Ben and Becky left yesterday it's just Tracy, the boys and me here at the moment, Helen is still in Germany.

It does feel a bit weird to have lost 4 people from your team in 3 months, especially as there were only 7 of us to start with.

We feel pruned back, stripped. I was pruning and re-potting a chile plant that Ben gave me yesterday, at the minute it looks a bit pathetic and lonely in it's new big pot but I know that both the pruning and re-potting will be good for the plant.

Essentially the plant needs water and sunlight, right now thats what I need. I'm pruned back and looking for a bigger pot. I must remember to keep watered and get in the Son light.

We're not dissapointed with anyone and not really that sad. We knew it was right for Steve, Dawn, Ben and Becky to return to the UK. We feel the natural sadness of friends becoming distant but nearly all our old friends are distant, thats life. The American poet Robert Frost said “In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life. It goes on.”

At the beginning of this process in September we really felt led to read about Gideon, God stripped his army back in order to show that God was God! That is reassuring to us.

We are resigned to the fact that we will say goodbye to people, it happens a lot; visitors, workers, colleagues and family all come and go. I guess anyone living and working abroad lives with the reality of goodbye.

It's not always the goodbyes that hurt, it's the distance between us.

Got to keep going, we may not be there yet, but we are closer than we were yesterday.