Before the despedida Sunday afternoon, Tom got to preach the Sunday sermon. He had planned to preach to the youth, but we showed up and he was asked to preach to both the youth and adults. He spoke on Lamentations 3 and God knocked it out of the park. Really. I've heard a lot of sermons, but it brought me to tears about four times. Riveting, educational, interesting, moving stuff. Great Spanish, too :-). After that, there was a brief time of prayer where the church prayed for us. I didn't fall apart, but I tell you it's tough to do the goodbye thing. As Philip said that day after saying goodbye to one of his classmates--"I'm going to miss them!" Tonight we said goodbye to one of our dearest friends. It's been a week of goodbyes, and I hadn't cried much at all. Not even at the farewell party. But I knew tonight would be a hard one. One of the typical traditions of saying farewell here is to really open up and share how you feel about the person who is leaving. When I hugged our friend goodbye, he began to say all these wonderful things about us and I lost it. I finally had to tell him to shut up--I couldn't bear it. I long for my family and friends and hometown SO MUCH, but please don't stop praying for us here, either. It's hard to say goodbye.