A farewell from the kids
This past week was Corrie’s last week with us in Berkeley. Some of the kids decided (helped along by one of the moms) to get together and have their own farewell for her. These kids have an experience few of us in the world have – they have been friends their entire lives, shared and passed down the same crib, worn each others hand-me-downs sometimes four to five generations down, were babysat together while their parents were in prayer meetings and staff meetings, went to school together, and of course learned the sacred art of fighting and saying sorry—and all of this, together. Corrie is now ten years old and she and Josiah were born the same year, though Corrie is decidedly taller and with a voice an octave lower. And now, after ten years of friendship and doing everything together, Corrie was getting on a plane to join the rest of her family in Austin as they start our Gracepoint Austin church.
I was at Northloop on the day of this farewell and had the privilege of being a part of it. The menu was none other than California Rolls in honor of her last day in California and there was a sign put up on the whiteboard that read: “We will miss you, Corrie soooo much!” Sprinkled on the board, were a dozen “corrie-isms” including things like “that’s too much!” “devastating!” and others that revealed that indeed, she is her father’s daughter. Next on the program after dinner was a song and dance, where the kids changed one of the Joyland song lyrics for this occasion. Josiah was in the front leading with full limb extension. This song/dance combo (or shamelessly making a fool out of yourself for the joy and sake of your honored friend) is an age-old practice they’ve seen the adults do for weddings, farewells, and they’ve gotten quite good at in their own right. Some of the lines from the song were “we’re gonna spread, we’re gonna spread, we’re gonna spread the light of Jesus.” It wasn’t the most coordinated dance, but there was a lot of heart. After the laughs, we got together around the table and had a time of sharing. The prompt was “one thing I appreciate about Corrie.”
Some of the things shared:
“When we’re playing in the warehouse and we’re all dead tired, Corrie’s the one who says, ‘Who wants ice water?’ and goes and gets us water.”
“Her contagious enthusiasm!”
From one of the aunties: “I’m going to miss cooking for Corrie, because even if it’s the most normal meal, she says, “THANK YOU SO MUCH! This is SO good!”
“When we went bowling, she was the one who gave high-fives to everyone, even for gutter balls. She’s such an encourager. I’m gonna miss that.”
There was a cake decorated by her friends and a group picture. The next day at 5:00am, her friends, bleary-eyed, piled into cars with their moms and saw their friend off at Oakland Airport with tears.
On one hand, it was a small affair, but in another light, this was a vintage moment of the church I’ve come to call home. What happened at that tiny gathering was a microcosm of what happened just a couple weeks before when Corrie’s parents and the Austin team left. We had a big farewell for them, the customary shameless dances, about a hundred people’s sharings of how they’ve impacted our lives, and the morning they left at 5:00am, two hundred people, bleary eyed, piled into their cars to Oakland Airport, and saw our friends off with many, many tears.
What I saw in that snapshot of the kids’ farewell was something precious, something you couldn’t teach in a couple Sunday school lessons about loving your neighbor. They learned about loving your neighbor from actually squabbling with, fighting with, getting in trouble with your neighbor. They learned to share their toys because their parents had shared their toys, their money, their hearts. They learned that family lines were blurry and that they were stuck with each other like family. They learned other people were precious by sharing their food with countless college and grad students their parents would invite over. (I remember when Corrie was about 7, turning to her mom when I was over saying, “Does Auntie Jenny just come over to eat?”) They learned that the gospel was so precious that it was worth picking up and leaving your friends for, even when it hurt.