Salmon and Souvlaki

This morning early, my good friend Kristen called me  to see if Ellie and I wanted to meet her and her two little girls for a fun outing at the zoo.  I was supposed to go to the moms’ group at my church this morning but Ellie was so grumpy (from waking up at 5:45) that I figured it would probably be a disaster to attempt that.  So we decided to play hooky and go to the zoo instead!

It was Ellie’s first trip to the zoo and her first time in a stroller and she enjoyed both.

However, that is not the point of this blog post.

The point is that while we were there, just a few minutes into our visit, I saw a student wearing the uniform of the middle school where I taught last year.  I thought, “Hmm, that’s funny. Whatever.”  And then I saw five of my students walking by!!  It was the Pakistani contingent of brothers along with their Thai friend.  After lots of fun exclaiming and hugging and admiring of the baby, I figured out that today was the annual ESOL field trip and so ALL my students were at the zoo!!  HOW COOL!!!!  So as we walked, taking our time, more of my students caught up to us, including M (from El Salvador) who was my favorite student last year.  (Read more about her here.)

The look on M’s face when she saw me was priceless.  She was so excited to see me and gave me the biggest hug.  And then as soon as she let go, she gave me another one.  Then they saw Ellie and the cell phones came out for pictures, pictures, pictures – pictures with me and pictures with Ellie.  Pretty soon, there was a cluster of 8-10 middle school girls around the stroller, exclaiming about how cute she was and how fun.  I saw some of the teachers I taught with last year too.  Even this year’s 6th graders were taking pictures of me and they don’t even know me.  That’s when I felt famous!

It was so fun to see those precious kids and have them meet my precious baby.

Was it a coincidence that on the spur of the moment, Kristen called me to invite me to the zoo?  And that I decided to be spontaneous, ditch the previous made plans and go?  I don’t think so.  I think the Lord put that together for me – to encourage me, to give me one more fun story to tell about school, and to let those kids meet Ellie.  They were so excited for her to come last year and it’s really neat that they got to meet her.

I’m still grinning.