Week too!

Habari jioni!
Good evening to you! How are you doing lately? Have you been enjoying your electrical sockets, or running water? I hope so, because they can be marvelous things. Nick and I are now about to enter our second week without such modern amenities, but actually aren't missing them all that much. We can't charge our laptop, but other than that we're really doing just fine.
So, as you may have heard, two people were lynched in the town nearest to where Nick and I are staying. That's right, a mob of people came together and lynched two men last Thursday in the town of Thika, Kenya. Kinda crazy. Nick and I were nowhere near it, and now the town has settled down again (in fact, Nick and I were dropped off in the matatu at the establishment where the deed happened).
I like it here. A LOT.
This last week has been (of course) a mixture of stuff. Our meals are becoming more regular (that is, we eat beans and maize for dinner every night, and skip the maize porridge for breakfast every day), and our schedule has also evened out (we spend the days talking with John and Nancy, walking to nearby places to meet people, or assisting in preparing the meal for the evening (which mostly consists of picking out the bad beans from the good, which takes about two hours each day).
I also want to take this time to say that I now drink tea every day! It is Kenyan chai, and I love it!! Even more than the Aveda tea which Tap room taught me to appreicate (thanks dacia!).
THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO HAS PRAYED FOR US AND/OR EVEN SENT US AN EMAIL!! I've been surprised at how many of you are contacting me, and I think it freaking rocks.
This last week has been pretty cool. We've started learning swahili more intensely (thanks to the training that Nick took at Missionary Training International) and have also become more familiar with our surroundings! Today we came to Thika completely by ourselves, which is awesome because John was thinking that the earlier we might do that would be May!
We met the local schools that the kids go to, and are assisting in the normal duties of the day. Ex: Nick and I have each spent about 6 total hours picking through beans this week, sorting the good from the bad. We can also go with the kids to get water from the well (they need to be supervised), or help to even cook the food. The responsibilities here are great, and even though it's Kenya there is plenty to do.
JOHN PASSED OUT ON SUNDAY!! So his bad back/nerve problems got him and we awoke to find John, unresponsive, on the cement kitchen floor. He was breathing and had a pulse, and so I began working through the Wilderness First Responder training I've had on what to do in a situation like this. After about 20 minutes we realized that could hear us and could signal with his eyebrows. We communicated with this hair-raising (ha!) feat for the next 45 minutes while the rest of his faculties slowly came back. The next was his right hand (he wrote us a message on a peice of paper, which was just crazy!), then his left, then his jaw, etc... He eventually got up and Nick and I walked him back to his room where he stayed for the rest of the day, resting on his bed. This has happened to him at least five times, and the paralysis has sometimes lasted up to 8 hours.
Also, we're 3 days from running out of food. This is their constant situation. We've had a number of very good talks Nick and I are very hopeful for AMCC. John and teacher-Nancy do seem to be very genuine and trustworthy people. Time will tell, may the Lord guide us. They want to start an income generating project so that they're not dependent on donors anymore- woohoo!!!! They even have some contacts who may be able to help them host a fund-raiser here in Kenya to raise money for it!

So please pray for:
- John's back. We want it to be completely better!!
- Provision of food for AMCC. It is an awkward situation, because the community assumes that they don't need to help AMCC with food anymore since Nick and I are here. John was thinking that Nick and I could just write to our friends any time that they needed money, but for now that is the kind of relationship we are trying to avoid with AMCC.
- Pray for wisdom about how to handle money with AMCC. We just want to listen to the Lord and do what He directs. We don't want them unhealthily depending on us.
- An income generating project to be settled on by John and for him to move forward confidently with this. And for provision of funds for it.
- We MAY get hooked up with a regular food distribution program run by a large business (Bidco oil). Pray that this would happen!!! It would be AWESOME and would take much stress off of everyone. It may take 2-3 months for us to get onto it, so let's begin now!
- Praise God, some of the kids at AMCC scored very high on their recent tests. Jeffrey (who also happens to be our swahili teacher) is first in his class (7th grade) at school!
- Praise God, it has rained the last two nights! Rainy season was supposed to start 3 weeks ago, and there has been a drought here for the last 3 years. It is another compounding influence on the food situation here.