All things work together...

September 2- I just had to stop today and write this down. We are so blessed to be here. I was sitting at my desk planning my 3rd grade lesson for tomorrow. I was feeling kind of stressed from the lesson I had this morning. I had 35 minutes with 2nd graders—not too bad, but we have to walk down to the gym and back up to class within that time too. It took the kids 15 minutes to walk down the giant hill the school sits on, and 10 more to walk up, so my lesson was only 10 minutes long. In that 10 minutes I also have to take registration and line the kids back up at the end and individually assess them on effort and cooperation for the day. So basically I had about 7 minutes for my lesson today. Anyway, I was thinking about this and trying to plan my other lessons—doing all of these day to day things that a teacher has to do that can be quite stressful and then it hit me. The thought just popped in my head, “You are so lucky to be here.” Even with all of the challenges and occasional frustrations of living in a new country, not understanding the native language, trying to fall into place at a new job, and the array of other things going on, I feel really lucky—really blessed to be here. Challenges are good. Hard times make you stronger. The fact that I’m here at all is more than I deserve. If the next ten months are filled with hard days and frustrations, I won’t regret coming to Jordan . I’ve already learned so much, and I’m looking forward to what the rest of our time here has to offer. We will have many fun and amazing experiences here in Jordan; I have no doubt about that. It might not all be fun and laughter, but it will all be for a purpose. "All things work together for good." -Zach