hug so many people into myself and take them along with us, I also felt blessed by the strength and depth of my friendships, all of which must now change – grow, hopefully – with this new geographic distance, but none of which will be regretted an instant.
