A Need To Vent

Really, I need to talk. I've come to the realization that there is no one to talk to.  I went from so many to none.  I've always said that change is good and I still believe that, but sometimes change is hard.
I have had a bad week. I very rarely get sick, but I have been sick for a week.  I'm not dealing with it very well.  Started out with allergies, turned into sinus infection and now it has gone respiratory. Started coming on Monday night. I had to go to the legal office Tuesday to check on my visa or I wouldn't have left the house. I haven't left the house since. Perhaps I just need to get used to the weather or living with air conditioning or I just tried to do too much, I don't know, but I don't like being sick.  Sick males you feel sorry for yourself.  I have so much to be grateful for that I don't like the self pity.  Sick doesn't allow you to do what you want to do so that is upsetting. On the positive, sick has made me understand the chronically sick better.  I will pray for them even harder.
What I really want to do is be out in the preaching work.  I feel that this is my main purpose in life and when you can't do what you are meant to do it is worse than being sick. It's crippling.
The friends here are wonderful, but they don't really know me yet.  A few have checked in, but they don't know if I just don't want to be bothered.  How could they? I don't know that myself. I know I could call any one of them and they would be here with anything I needed, but I don't know what I need.
 I can't talk with my friends or family back in the States.  Phone calls don't happen because it's too expensive. Amanda and I have a plan and I can talk with her on the phone, but there are so many variables. The time difference is hard.  I am constantly considering what the family is doing 3 hours earlier. When I am most available they are sleeping.  I am assuming it's the same for them. They are busy with life as am I. It's not their fault that I have been isolated for almost a week and they are on vacation.  So, I went from talking to my daughter everyday ( sometimes many times in a day) to not talking to her for days. So there you are. No one to talk to.
In the middle of this I tried to blow myself up! It's kind of funny now, but it also made for some more revelations.  Still, even though not feeling well, my comfort comes from cooking.  There are so many things I want to try here because the ingredients are so different I am so curious as to how to make them work.  This week I made dinner rolls, cookies, spaghetti sauce, quiche, meatloaf. Yep, been experimenting. Most turned out pretty good.  My stove is hooked to a gas tank under the counter.  Probably because I couldn't smell (stuffy nose) I didn't realize I had turned the gas on much before I put the lighter to the oven.  HUGE explosion!  Well, it was to me.  It, of course, could have been much worse. After all, I'm still alive. When I realized that there was no fire and I was still alive I went to the door in time to hear my neighbors below me hollering up, "Are you okay"? I yelled back that I was and then ran to the bedroom to get the tea tree oil because I knew I was burned.  Mark was assessing the situation.  Basically the stove had blow UP.  Everything went up.  All of the racks inside went up, the burners went up and the pot of spaghetti sauce went up. When everything came back down it didn't land in its proper place.  Mark put the stove back together ( do you believe it, nothing was broken) I cleaned up sauce from everywhere.  Mark lit the stove and oven and I proceeded to bake the cookies that were waiting to go into the oven. My hand and arm hurt really bad for a couple of hours, but the tea tree oil did its trick and I don't have any residual effects. I do have singed hair on one side of my face, but I'm wearing that as a badge of survival (stupidity).
The revelations? I am not as invincible as I might think. Anything can happen at any moment. AND I still love it here.
This place is crazy. Mark said, "Welcome to Ecuador". I will learn, I just hope it isn't always the "hard way". Okay, I feel better. Not the sick, but the emotional.  Seems this might have worked, because I am thinking I am talking to you.  I'm okay, I hope you are too. Thanks for letting me vent.