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Transition never occurs in a vacuum. It involves people at every turn. Part of transitioning well means being mindful of the process involved in saying goodbye. If we give ourselves the time and space to say goodbye well we are freer at our destination to say hello with our whole hearts.
C’havala Crawley
Instructions
The activities in Section 3 are the last ones you will want on your plate before you depart. The suggestions range from celebrations to activities for processing significant memories. Skim below and through sections 3.1-3.3 to note those in which you'd like to engage. The hope is that these activities will help you celebrate and commemorate the entirety of your experience in this place. Make the necessary plans well in advance.
Section 3.0: Final Goodbyes (you are here)
Section 3.2: Our Family Experience
Section 3.3: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Note: at the time of online publication the possibility of carrying out the activities in this section as outlined may be affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Suggested changes based on possible pandemic restrictions are noted below each activity. Use the suggestions to fuel your own ideas!
Favorite Places
Favorite Places
Plan ahead to visit special places!
“Place” is a powerful stimulus to memory, feeling, and thought. Leaving a place without having the opportunity to re-visit significant locations can leave a feeling of incompleteness. This activity may be done alone, with family, teammates, or with friends.
Make a list of favorite places you would like to revisit before your departure.
Make plans to get there.
Who would you like to accompany on this pilgrimage of memory and leave-taking?
What happened in this place to make it special to you or yours?
Share the stories as you go to visit.
What do you always want to remember about this place?
Give thanks for your special memories of the place and its people.
Take photographs / sketch your impressions of the place during your visit.
Suggestions for saying goodbye
Touch the earth. Touch walls and buildings. Touch the plants and trees In the area. Say goodbye in your heart...out loud.
Thank God for specific specific aspects of the place, and commend them into God's care.
Bless the place and its people in prayer.
If you know anyone in the place, thank them for any ways they have blessed you, and tell them goodbye.
COVID Contingency
Gather photos or mementoes that you have from past visits to your favorite places.
Light a candle as you create a 'map' of the places with these items, or as you lay them out and recall their significance.
Either alone or with friends or family, take an imaginary journey to each place – remembering with as many details as you can (see the suggestions above).
Additionally, what scents, sights, colors, sounds would you have experienced if you could physically be there?
Give thanks for your special memories of the place and its people and commend them into God's care.
Saying goodbye:
Symbolically lay your hands on the photographs or mementoes and pray a prayer of blessing for the place and its people
Gather some earth, holding it your hands as a representation of the earth of the place you cannot physically visit. Hold it before God with thanksgiving and pray blessing over it, and then allow it to sift through your fingers while saying goodbye.
When you have finished sharing stories of your memories, looking at the pictures, and remembering as much as you can, say goodbye with thanks, and blow out the candle you lit.
TIP: Parents with children – take special note of the importance that place can hold for a child.
If your child feels a place is important to see again, please take that into serious consideration, even if the place holds no particular meaning for you.
Children need to be able to say goodbye to places at least as much as adults do.
Favorite People
Favorite People
Plan ahead to connect with special people!
It is critical to find a way to personally connect with the significant people in your life, and even the people you see regularly but don't necessarily know well (someone you regularly buy from at the local market, for example), in order to express your gratitude for the ways the other has blessed you, to tell them that you are departing, and to say goodbye. This will enable you to have healthy leave-taking and closure in your relationships.
Make concrete plans to see these people. In the rush and intensity of the last few weeks, you may not be able to schedule in all the appointments you would like if you haven't planned ahead.
Covid Contingency
If the internet is serviceable in your area, Zoom may be the way to connect if meeting outside is not possible.
Mailing or dropping off hand-written cards or letters may also be a good way to express your gratitude for the role some people have played in your life, and to say goodbye.
TIP: Ideas for fitting it all in
Take one or more of the important people in your life with you when you are visiting your favorite places for the last time.
Get a group of your favorite people together and go to a special restaurant for a last meal together.
Plan a party – or several – for different groups of people who are special to you. Perhaps friends or teammates would be happy to organize the party for you so that you can concentrate on departure details?
Last Bash
Last Bash
Plan a special celebration with those closest to you. This can range from a trip to a favorite place (or even a place you've wanted to visit but haven't had a chance to go to previously), to a family dinner or a picnic at your favorite local spot.
The important thing is to mark the occasion as special!
Celebrate in the ways you most enjoy
Eat food you especially like from your host culture
Dress up
Decorate
Plan games
Who can you enlist to help plan and organize the event?
Engage in some of the activities/conversations listed in Sections 3.1-3 during the party
Covid Contingency: This activity can be done via Zoom, with each guest preparing food beforehand for the time online together. Showing each other what you have fixed and sharing the reasons why the recipes are special can add to the celebration. The same with the clothing you have chosen – show off your finery!
TIP: Sometimes it just seems easier to leave without a lot of fuss. Saying goodbye is painful. Why not just slip away quietly?
Because affirming the others in our lives shifts our focus off of ourselves, and blesses them for the goodness they have brought to us.
Because words of gratitude, affirmation, encouragement, forgiveness, and reconciliation that are left unsaid can drag at our souls and sap our energies, inhibiting our joy and freedom as we seek to move forward.
Because saying goodbye with thanks and words of blessing is a significant way to bring our time in a place, and with a people, to a close.
Thanksgiving Service
Thanksgiving Service
Hold a thanksgiving service. Find meaningful, creative, and fun ways to say Thank You to each other and to God.
Suggestions:
Create or use a 'liturgy': structure and incorporate your service with prayers you write or offer spontaneously, songs, hymns, Scriptures, and Psalms that have been meaningful for you during your time in country.
Share memories: of favorite people and stories for which you are thankful; of trials and victories that are significant for your shared history; of things you are grateful for about the culture and your years there, etc.
Involve your bodies: sing together; stretch your arms to heaven; get down on your knees; dance together before the Lord.
Pray “staccato” prayers: one person starts with “Thank you, God, for…” and each person adds as many short words or phrases as quickly as they can, one after another, without pausing, for as long as you can go!
Covid Contingency: This activity can be done creatively via Zoom. Where there are security concerns, if you can plan far enough in advance so that gathering outside is a possibility, that is preferable, of course!
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