i love my bed

I am so thankful that I could rest today. It has been a long past few days, but really good at the same time. For some reason, today and yesterday, I've gotten more homesick than I have the whole time I've been here. I thinkit might have been a combination of things. First, i think it's partly because I havent been feeling all that well.My friend Nathan has had malaria this past year and i keep asking him what it feels like, but he assures me i dont have it loli think i'm a little paranoid just being in a different place. I got to take a really good nap and feel alot better now. But I thinkanother part of starting to feel homesick was that I realized that I could make international calls on the phone that Christi game to meand got to here my parents voice yesterday...its been more than two weeks since ive heard them and it was so good :). hah ofcourse my mom says "bethhhie your okay....are you taking your malaria pills" lol ive missed hearing the concerned questions (mom i know your reading this i love it when yyou do that :) ) and i got to talk to my dad too.. i have to insert here that I have the best dad in the world..to here his tone when he realized it was me calling was so worth the dollar a minute phone charge.
Before i got off the phone my dad told me that my guinea pig died this past week. It sounds like a minor thing to get upset about(and i probobly shouldnt post this online), but I just started crying. I felt like i hadn't been at home with him enough because im gone all the time. But i just wanna say that my dad took such good care of him when he was sick (taking him to the vet and feeding him baby food when he wouldnt eat his own food..annnd letting him chew holes in my dad's t-shirts while he fed him carrots and they watched tv together lol) i need to re-emphasize the fact that I have the best dad :) I'm just thankful im not with the intern that got sent to peru this summer (they eat guinea pigs there)

Anways, it all sounds like little things. But today i sat down to pray and read for a little and I just cried more..about missing home, everyone there, my team, i even thought about coach mauer retireing and cried. I'm a mess lol. But for some reason even in the middle of crying and missing everything..i dont have the feeling that I should be home. I think i've written about this before, but as much as my emotions are saying i wanna be home, my heart and my head are really calm about being here still. I know the Lord has a purpose for different things (aka everything lol) and i think i can really feel him in that contrast of feelings.

So yesterday was exciting/ something i dont think i'll do again for a long time. Me and two other interns decided to go to lake Kivu this weekend (in between Rwanda and Congo). Although I wasnt completely aware of the plan before we left, bit by bit i started realizing different things about our excursion. First, we were going to stay there but we were gonna camp..which is fine..i love camping haha i think. Next I became aware of the fact that we were camping on an island that we had to take about a 45 min boat ride to. Then I found out that we were the only ones on the island (aside from about 3000 bats) and that the place wasntexactly designated as a camping area. Infact it was more of a mountain than just an isalnd and the only flat place we found was after completing an almost verticle hike to the top. A few other interesting incidents during ourtime relaxing (cough cough being stranded lol) on the island were deciding not to sleep in a tent and almost catching the island on fire when we started the fire (thankfully nate has great skill with his towel at putting out fires...way to go boy scouts :) hah but all in all even though it was exauhsting..it was a really cool experience and it makes me so thankful for my bed.
Anyways i just wanna say how much i miss everyone and hope everything is good at home!
Love,
beth