¡chao chao chile! ¡nos vemos!

Viña del Mar, the place i've called home for the last five months. i took this picture this afternoon. it shows the canal that runs through the middle of town and goes out into the ocean and is taken from a bridge only about two blocks from the beach. beautiful, i know. now you know why it's hard for me to leave.
i don't really know why i'm writing at three o'clock in the morning instead of sleeping (except that i figure it's better that i'm a little tired tomorrow, b/c then maybe i'll actually sleep on the plane), but i kinda wanted to keep my loyal blog readers posted as this journey comes to an end.

the last few days have been kinda rough, slightly depressing, but today i think i finally starting to come around, thanks to a conversation with my mom and some divine revelation. see the thing is that for the last two years of my life, every semester has been radically, drastically different, this semester obviously being the most different of them all, and now i face yet another jolting change. and while i really do love the change, and i've learned so much from it about where my dependence should be (in the Lord) and not on people and things and places- because those are always changing and coming and going- sometimes i'd just like to be able to have do the same thing for more than just 4 or 5 months... and this has been such a sweet time of my life, probably my favorite thus far, it's even harder to leave it and move onto something that i know will be so drastically different. but, at this point in my life, i'm being called to live a life where the seasons are constantly changing, at times ridiculously drastically and rapidly (like winter to summer in less than a day...). but then i've always like the changes in seasons. the Lord shows us a different part of Himself in each of them, and i have complete confidence that He'll do the same in this change. so i've committed myself to not just go where i know He's leading me, back home that is, but to delight in the journey He's sent me on instead of grumbling about having to leave this place that i love so much. and i leave with every intention in the world of coming back some day, hopefully not too far in the future.

sooo, this concludes the posts from chile (tear...). geez, i can't believe it's over. it's been so good... words just don't quite do... thank you all for supporting me while i've been here! i think i'll probably keep up this blog, at least for a bit to document the readjustment process, and maybe longer... we'll see.... well, nos vemos pronto (we'll be seeing each other soon!).