The life of a missionary or missionary kid is one of constant goodbyes. Transition to the field, back to the field, to a different field, or off the field means a relentless lifestyle of “we meet to part, and part to meet.” I myself recently counted again and I have moved thirty two times in my life, only counting moves where we lived somewhere for several months or longer. I’m in my mid-thirties.

Then there are the goodbyes caused by everyone else’s transitions – coworkers, friends, partners who themselves leave, and often with very little notice. When others’ transitions are put together with our own, this revolving door of relationships only picks up speed. So many goodbyes begin to add up.

It’s like trying to hug a parade. This was how it was often put at our sending church, describing the cost to those who stayed and continually sent out worker after worker to the mission field. Whether sending or going, goodbyes are costly. And we don’t tend to naturally lean into them. Rather, those of us who have to say the most goodbyes often get very good at strategies to numb ourselves to the natural grief that accompanies every loss of relationship and place. Like Adoniram Judson, we’d rather slip off early in the morning and skip all the emotion and ritual. I know I have done something similar countless times.

After all, why make goodbyes a big deal when you have to navigate them so frequently? Who can handle that kind of emotional investment? Is it even practical? However, as hard as honoring each goodbye might seem, eventually some of us learn that to suppress and ignore them might come at an even greater cost. That cost might spill out in surprising ways, as bodies and souls begin to break down from all of the sadness that has been building and has been shoved under the surface now for years.

Strange as it might seem, it was only a couple months ago that I heard for the first time of a healthy framework for saying goodbye. It came from the book, “Raising a Generation of Healthy Third Culture Kids,” by Lauren Wells. Along with lots of other tested wisdom for caring well for TCKs, I found Wells’ recommendations in this section of her book both insightful and practical.

She presents this framework in the form of an acronym – RAFT. Now, I love sticky tools like acronyms because it means I’m so much more likely to remember a given framework or set of truths. I’ve still got RICE (Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation) stuck in my head from my high school sports medicine class – Mr. Hemphill, if you’re out there, good on ya.

RAFT stands for Reconciliation, Affirmation, Farewell, and Think Destination. Wells describes Reconciliation as, “Make amends with anyone you may have hurt or been hurt by before moving.” She then reports how many TCKs form a bad habit of skipping this uncomfortable step as it’s just easier to get on that plane and leave. Instead, this kind of proactive reconciliation is a very wise and God-honoring step to take as we plan to leave a place.

The Affirmation step is described as, “Tell the people you love that you love them.” It’s very important that we say thank you and express our love to those we care about before we leave. Again, due to the emotions this stirs up, it’s easier to just leave. But both of these first steps will lead to regret if neglected.

Wells then discusses the step of Farewell, where she encourages TCKs to “say good-bye, not only to people, but to places and things as well. This is especially important for young children.” Wells writes that it’s crucial for healthy grieving that kids know when they are saying their final goodbye to a friend, a favorite place, or a special thing. Evidently, in God’s mysterious wiring of us, our souls hunger for this step of verbal ceremony in order to be able to move on to our next season well.

Think Destination is the final part of the acronym, where Wells encourages us to regularly talk about where we are headed next so that we quickly have things to be excited about, even as we grieve what is being lost. This step can be an application of our trust in God’s steadfast love to us. He has been kind to us thus far, he will be kind to us where we are going next – so let’s dream about how that kindness might be expressed.

Reconciliation. Affirmation. Farewell. Think Destination. I plan on giving the framework a test run the next time we experience a major transition. I think it would bless my kids – and do my heart good as well.

This framework is very simple. Yet how very practical for those who are called to live as sojourners and strangers. How is it that so many of us have embraced ministry lifestyles of costly transition without any practical tools for saying healthy goodbyes? I don’t think I’m the only one who had never heard of a framework for saying goodbyes well. When was the last time you heard a sermon, a podcast, or heard of a book written on saying goodbye well as a Christian? What a strange blind-spot for us to have. Perhaps there is a practical theology of goodbyes out there somewhere. If not, it needs to be written.

To this framework of RAFT I would only add one more step: Resurrection. Speak to one another and remind yourself of the very real hope of the coming new heavens and new earth, where there will be no more goodbyes. Each and every goodbye now is a chance to build our faith and love for that coming world where we will be reconciled with so many of those that we have said goodbye to, and where we will somehow find even the true and better forms of those places and things that we left behind. However much I love the bazaars, cafes, and libraries of this world, I will find in the world to come places that put them all to shame and are in fact their true essence fulfilled. The library as it was always meant to be, as it were. The pang of each goodbye therefore is a reminder that heaven is real and a chance to strengthen the solidity of this hope in the invisible.

We should speak and think of the coming resurrection as we say our countless goodbyes in the here and now. While I haven’t been the best at carrying out the points of RAFT, dwelling on the coming resurrection has been very good medicine for my transition-weary soul. So then, the acronym comes out to be RAFTR, a big clunkier to be sure. But hopefully even more powerful.

Photo by Ashley Light on Unsplash