This is a very strange day for me.

I'm preaching this morning at KBC and tonight at LBC, knowing that this is our last Lord's Day here.

One of the things that makes it so strange is it recalls early on the first few times that I came for the annual conference when I would

do a morning at KBC in an evening at OBC or vice versa. It's fitting.

And it's also sobering to think that the Lord has brought our time here to a close.

There are many people who have let us know recently that they thought we would never leave. A lot of people who've said that, we thought you'd never leave.

When we came, we committed to three to five years.

One of the reasons that people thought we'd never leave is because

the three to five years turned into nine.

We would have made ten years in August we settled here both the home here

love all of our time here but we live our lives with open hands the reason we came to Zambia

is because we belong to God not to America the reason we're leaving Zambia is because we belong to God, not to America. The reason we're leaving

Zambia is because we belong to God and not to Zambia. We go where he leads. And that is much easier said than done, because it is a difficult and painful process.

It's hard to believe how quickly those nine years have passed by.

Well, as I thought about this day, I couldn't help but think about

what has become my favorite epistle, and that is Second Timothy. Second Timothy is Paul's

swan song. He's writing at the end of his ministry, at the end of his life. He knows that it's at the end of his life at the end of his life he knows that it's at the end of his

life he makes it clear in chapter four perhaps the most famous passage in the book of second

Timothy comes in chapter four there beginning at verse six where he says for i am already being poured

out as a drink offering and the time of my departure has come.

I have fought the good fight.

I have finished the race.

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