The Best Working Day thus Far

Yesterday, by far, has been the most rewarding and uplifting days at my job assignment. I have been working at the school close to two months now and rarely feel as if I accomplish much but I had a moment yesterday when "it was all good". The school had a field trip to the beach to collect shells for the arts & craftts class. We loaded up our 30+ students into our big new bus and away we went. Upon arrival at the beach we unloaded and started to serve lunch. The students were eating on woven mats we brought. The teachers did not bring the wheelchair for one of our students. I was shocked when I learned that he would not be eating his lunch outside on the mats with the other students. He was served his sandwich inside the bus alone. I sat and ate my lunch with him and asked if he wanted to eat outside. He replied that he did not. After the lunch some of the students began collecting shells and swim. I went to assist with both these activities. I came back to check on the student in the bus. As I came into the bus he says "Ema, 'ou te fia ta'ele i le sami" (i want to go swimming). Although, I had some reservations about taking a student who has no lower body control and can't sit up independently to the water, I thought "we can make this work". I said to the student "Ta o (let's go!). I signaled for another student to help me carry him to the beach. This student was so excited he just wanted to lay in the sand and feel the water crash up onto his face. I was a little nervous about him laying face down in the sand with the water every so often encompassing him so I had him sit leaning against me in the water. Though I first recieved some funny looks from the teachers, all began to see how happy this student was. I asked this student "E se taime muamua ta'ele i le sami?" (is this your first time to go swimming?) he said "ioe." (yes!) (he's 21 yrs. old and lives on an island and has never been in the ocean) I immediately yelled for a teacher to get my camera from the bus and take a picture. (Hopefully, this pic will be posted soon! I'll be mailing the film to the states by the end of next week). Today in school it was all this student and his teacher could talk about. Everytime I saw him he had a huge smile on his face. If I accomplish little else but this one thing in the next 2 years, I will still remember what happened yesterday and how thankful I am to have been there to see this miracle.