Please pray for Ramona's healing.

Hey everyone;
Please pray for Ramona and Earl and family. Check out there blog at:    earlramona.blogspot.com
We need a miracle!!!
We have a friend here who has AIDS (she was born with it),and she’s had ‘flare-ups’ in the past, where the disease seems to be a lot stronger. She’s had a ‘flare up’ now for over 2 months. We’ve talked a lot about faith and healing and praying, all of which she says she’s lacking in. She’s also lived almost 16 years longer already than the doctors said she would. Please pray for her as well.
We had a little bit of a tense Sunday last week. I’ll start at the beginning. Colton’s neck had been some biting creature’s meal, with about 8 or so definite bite sites. The following day it looked pretty awful, with a bad red and raised rash spreading on his neck and onto his face. We consulted some people from here, applied a few different creams to it, and it got worse. Sunday during lunch Colton said that he had a bad head ache. I went to lie down with him, and in his sleep he jumped really much 4 times. We had to go to CRIB at four o’clock for worship, so we had to wake him up and once awake, he said he was very tired, and still had a head ache. He looked quite unwell. We are aware of what the symptoms of malaria are, and extreme fatigue, head aches and intense dreaming are part of the symptoms.
Everiste picked us up and we told him what was going on. He said we needed to have Colton checked out by Dr. Euloge. With it being Sunday, that meant going to his house. He checked Colton, asked some questions and ordered a malaria test.
We went to Jabe Hospital, which is run by Iglese Vivant (“our” church), and received a (praise the Lord), negative result for malaria. So the bites where serious enough to cause distress in Colton’s body, but it wasn’t the dreaded “African killer”, as it’s sometimes referred to. Dr. Euloge prescribed meds., and in about a day and a half it was starting to improve.
Pastor Rueben’s good friend had a 12 year old daughter die of malaria a few weeks ago, a fellow teacher’s husband had it a few weeks ago, etc. It’s quite common. Please pray for protection for us from this horrible sickness. And yes, we sleep under a mosquito net every night, since day one.
Power cuts are continuing to be an issue. For the most part we can take it in stride, but sometimes it gets very frustrating, especially if it’s been off for 36 hours straight and all the food is 100 percent defrosted in the tiny fridge/freezer. It’s not uncommon to have no electricity for about 24 hrs., than on for 4-12 hrs., and back off. We also had the water shut off for a large part of the day for three days in a row. I kept telling myself, “Be joyful in all things, be joyful in all things.” On one of these ‘no water’ days, we had a  wedding to attend, and had to walk to CRIB to shower.
The public is not happy about the power cuts because it’s costing people lots of money, especially businesses. To run a generator at these exorbitant gas prices puts a huge dent in any ones pocket, never mind the bigger generators needed to run a business. Never the less, we sometimes wish for a generator. Having access to the internet is also sporadic, more for some than for others. One of the teachers who’s here from Arizona couldn’t get on for three weeks!  On a fantastic note, we’ve had hot water now for two days!! There was something wrong with the power lines having to do with the hot water tank since the second day of our arrival, and things generally take very, very long to be addressed here; so we’re very thankful  for this luxury. It honestly feels strange to just stand under the water right away, and to not gradually, limb by limb, get used to the temperature.
We are supposed to have been in the rainy season since beginning of September, and if this week so far is indicative, we are finally starting it now. We’ve had almost no rain so far, with the exception of one good down pour about 5 weeks ago, and a few light rains here and there. This is very unusual. It seems many things are very unusual here this year. The power outages, which some say is a result of the lack of rain (hydroelectric dams too empty, others say it’s because Burundi buys power from the Congo and they owe so much money to the Congo that they are constraining the supply);  the internet problems, water cuts. It’s an interesting time for the Lord to send us here. Anyways, back to the rain. Since Sunday we’ve had rain every day, and boy, is it refreshing!!! And other years it rains at about 1:00 PM, and often again at 4:00 PM; apparently so much so that you can almost set your watch to it; where as now it rains anytime of day, numerous times, and also during the night.  In fact right now, at 6:25 PM, it’s coming down fantastically. The power has also been on without interruption since Sunday.
Everiste took us up country (into the mountains, big, huge, massive, elevation - 8000 + feet, wonderful, cool 20 degrees instead 30 +), and he said there will be famine in January/February as a result of the lack of rain. These people almost exclusively live off of the land, and most are extremely poor, so this is likely to be a huge challenge for the country of Burundi, as most of the people of Burundi live up country. With a population of 7 - 8 million people,  the effects will likely be huge. Please pray about this situation.
You’re most likely wrapped up in Christmas activities already, where as here it feels nothing like the up coming celebration. In fact, if I wasn’t preparing Christmas art projects for my students and Fabi wasn’t practicing the Christmas program with the students within my earshot at school, you’d never guess it’s that time of year. There are no visible signs of the season, nor will there be with the exception of a very few homes decorating a tree or something. Christmas wasn’t celebrated in Burundi till about 10 years ago, and after all, can it really be Christmas without snow!!?? Praise the Lord, that manger contained the Savior of the world, whether dwellers in snow covered lands or  not!!
Again, please pray for Earl and Ramona and family.
Talk to you soon.
The Froese’s