A few days ago, we said goodbye to a colleague who was retiring. She had to take over a lively first school year in the last few weeks because the class teacher became ill. One of our wildest boys has not yet been able to get used to school. He has caused a lot of excitement and stress with his extremely adventurous ideas. (For example, he found an open bag of flour in the class cupboard and thought that it should snow heavily in the class even in summer, while his twin brother turned the flour on the floor into a nice layer of mud with lots of water). My colleague, however, never lost her nerve and supported him with love and patience. When the whole school community said goodbye, the little one suddenly ran out of the crowd to her and didn't let go the whole time. It broke our hearts because the little one expressed exactly what we all wanted to say, "You can't really leave after 30 years!" It was sad, but in those moments God was very close.
