river-swimming, thunderstorms, and too much dessert

This day's events began after a pancake breakfast and Ellie's 1st nap of the day (around 10:30) when Josh, the McCanns, and I headed out to a swimming hole at the river nearby. Quickly ignoring the bottles on the bottom and the freezing water, I felt like I was swimming in the middle of a beautiful, tropical jungle. We spent the morning jumping off rocks, playing with floaties, and getting butt bites by mysterious river critters. Soon after our arrival, we were joined by a group of Honduran kids celebrating a birthday (apparently, breaking an egg over the birthday person's head is customary here). I had no reason to feel at all threatened by their presence until one of the boys decided to take my picture, without shame and without permission. No doubt the Spanish motherland passed down this kind of behavior to her colonies as this was all too familiar from last semester.

On the way home we stopped for lunch at Wendy's, leaving only after Lucy had succeeded in riding the play place slide a solid 10 times. Naps all around at the McCann residence were only enhanced by one of the loudest thunderstorms I've ever experienced (although, the tin roof might have something to do with it).

Tonight, Lindsey and I enjoyed a girls' movie night in, while Mike, Josh, and Sean took some of the Armenia boys out to dinner and a soccer game. As we lounged and enjoyed our big bowls of vanilla ice cream (complete with hard chocolate shell and reeses chips), I marveled at how quickly and effortlessly I've readapted to life abroad. Something about these extended travels cause me to drop all exercise and diet plans and become lazy and gluttonous instead. Once again, I'm thankful for the reality check and am learning a lot. I've gained new freedom by serving others instead of solely being preoccupied with trying to control everything in my own life. This passage from Philippians 2 is a great reminder:

"⁵Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
⁶Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
⁷but made himself nothing,
taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
⁸And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to death—

even death on a cross!"

All I know is that I'm going to have a very tough time readjusting to JMU again after my 8-month long vacation.