Autumn was gorgeous in North Carolina. It was all I could do to stay in class during the day. In Strengthening Your Interpersonal Skills class, we learned all about relationship issues, from drawing people out and listening well to mediating conflicts between others. It was great input and will certainly be useful on the mission field where relationships with partners and nationals are so important.

One of the topics we covered was grief. Of course the content will be useful to help others through the grief process when necessary, but we were told to pay close attention to dealing well with our own grief associated with leaving our home country and traveling to a new place. Though it is a good move for all of us and filled with many joys, it also involves letting some dreams go and giving up some things that we have become accustomed to in our home country. Part of adjusting well to the new country is grieving those losses well. A friend of mine who was in the first class with us just wrote in her blog about the Ugandan orphanage that she is volunteering in until the regular school starts and she can begin teaching the older children. Her heart is absolutely broken with the horrible conditions that the babies are in. Grieving well in situations like this is so important in order to avoid excessive stress and burnout.