With the itinerant system in the United Methodist Church, pastors tend to move throughout their career to different churches that can use their gifts. As a pastor’s kid in the UMC, we moved a lot, and I will say it was always hard. Change has always been a hard thing for me to navigate. My mom and I were recently reminiscing when I was ten years old and cried when I came home from school to find the living room furniture had been rearranged. Even now, many years later, change is still hard. I became emotional as we started packing up our stuff last month to sell our house, and while it was a relief that our house sold, I still let some tears out while signing our contract.
As my family approaches saying, “Goodbye” as we prepare for our reappointment, we are reflecting on every‐thing these last five and a half years, and we are grateful. We arrived in Cedar Rapids at a hard time, when we were still in the height of the pandemic, and then the derecho hit us, damaging our new home. This could have turned into a hard appointment as it started at a rough time, but you showed up to help us create a more permanent tarp job as we awaited the repair of our roof and helped us clean up our yard. We celebrated together with the birth of our daughter, Audrey and now the birth of our son, Philip. You loved on us so much that we had so much baby stuff covered for our children that we spent very little. We celebrated the life and ministry of Nourished together, and many of you have served on its leadership board, helped in the bakery, or gave of your time and money. We celebrated my ordination together, and I will be forever grateful for the shoulders to cry on in that hard year of deferment. You’ve provided a space for me as a new clergyperson to explore my gifts, become a better preacher, and work on my growing edges.
And now as we near the culmination of our time together, we just want to say, “Thank You!” Thank you for loving on us and sending us off with so much warmth in our hearts. It’s not a ‘goodbye,’ but a ‘see you later!’ (As the second movie “Wicked: For Good” has come out, I feel such a connection to the song by the same name and its words share my feelings well:
I’ve heard it said that people come into our lives for a reason,
Bringing something we must learn, and we are led,
To those who help us most to grow, if we let them,
And we help them in return.
Well, I don’t know if I believe that’s true,
But I know I’m who I am today because I knew you…
Who can say if I’ve been changed for the better?
But because I knew you, I have been changed for good.
It well may be that we will never meet again in this lifetime,
So let me say before we part,
So much of you is made of what I learned from you,
You’ll be with me, like a handprint on my heart…
Who can say if I’ve been changed for the better?
Because I knew you, I have been changed for good.
With much love to you all!
Pastor Kristina, Ryan, Audrey, and Philip Roth-Klinck