God's providing for and stretching us

Hey everyone; we bless you, our dear family and friends in the name of Jesus.
God is faithful - He continues to protect, equip, strengthen and stretch us.
We had a really good down pour a few days ago, so now with the rising temperature we also have humidity. The fact that we haven’t had hot water since the second day we got here is, for the most part, becoming less of an issue. After the initial shock of the cold water hitting your hot body in the shower, it’s wonderfully refreshing.
Power outages have posed to be stretching for us. In the last week we’ve been without electricity far more than with. In the last 72 hours we’ve had power for about 6-8 hours. This is problematic for many reasons; the food spoils in the fridge, classes at school have to be revised because of the photocopier not running, you can’t get any relief from the heat from the use of fans, which also affects your sleep, etc., etc.
But in all this, God truly is helping us cope. Yes, there are times when you wonder why the government doesn’t do things differently and channel money into infrastructure instead of some other things, but I believe that we are being stretched by this for a purpose. Leave it to Colton to often bring humour into a situation; yesterday as we sat down to our simple evening meal, he quipped; “ I thought candlelight dinners were supposed to have fancier food than this.”
School is going well, both for Colton the student and myself the assistant/teacher. Both Secondary and Primary begin with devotions every day - what a huge blessing to corporately start the day like this. Isaac joins the staff devotions with me at Primary. So far Pastor Ray does them, however, we will start a rota shortly. There is so much power in welcoming the Holy Spirit into every aspect of the day, and being challenged to incorporate a godly principle into every lesson that is taught. What a joy to see Muslim/Hindu children enthusiastically singing Christian songs, learning Scripture and praying. Twenty two percent of our students come from these homes; the reason they are at this school? It’s English - the only one in Bujumbura. Being knowledgeable in English is very important to this community of people, and they are willing to have their children fully integrate into a Christian school to accommodate this. What a fantastic opportunity to evangelize and disciple these children. Parents as well have seeds planted in them when they come to school programs and celebrations.
The Lord is answering our prayers as He gives Isaac creative and often unusual ways to fix/do things in his work. For instance, Isaac had tried to fix our constantly running kitchen faucet to no avail. With no plumbing parts and only a screwdriver, your options are limited.  After a few attempts, he used a pencil for the solution; the metal part that holds the eraser makes a wonderful faucet part; who would have known!?  With God all things are possible.
Isaac does find it frustrating that there are so very few materials available to do his job. He knew this would be the case before we came, but when you live it every day,  and the things are so very basic that he needs  sometimes, it can be taxing. Please pray for continued and an increase of creativity and improvisation skills for Isaac.
Jehovah Jirah -God our provider. There’s a guy by the name of John who’s from England, who’s lived here for about 20 years that donated some tools yesterday that people have shipped out to him over the years. He works for the President of Burundi, and I don’t know exactly what else he does. All of a sudden he’s at the Primary school, wanting to see Isaac to arrange the donation. It’s so faith building, the Lord putting it on John’s heart to do this now, at the perfect time when there’s someone here that needs the tools.
Speaking of tools, the crate that contains more tools that our church put in there is held up here in Bujumbura because of red tape. It arrived close to two weeks ago; hopefully we’ll get possession of it this coming week. Please also pray in this regard.
You’ve probably heard stories of how living things have crawled through sewer pipes into toilets. I had, and the thought wasn’t pleasant. Neither is the experience!! Here’s what happened: I was at Secondary, the main building was locked, so I had to use the outdoor toilet. It was relatively dark in there compared to the bright sunshine outside, and my eyes took some time to adjust.  Obviously, you never sit down in public facilities, so as I hovered over the loo, I happened to look into it. At first I thought that the girl that came out of the loo just before I entered had forgotten to flush,  but then I saw “it” move!!  I suddenly didn’t need to go anymore, as by this time the creature was in sharp focus and trying to scale the side of the toilet. ( My hair at the nape, even in the re-telling of the event, is doing weird things.) I flushed, hoping to rid the earth of this intruder, but “the thing” was determined not to co-operate. I stood and watched as it flailed and wiggled and struggled to not be sucked under by the powerful current. African toilets have a much more powerful flush, more like a vacuum. So when the waters had calmed, there he was, all 7-8 inches of him, shiny black and much more relaxed. At this point I high-tailed it out of there and informed a guy standing nearby about the goings on. He came to evaluate the situation, sauntered off and came back with a long branch. He was going to rescue the thing!! He stuck the branch into the toilet, and slowly it climbed onto it. He brought the approximately 3 inch circumference, snake-like, ugly thing with 4 short legs out and it scurried off. I wonder who it’s next victim will be!?
We get to sleep in tomorrow!  We have to get up at the uncivilized hour of 5:45 A.M. to get to school by 7:00 for staff devotions during the week, so with our earplugs in place to shut out the loud sounds of the night and early morning, the slumber will be most welcome.
I’ll try and post some pictures tomorrow.
Goodnight, we miss you, we love you.
The Froese’s