And then there were two... Kayla's dad is back in the US

It felt a little surreal to be taking Rick to the airport on Wednesday, Jan. 19^th. It seemed as if he had just arrived. We enjoyed a lovely meal with Pastor Nihaka and his wife on Tuesday evening. As we were loading the minibus to head to the airport, many of our students came up to Kayla and I to ask if we were leaving. We explained that we were just escorting her dad to the airport because he was going back to America and that we would be back & teaching them the next morning.
I had one little girl, Mirriam, from Standard 5 who almost broke my heart. She asked if I was leaving and I told her no and that I would be back to teach her, but she started crying anyway! L I gave her a hug and told her again that I would be in class the next morning and that I would not leave without saying goodbye.

We made it the airport without incident and waited for Rick to get checked in. We started to get a little worried because it seemed to be taking a lot longer than normal for him to get his ticket processed. When he came to say one last goodbye, we found out why the wait – there wasn’t any room on the plane. Thankfully, the person at the counter knew Pastor Nihaka and made sure to get Rick processed, but not everyone was so lucky. Some people were going to have to wait until the next day or even Friday to catch the plane that they needed. Yikes!

It was a sad ride home as we didn’t have Rick with us anymore and I realized that my next trip to the airport would be when Kayla and I leave Malawi in a little over a month. Our house was very quiet when we returned from the airport. We could feel his absence and even Dorothy wasn’t near as talkative as she normally is. Kayla and I got a small taste of what it must have been like for them when we left last year: quiet, lonely and empty.