"Oh how lucky am I to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard."
-Winnie the Pooh

     Today has been the worst and the best day by far. To start the day off I got to be a teacher in a preschool classroom helping the kids make rainbow crafts. The smile these children got when we pulled out these colorful pieces of paper made my heart melt. I've always seen myself being a doctor or a nurse, but today made me realize my true passion, teaching. Even if it's not in a third world country, I want to be able to teach children how to live, love, and learn. Watching Kate talk to the children in their native language has really pushed me to learn creole myself. Most people look down on teachers as if they have lesser of a job, but I praise every teacher I have and will have because they are the lifeline to every other career path taken. After class, I got to go into the courtyard and just play with a few kids. Once I started playing with a few kids, it became a group of kids, then it became a mob of kids. I had one kid crawling up my right arm, another up my left, two on each leg, one on my back, and then a crowd of 15 around me just holding on. Some of the other girls from the mission team did not like being pulled on by all of these kids, but I can honestly say that I loved it. Being someone that these kids can look up to (no pun intended) is such an honorable feeling.
     The next part of my day involved lots of mixed emotions. I began my time at the orphanage playing soccer with Cardy and getting even more burnt than I already am. Right before it started raining it got extremely windy and cold, so I said to Pedlin "Mwen fwet" and shivered (it means "I'm cold"). She pointed her finger at me and made me wait where I was. She came running back with her jacket in her hands and laid it over my shoulders. Her offering her jacket to me made me really feel like I had accomplished something. As an orphan, I would never want to give anything of mine up, but she was more than happy to offer her jacket to me. It was an eye opener by showing me what pure and well minded person should look like. They should be willing to offer anything and everything up in order to help another person no matter what the cost. After a while, Katie and I were the only "adults" left in the orphanage. Katie went off to play with to play with a little girl so I held down the fort. The kids were starting to get bored since I can't really have conversations with them, so I brought out some crafts and they swarmed towards them. I had colored paper, sharpies, glue, paper plates, and googley eyeballs, a child's dream. The kids created their own art by cutting shapes out of the plates, adding eyeballs to create masks and anything else they could make that would create the biggest mess. Some people do not have the patience to clean messes up that were preventable or try and have conversations with a person speaking a completely different language, but I guess I was just blessed with that patience. I had an absolute blast making art with these kids.
     After dinner, a few of us went back down to the orphanage to give our final goodbyes. This is where the bad part of the day comes into play. Holding Cardy for the last time for 6 months was one of the toughest things I have had to go through. Becoming so attached to a child and knowing you have to leave them in just a week is such a terrible feeling. I became even more close with Cardy, Pedlin, and Peterson than I had the previous year. Even though I am only 17, I have always felt 20 years older than what I really am, so these children that I have gotten to know feel like my kids. A mother would be heart broken if she had to leave her kids in another country for 6 months without seeing them and that is exactly what I felt like. These children are my kids and I believe that they feel the same way. If leaving them was not hard enough, I started to feel angry toward the parents of these kids. How could someone so willingly leave their children behind when I do not even want to leave them behind just after 2 weeks of knowing them? When I get angry I do not yell or throw a fit, I simply cry. When I get really angry, I bawl like a baby. It made me so angry that a parent could do that to their child, but I began to think about the plan that God has for our lives. He makes everything happen the way it is supposed to in order for us to become closer to Him. If some of these children were not in the orphanage, they could have well been dead or unbelievers. As much as it angers me to think about the parents that left their children, it also makes me joyful that these children now know Jesus due to their parents incapability to provide for them. Tonight when I was at the house and just breaking down all alone in a dark area where no one could find me, Dale suddenly walks up with a flashlight and shines it in my face. I tried to hide the fact that I was upset but it was inevitable that he would figure it out. After talking with him, it eased my mind knowing that he felt the same way his first trip. Without even asking, he prayed with me asking God to put an ease on my heart. The power of God is so amazing, just within the fact that Dale happened to pass by me and shine a light in my face and notice I was upset. God provides for those who seek and do not seek. Tonight I am thankful for the way God gets us through life and how He makes sure everything is going to be alright.