Big Post

Q: What do you do when your star pupil doesn't come home from school?

A: Call the area chief, assistant chief, counsellor, boy's father (who lives 300 km away), principal, send out two groups to walk around the area looking for he boy and asking around, and pray.
This question (and others) have been some of what Nick and I have been learning to answer since I last wrote.
Turns out that the most effective part of the answer that I gave above was pray. No one had heard of Jeffrey, seen him, or knew anything about where he might have gone or why he might have left. Academically, he's #1 in all of 7th grade in school, and Nick and I have really enjoyed him because he's been an excellent swahili teacher for us!
Still, on Wednesday afternoon Jeffrey didn't come home from school. After a fair amount of searching and calling, Nick and I prayed some. We're both reeeeeally inexerienced and new to anything that could be called "spiritual warfare", but we've figured that we'd better learn some and quick. We prayed, and God did just what we asked for: he kept Jeffrey safe from physical harm, spiritual harm, and from bad ideas. Jeffrey also ended up in safe hands (a pastor and his wife, of all people!). After walking about 3-4 miles on his own, through two villages, Jeffrey asked someone if he could borrow their phone to call his dad. This person asked a few questions, and eventually gave Jeffrey to a local pastor, who called Jeffrey's dad, who then called us here at AMCC. Whoo-hoo!!
The following morning John was to go pick Jeffrey up, but he develop a terrible, bronchitus-like cough overnight and was pretty beat. So Nick and I walked 2 miles to go pick up Jeffrey from this man we'd never met before. Turns out, this dude's wife runs a Chemist (aka drug store), so we bought some cough medicine for John as an indirect way of saying thank-you for taking care of Jeffrey. Though we could have taken a matatu back to AMCC, we figured that 2 miles would give us plenty of time to talk with Jeffrey, so we walked back as well (answering another prayer of ours, that Jeffrey would recieve both love and discipline when he returned). Nick and I spent a while talking, listening to Jeffrey, and then talking again. Turns out that he's spoken Kikuyu (aka mothertongue) in school, which is not allowed there. Beyond that the details get fuzzy, but suffice it to say that he was afraid of coming back to AMCC because he thought he'd get sent home... so he decided to just go home by himself first (there are plenty of inconsistencies in logic in his plan, but that's not pertinent, he's in 7th grade, so his thinking's not always going to be stellar, nor his desire to accept appropriate discipline for knowingly breaking rules).
In the end, Jeffrey is back with us- praise the Lord!! I'm sure it's hard on him to be back, because this is a shame-based culture and he brought shame on AMCC by both speaking kikuyu in school and also by not coming back. The kids will give him a harder time than I would like, but Nick and I aren't really sure yet how to speak into that.
So praise God that Jeffrey's safe, and back with us!!! Pray for him to be accepted back here by the kids (John and Nancy have fullen accepted him back and aren't holding any grudges), and to continue to do well in school. He's got a really bright future if he stays here, but returning home would be the end of his education.

Food and Money.
We've got lots of both of those in the states. Turns out that here in Kenya... not so much. People in the upper class have plenty of money, and thusly they've got plenty of food. But there is a WHOLE LOT of corruption in Kenya, so the poor generally stay poor. AND, since there's been a huge shift in weather here in the last ten years (everyone will tell you about it, whether or not they've heard the term "global warming" or could say it in english or swahili), the rains don't come as much, and the resulting drought means that people are also struggling to grow their own food to eat.
From the conversations I've had with people in the community, this part of Kenya is actually pretty fertile, as long as there's enough water. Infrastructure is not so hot around here, though, so there are few wells, and even fewer small farms with enough water to irrigate them (many of the wells are used by the community, and thusly do not contain enough water for people to take care of immediate needs (drinking, cooking, cleaning/bathing) and future ones (irrigation) because the well simply runs out of water).
So these are some of the factors which are working against the kids at AMCC. Most of the farms around here (maybe an acre or so in size) have either nothing planted (because the rains are 3 weeks late and people have lost their crop due to early planting the last few years) or a cash crop (tea of coffee) which is currently bringing in a meager amount of profit (case study #1: in the 70's the price of coffee was about $1 for 2 pounds, today it is 10 cents or less). Word on the street is that this change is due to corruption and middle men, since coffee costs more to buy today than it ever has. Speaking of, anybody know how to start a business that sells free-trade coffee/tea??? Seems that this community could benefit hugely.
Case study #2: John's dad currently grows about one acre of tea leaves. After paying his employees his monthly profit is about $25. He could earn more if we could get a well (so that he could irrigate), but thus far has been unable to get $60 at one time to pay someone to dig one. This boggles my mind.

