Life is full of changes, and with every end to a chapter of life there is a new beginning. As you have read in previous posts, Ryan is moving to Karamoja (the area of Eastern Uganda) and this has been a time I've been dreading for a while, and that time if finally upon us. Next week, Ryan will be packing up his apartment and moving on to a new adventure with new challenges but also some awesome victories. Selfishly, I don't want him to go, but as a fellow servant, I'm jealous of this new opportunity he has. The people of Karamoja are really those who have barely (if at all) been reached by the Gospel. But with this new beginning, comes the close to Ryan's full-time existence here in Jinja.
Last night we had the church goodbye party for him. It was so cool to see so many people come who really knew him and wanted to show their appreciation for the past nine years of ministry he has done here in Jinja. I was given the task of being the organizer of this event, which I have to admit helped to detach me a little bit from what the event was all about. I have been so busy the past week making sure that everything was as "perfect" as it could be considering it was planned in less than a week. Making banners, videos, and playlists, buying supplies, organizing cooks, baking cakes and making sure that everything was covered helped to keep me from being an emotional wreck as I facilitated an event to say goodbye to one of my closest friends. To add to the goodbye process, this morning was the last time he lead the church in worship as our worship leader...needless to say it was a tough morning. God has blessed him so much with so many gifts and it's going to be very hard to get used to life without him rocking the worship every Sunday morning. I'm so excited to see what God is going to do in Ryan's life as he begins this new chapter, but it is still so hard to know that time for him to go is rapidly approaching. God has done so much in the life of Ryan and I've been privileged to watch God mature him over the past two years I've been working with him.
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