This week went by fast, too fast. It had a lot of firsts in it; first time to bird island, first time to see a Manta Ray and a shark, first paper ball fight in geography class. It had a lot of lasts also; last regular school day with my seniors, last week of prayer, last time speaking for vespers, and most likely the last baptism. We started the week with a trip to bird island on Sunday. Bird island is very small, and mostly rocks, it's kind of like a miniature rock island from Palau. Their isn't much land, mostly rock covered with crabs; but it is completely surrounded by white sand and reef! They took us out in shifts on the boat. We swam most of the time, explored the poky rocks, and screamed multiple times when crabs the size of my face scurried out of a crevice next to my hand. As the tide went out a nice little beach formed around the rocks. School started as usual Monday, but this week was week of prayer. We had a special guest speaker, Jesse's grandfather, come and speak to the high school and middle school. It's always exciting to see some of the students decide to give their life to Christ during week of prayer. One student in particular has been struggling this whole year. He really wanted to be baptized but his parents wouldn't let him. He finally felt so called to be baptized that he came to church today and we went to the water right after church. I know it is going to be hard for him at home, but I pray God would give him courage and faith to face what's ahead.
This was my last full week with my seniors. All I have is two days of finals next week and they will be dismissed early. I can't believe it is almost over. I really can't imagine a morning where they aren't running in just as the last bell rings coming up with their excuses for being late, hearing them sing as loud as they can to try to earn a star on the board, or trying to persuade me that I don't feel like teaching math this morning. I just can't imagine it, I'm really going to miss them. I was getting really frustrated with how messy they were leaving the room so they made a special effort to clean the classroom. I came back from geography and found they had thoroughly cleaned out everything and rearranged the desks. They say the are excited for summer, but I can see they are also sad to see this chapter of their life over. One of the girls told me "Ms. college sounds cool, but I don't want this to end". I know exactly how she feels, but I reminded her what I always remind myself. Life doesn't stop and we have to keep moving with it or we will miss out on the next amazing plan that God has ahead for our lives. I am going to try to fit as much fun into the last few days with my seniors this week. They only have a few finals and then free time, so we will see what happens :). I find myself recording and taking pictures of the most mundane things because I know those are the things I will probably miss the most.
My favorite moment this week was my last class of the week, geography. I started class with some pictionary to review India before giving an intro to China. The kids started quietly throwing paper balls at each other, trying to be quiet. Eventually one ended up hitting me, and then another. I looked around and the kids were all smiling, I could tell they weren't trying to be mean or disrespectful, they were just having fun. So I picked up the ones thrown at me and started to throw back, this of course resulted in an all class paper ball war. The kids were having so much fun and of course I became I giant target. I eventually got them settled back down and I continued the lesson. The kids were all talking about how fun class was afterwards and saying they were glad I knew how to have fun. I think this year has taught me how to embrace things as they come. I could have gotten upset with the kids and told them to stop and pay attention, but then I would have missed out on a fun memory with them.
We had a holiday Friday so we took a boat out in search of Manta Rays. You are guaranteed to see manta's year around in Yap, if you dive. It is sometimes harder to see them just from the surface. But we found several! The ones we saw were only babies, which is crazy because they were the length of my arm span. The full grown mantas can get between 18 to 20 ft wing span, large enough to pull the boat! We jumped in the water so see them snorkeling, they are harmless, but they were scared away by that time. They took us to see a shark too. We saw a big reef shark out really deep, I was really scared to get in the water but they said it was harmless so we jumped in! I was so nervous, but the shark stayed hidden while we were swimming around. I was hoping it would come out so I could say I swam with a shark! Maybe I still will before I leave.
Here goes a new week, I hope it is filled with as many memories as this week was.
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