Loving and leaving

It’s Youth Social night, and in between the whistles, cheers and mayhem of a mini touch rugby tournament, I hear Cebo ask me: “Tayla, when are you leaving?”. My heart sinks. Up until now, we have been talking about all sorts of (somewhat surface-level) things – from the pink eye that has been spreading around the village to my lacking basketball skills, from different size shoes to dance moves.

This 13-year-old girl, who initially comes across as quiet, serious and disinterested, has the most contagious laugh and playful nature. She asks straightforward questions with a suppressed smile, and has made it her mission to improve my and Oksana’s basketball skills. Now, almost every Wednesday afternoon Oksana and I play one-on-one matches with Cebo (mostly for her entertainment!). I know all these things because of time. But now, with simply 2 months left at LIV, time seems to be slipping through my fingers.

“End of July,” I reply.

Pause. “Will you come back?”

An even longer pause. “I hope so,” I answer as honestly as I can.

In that moment I realize that she (just like me) understands the reality of life as a volunteer on the village: that the risk of growing close is the heartache of our inevitable goodbye.

How can 6 months fly by so fast?

From leaving my family in Joburg to study in Stellenbosch, to then leaving my friends and church community in Stellenbosch to live on a children’s village in Durban, it seems that God takes me places both to teach and remind me that only He is the same yesterday, today and forever. That it is only Him who will carry me until I am old and my hair is grey (Isaiah 46). People and places come and go. The only constant in our lives is God. On some days this knowledge fills me with peace – the kind that is warm and deeply intimate. On other days (like that Friday with Cebo), it leaves me feeling incredibly alone in my experience of life.

I have grown to love the Village. The children. The staff and volunteers. The rhythms of grace here. The sweet, small moments that are so life-giving. Even the tough parts that have made me question coming here in the first place. The love I possess for LIV and (the people who call LIV home) is the kind that is true – weathered and tested; sharpened and humbled.

But I have to leave at the end of July.

Loving and leaving. I am starting to see how leaving has a way of revealing the (bittersweet) depths of love. And how, sometimes, leaving is the most loving and honouring thing I can do. But I am still learning how to reconcile these two seemingly contrasting choices…

Which is why on some days I see the kindness and generosity of God’s heart when I think about these special people and the sweet moments shared with them. On other days, when I think of adapting to long-distance friendships with the volunteers (that, truly, I am still learning with my friends from university) and no longer seeing the kids every day, I see these goodbyes and closing of certain chapters as a cruel way of God pushing me closer to Him.

The kids on the village are familiar with goodbyes, though. They’re used to people coming and going. In the time that I’ve been at LIV, 3 children have left the village. And this week, we found out that one of the toddlers (the two-year old who melts hearts with his perfect smile and intense stare) is going to be reunited with his family. My immediate response was sadness and denial. How is his foster mom, Mum Theh, going to feel? She has unreservedly loved him as her own son. How will this affect his two older foster brothers who have found joy and purpose in caring for him?

But then I remember: LIV is not Plan A. Yes, in a country of high rates of fatherlessness and violence against women and children, LIV is a solution and a beacon of light. But reunification is the goal. Restored family is God’s intention.

So why does my heart feel so sore?

Because even though I know it was God’s love in the first place that brought me to LIV and these people and children into my life, I still have a tendency to avoid goodbyes—or worse, delay processing them. (The truth is, I’ll probably only really process this all months after I’ve left LIV. When I no longer hear one of the youth girls, Elina, shouting my name from far just to ask me a thousand silly questions she already knows the answers to. When I make a cup of coffee and always think about Mum Nonku. When there are no more amaxoxo to run away from with Sneh like our lives depend on it. When Tuesday and Thursday nights are no longer designated for group prayer and intercession. Or Monday nights for volleyball matches…

When I don’t fall asleep to the sound of Eleanor’s worship music next door, or the smell of her bedtime brew way past bedtime. When I do my quiet time in the mornings and can’t turn to my left and see Jessie doing the same 100m away from me…

When 4pm is no longer reserved for waiting with Zamo and Mum Zondi for their lift. When church on Sunday isn’t in a small school hall, with cluster 9 families, and the moms leading worship in Zulu. When I no longer receive messages from Shannon asking me “Dam later?”. Or talking for hours about life and faith with her by candlelight on my bed…

When I see a trampoline and always remember a laughing Mum Theh climb onto it to coax her toddler to jump off and come home. Or watching him in pure contentment, sit perfectly still on her lap during corporate devotions on Monday mornings…)

I try in my own strength to hold so tightly onto that which was never mine to keep. Only God’s to give. So, I don’t write this update having come to terms with leaving the people you have grown to love. But I am grateful for a God who is so personal that He invites me—His daughter—to wrestle with Him. To wrestle with the truth that the kindest and most loving thing I can do for Cebo, my LIV4Change brothers and sisters, Shannon, Oksana, cluster 9 church family, Mum Zanele and Mum Nonku, the marketing department, Zamo and Mum Zondi and Mum Rose, all the children and youth I have grown close to, Mum Theh’s toddler, and even for myself, is to let my goodbye be goodbye. (Even if hidden in my heart is the hope that “I’ll be back soon”).

For I know that at the end of the day I am wrestling my way closer to Him.