some days are diamonds, some days are stones

On Thursday, my mission was to make a Mickey Mouse. I successfully created a pretty good look alike, I think?! But, sometime in the afternoon I went to get ice cream with Arville and the girls and the weirdest thing happened. When the waiter came back and told me that there was no mint ice cream today I decided against having ice cream at all. That is very unlike me, I love my ice cream usually any flavor just give me the spoon. I froze like a little child and chose nothing over something. I had a mini-tantrum inside my head. It was the first time I have felt really discouraged.
The girls were in the midst of telling me that they were having problems finding people who wanted to meet for "class" and for the tutoring program. What am I supposed to report back about my purpose for coming? And then the waiter comes over and has the audacity to tell me that there is no mint ice cream? The nerve. That was the only thing I wanted so I just had nothing.
I thought I was going to break down in tears in the middle of our lovely ice cream meeting for no reason at all. I kept picturing the Tom Thumb by my house. I was walking straight to the frozen foods to pick out my mint ice cream and walking out the door with it safely in my arms.
I quickly snapped back to reality and to the silence I created with my change in mood.
It is not like that here.
Sometimes you have to go to three stores to find what you want; and other times even after the fifth store you have tried you will not find exactly what you are looking for.

That is what it is like to be on the field. To have great ideas and wonderful plans just to have them fall apart in front of your face. To these pieces, you must bring new life and through creativity, new ideas and a little bit of anger something great forms and it works better than you ever could have imagined.
For now, english class will start as a game night with pizza. Tutoring? Well... Sara and Jehonah will always be there to come through.
Maybe english class was meant for Habibe and me. Maybe mint ice cream will just have to be chocolate; and my non-existant tears...maybe they should be saved for all of the mothers who put their children to bed hungry tonight and all of the children who don't know that there is any other way to live. Maybe I will just report back that things don't always go as you planned that they would, but that does not mean that God is not ever present and existing in things that you know nothing about.
I think that discouragement comes with the job, but courage to continue comes from a God given gift found deep within your soul.