Dear ICS Community,

Leaving a Community, Not a Job

Next Friday marks my final day at ICS. When you start packing up an office, taking down the accumulated artifacts of the past four years, you realise very quickly that you aren't just leaving a job. You are leaving a community. 

Like anyone closing a significant chapter, the human part of me hopes I have made a difference here. We all have an identity wrapped up in the desire to leave a place better than we found it. I hope I have given something of myself that has strengthened this community, just as I know I am taking profound experience, growth, and learning away with me because of it.

But graduating from a season of such rapid, turbulent change brings an almost involuntary urge to measure that legacy. Over the past few weeks, I’ve found myself anchored in Ecclesiastes 3, a passage that beautifully, and perhaps bluntly, reframes how we look backward at our work and forward to our transitions.

"He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end." (Ecclesiastes 3:11)

The Illusion of Legacy

During my time at ICS, we have navigated an incredible amount of change. If I am honest, in my reflective moments, carrying the weight of that turbulence has felt like a heavy burden at times. We naturally want our exhaustion to be validated by a clear, lasting impact. The Teacher in Ecclesiastes calls this the "eternity in the human heart"—that God-given longing to see our work matter permanently.

But the text also warns us that "no one can fathom" the whole story. We cannot see the full ripple effect of our time here. Realising that chasing a visible, measurable legacy is a trap has been a profound reminder for me. My job was simply to do the work assigned for this specific season, not to orchestrate permanent outcomes. God makes things beautiful in His time, not necessarily by next Friday.

Redefining the Takeaway

If we aren't meant to build a monument to our own legacy, what do we have to show for our time? Ecclesiastes strips away the need for grand, sweeping purposes and brings it back to the daily reality of our shared lives:

"I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live. That each of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil—this is the gift of God." (Ecclesiastes 3:12-13)

The late nights, the stressful projects, the shifting challenges—that has been my (our) "toil" these past four years. The ultimate takeaway though isn't found in a trophy, institutional status, or a perfect track record. It is found in character, kindness, and learning to do good while we live. Satisfaction didn't come from solving every problem or predicting the future; it came as a gift when I accepted the present moment and found joy in the work itself. The true value of these four years was experienced in the daily rhythm of this community and in the people with whom I worked.

The Freedom to Walk Away

Perhaps the most reassuring words for me come in the very next verse:

"I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it." (Ecclesiastes 3:14)

This is the ultimate release of pressure. If I have had a positive impact on a student, a colleague, or the culture of ICS during these four years, that was God working through me. I do not need to be anxious about protecting my legacy, because anything of true, lasting value is already secured by Him.