Goodbyes

Unfortunately I have no pictures of the past few weeks because I left my camera at my friend's house and have not had a chance to retrieve it.
Regardless, it's been an action packed few weeks. I said a tearful goodbye to my students, the girls were much harder to say goodbye to then the boys. Although I love them all equally of course. Some of the students have been in my class for two years, that's a lot of bonding time and we've grown quite attached to each other. One student (a boy) said, "Ms. Gringhuis, two years is a long time. I'm going to miss you. I hope our teacher next year is not a boy". Another student said, "if our new teacher is rude I'm going to be rude right back". I told him to keep up his positive attitude:) I will miss their funny comments and stories.
Several of the teachers are still in denial that I'm leaving and wouldn't say goodbye, that's okay because I know I will see them in August before I leave for 'good'.
I have to admit that when I drove away from Lawrence Heights MS, I shed quite a few tears. LHMS is where I began my teaching career and I haven't taught anywhere else but there. I have poured a lot of myself into the students there and enjoyed much laughter and joy from them in return. The staff has truly been a family to me over the past six years. They have supported me through a lot and I will miss them.
As I type this, I am sitting at my parent's house. The move out of my place went amazingly smoothly. I had many friends help in Toronto and my family helped unload in Dundas. All my worldly possessions are now sitting in the basement awaiting my possible return.
I went to the lawyer's today and dropped off the keys! It's a done deal! No turning back now.
I am getting pretty excited about my trip to Sierra Leone. I leave on Thursday to spend three days in Ottawa, meeting my team and participating in cross-cultural training.
Please keep myself and my team in your prayers. I'll update as often as possible and I promise to include pictures.