That's all a backdrop for AMCC, and our struggles with food and money. The aforementioned forces (especially corruption by high-level government officials) are strong conitributing factors to why poverty persists in Kenya, but more recently we're struggle because of two things: Nick and I.
The perception here, pretty universally, is that when a white person comes to a place then that place his basically won the lottary. The white person will pay for any needs that exist, and more, and all of one's troubles and worries will be gone... so the thought goes. This myth exists because it has happened in many places in Kenya/sub-saharan African/the 2/3's world. Anyway, Nick and I came with open hands to help, but also comparatively empty pockets. We brought some money to make a contribution toward sustainable food efforts (i.e. to buy stuff to grow our own food), but even if we took that money and spent it all toward immediate food needs it would be gone in about 7 weeks (that's why we want it to go toward sustainable food efforts, so that they're not perpetually in need of donations).
So when Nick and I came, the community saw that "your wazungu have come" (aka your white people have come) and figured that they didn't need to support AMCC anymore. It makes sense to me, if I were poor already and thought that a need was getting taken care of by someone else, then I'd be stoked to sell the bananas I would have given to those kids at the market, or give them to my sister's family who are in need of food. But Nick and I came to get to know AMCC, and to help with menial daily tasks (cooking, going to trade out cell phones, delivering the payment for school fees, etc...), not to throw money at this place.
That's made kind of a perfect storm of difficulty for us here, since the community thinks we're going to be providing, but we were counting on the community for that. So Nick and I have eaten githeri (a mixture of maize and beans) for every dinner here for the last two weeks. It's also what the kids eat every day for lunch. It's also what I eat for breakfast most days, and have taken for lunch whenever I'm here for the last week or so. Thankfully, it's a wonderful source of protein (two parts maize + one part corn = 3 bits of protein, so says my Appropriate Technology Manual), so still, the variation and other vitamins and minerals are missed.
Nick and I now make it a conscious effort to try to tell people when we meet them that we love it here but are having a bit of a difficult time at AMCC because the community has stopped supporting them. We're also praying that God will pretty much tell people to give us food/money for supplies/rent/school fees, etc... because it'll be a good while before AMCC will be self-sustaining and/or Nick and I will feel comfortable and be able to raise funds for them on a regular basis. Pray with us please!

In order to combat the current situation of want, John has suggested that we get down and dirty (prayer without bathing... jk about not bathing). Yesterday we spent about 30 min. compiling a list of stuff that we're going to pray for every day. John anticipates it will take about 2 hours every day (yikes!!!), you can pray for us about that. ;-)
Here's the list of what we're going to praying for:
1. House Rent ($70 a month)
2. $ to pay for a neighbor's saucepans (which are now broken anyway)
3. $ to Buy bigger saucepans.
4. Food, regular provision and healthy variation
5. $ for exams
6. $ for cutting hair (would anyone like to send hair-clippers??? Email me!)
7. $ for cell phone bill (about $60 a month)
8. Firewood ($38 a month)
9. Propane for pressure lamp ($13 a month)
10. Parafin ($3 a month)
11. Patroleum Jelly for Lotion
12. Toothpaste
13. Laundry Soap
14. Toilet paper
15. Shoe polish (a necessity here!)
16. Spices
17. Unity/love all here, Staff And Children (SAC)
18. Patience for SAC
19. Increase our faith
20. God to bless our partners, for them to give only with cheerful hearts.
21. Our own land.
22. An income generating project.
23. For self-sustainabing food (growing our own food, planting or rearing).
24. Wisdom, how to spend $ and handle issues.
25. Self-Sustainability
26. Another worker for AMCC
27. John's family is far away, that's not so great.
28. John's back to be healed.
29. For the enemies of AMCC, that God would bless them and we would also.
30. Protection from Satan's attacks.
31. SAC would become closer to God.
32. Children's schooling, that they'd work hard, do well.
33. School fees (secondary school, university, vocational school).
34. School fund
35. For more friends and partners for AMCC
36. $ for transportation
37. A vehicle of our own. Fuel for it.
38. Community to be involved, even though wazungu are here.
39. Encouragement for Nancy, and all of us to keep going.


PRAISE GOD FOR SWITCHFOOT!!!
I'm listening to my least favorite album of their's right now and it's still just incredible!!! I'm just psyched up!! "We are slaves of what we want" So true.
Maybe it's because I haven't listened to a song I know in 2 weeks... On a positive note, I do enjoy the music here in Kenya a lot. The rap is cool, and since I can't understand the words it's pretty fun. The Congalese style music here is also pretty fun, I think I'm really going to get into it. :-)