277 days....

What I crave at this very moment is piece of chocolate cake, paired with a latte sprinkled with cinnamon on top. Perhaps sitting in a comfy chair, surrounded by blankets, with my friends and family around. I would like the snow to be falling outside. Taking in each bite and soaking in every person around me as the blanket of snow fell outside.

Instead at this moment I sit inside a school, with a tin roof above my head, waiting the arrival of twenty two second graders. Waiting for them to run up the path with their book bags trailing behind, their hair gelled in perfect place, white shirts on. Boys in blue pants and girls in knee high white socks and braided hair. The sun is already shining brightly, proof of another hot and humid day ahead. The bugs land on my arm as I type and drink my coffee out of a plastic cup.

It is May 30, 2013. Exactly 277 days ago I arrived in Honduras to teach for one year. Today I sit waiting to begin my very last full day teaching. The remaining six days of school will finish at noon. And then next Saturday I will leave.

You can only imagine the emotional weight of this reality.

So in an effort to live out the words that I had placed above my bed. "Wherever you are be all there" I am going to try and be present today. Be here in this place. Soaking up each second, each smile, each tear, and every word that my kids say. When Caleb is out of his chair for the tenth time today, I hope I am able to be patient, and calmly ask he sit down. I want to laugh when they say something funny and not be frustrated when they speak out of turn. I just want to be here. No place else today.

How nice it would be to be in more than a few places at the same time in life. Be here to watch my little second graders grow up. See who they become in days and years to come.

How grateful I would be to be at home in Kentucky today, to stand alongside my very best friend from growing up as she says goodbye to her grandfather (who I too dearly loved).

But instead I am here. And I know that  in a few days time, I will be wishing I were back here again.

So I hope you too find that wherever you are, you know that you are exactly where God had you be today. I hope you too don't miss it. Don't miss why he had you where you are.

But instead "Wherever you are, be all there"