More on Memory

That comment about leaving something of ourselves behind when we leave a place…. 

That came home to us when Clive and Cath walked into our wee flat here in Portstewart last weekend. 

They were in N Ireland visiting their grown up kids who are now living near Lisburn. So we had arranged to meet up. 

Now the last time we had seen each other was in Murree, Pakistan, in July 1999. It was our Farewell Party, and we were about to leave Pakistan after eighteen years there. Clive was taking over from me as the leader of the SIM team. Still based in Pakistan, they have now gone beyond our 18 years there by a good stretch.

We looked at each other. “You haven’t changed a bit!” “Nor have you!” And it was so true. Oh, yes, a few more grey hairs here and there, and all that. 

Over the years, we had vaguely kept up with each other through newsletters and the occasional emails, but not much. But once we started talking, It seemed as though time had stood still, as though twenty two years had snapped by like yesterday.  We talked About colleagues and friends. Some had passed away, others had moved on, and yet others continuing and thriving in their work and ministry. And through all our chat, there was a sense of the flow of history between us. The way that our moving on back then, and their taking up the reins of leadership had enabled the whole work in Pakistan to develop in ways none of us could have foreseen 

But, the other thing that this little vignette served to remind me of, was how sometimes things in life have a tendency to come round full circle. Anna and I started off our married life in 1980 in Pakistan and the Urdu language. Since then, back in Ireland for 7 years, then immersing ourselves in Portuguese for the next 12, and now dipping into Greek, we find ourselves in 2021 back in an Urdu speaking context in Athens. When we started off, our organisation was SIM, now its ECM, but, along the way, here we are in Athens re-connecting with SIM in Athens through our new colleagues Al and Rachel.  Nothing’s lost with God. His plan keeps moving forward and, as we keep in step with him, he involves us in that plan, and we get a glimpse of the wonder of all that he’s doing in this world of ours.