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I’m now back in Dar es Salaam after being way out there for several weeks. It was great to get a picture of the new Katavi region, and the proposed work there. I’ll post some pictures soon, but Louise’s blog has quite a lot. -Jer

pole za kazi

We had a lovely climb on a lovely day, aside from the fact we got a late start and we were all a bit out of shape. While traversing a snow field a good ways above tree line, my brother “post-holed” and ended up hyper extending his already shaky right knee. Knee-dless to say, that ended our ascent for the day. We still had about 1000ft and a mile or more to the top. So we stopped took some breaktaking photos and then slowly returned to the car. All-in-all a wonderful day aside from my brothers knee. I thought y’all might enjoy a couple of the photos. (click the photo to make it bigger, the thumbnails, don’t do justice)

Jer

Its been a long time since i posted on our blog. Contrary to the title of this post we did not forget we had a blog, we suddenly became busy and quite overwhelmed. SO now, we’re (or I) am back, and let me catch you all up.

November was normal, except that we had a fantastic trip to Pennsylvania to be with friends. We traveled to only 3 states in about 3 weeks and had a lovely reunion with all. Each year, several of my college friends get together at a foreordained persons house, for Thanksgiving so, since we were on the continent, we got to go too. We also got to peek in on two churches and say a quick hello, and give an update.

December was great, Christmas and all. We were just at home in CO, and enjoyed those times with family.

January, things got a bit crazy. After the holidays we began to prepare ourselves mentally and physically for returning to Africa. We bought luggage from the after Christmas sales (thank you Bethany!), we started making lists, collecting bits and pieces. But we still had one last trip planned to the PacNW to see Jamie’s family and be involved in a missions conference. We were to leave for Africa 10 days after we returned from this trip. The week we were supposed to leave for this trip, we got an email from our house helper in Kenya, Gladwell. We were amazed that she had taken all the trouble to get an email account just so she could say hi to us! Well, in reading the email we found out that she was, in addition to saying hi, telling us that her youngest daughter Virginia, had gotten TB (tuberculosis), and thus she feared that since we were all around each other we might have been exposed to it too (little did we all know you can’t get TB from kids). So we got slightly worried, and all went for TB tests at the health Department. Thank God for Linda L., the nurse there, since TB is a communicable disease, the state made sure we were all taken care of on the cost end. And in the end we all came back negative… except for Jamie. In one of her many many visits to Kenyan hospitals she probably passed someone who had Active TB and it jumped on her. The good news was that the TB is latent, not active, so she is not contagious, it is just hangin out in her body for some unforeseen rainy day. But it still meant we had to do something about it. SO all our plans for Africa, screeched to a halt, because we would not have enough time to figure this all out before we left Feb 10; we tentatively rescheduled for March 30.

We could however, still go to the NW, and did so. We had a lovely time with Jamie’s family in Roseburg, OR and Mt. Vernon, WA.  the kids got good grandparent time, we got to go to the great wolf lodge, and I got to tear apart a deck with my step-father-in-law (I liked that, but have to say for an older gentleman that man is tough, I want to be as strong and energetic as he is when I’m in my early 60s).  We then went just a bit south to Everett and Snohomish, saw some of Jamie’s old friends for her Community College days, and then went to Mountain View Community church for a missions conference. We had a great but extremely busy time there, speaking at various events, going to peoples houses, meeting lots of fantastic new friends ,and several other very exceptional missionaries. Oh and both girls got croup while we were there. But a huge thank you to the hospitality of MVCC, esp. the Kennedys who we stayed with.

So, then we came back, and started to sort out all this TB stuff, and get back to prepping for Africa. We now had an extra 7 weeks to make sure we had everything. However in the subsequent weeks, it became clear in talking with our wonderful missionary people, that while Jamie could take care of the TB overseas, the best place to do it would be here in US. Now the options for this are either a 4month drug or a 9 month drug, either way…we were not going to leave until much later than march 30. As we began to sort this all out, Jamie began to experience some other medical issues related to accumulated stress from travel and various other things, and so with that thrown into the mix, we definitely decided we needed more time in the US.

So in the mean time I am doing some work with our home church here in Loveland, CO as a missionary in residence. I get to do several things regarding missions as well as help my Pastor on some Hebrew exegesis; fun fun fun (at least i think so!)

And here we are. We are pretty well and happy. The kids are great, we are still managing to home-school Junio and loving that, and we get to hang out with our CO friends for a while longer. Best case scenario we’ll be able to return to Africa Aug-Sept, but we’ll just have to see. Thanks for watching. Enjoy the pics.

JJJAL

We have been blessed twice already (its still October) with snow accumulation. Its actually snowed three times, but the first time didn’t count, as it didn’t stick around. The second time we got 2-3ins, but just yesterday and today we got somewhere between 10-12ins. The kids have loved getting bundled up to play in it. We found the sleds in my parents garage for added enjoyment. Junio & Annabelle pray for the snow each night, and they have not been disappointed yet (sorry to all those in CO who would rather not have the snow, its my kids’ fault).

Last weekend, Jamie’s Dad & Step-mom flew in from Washington to surprise the kids, and boy was it a big surprise for them. We all had a fantastic weekend, They got watch Junio’s soccer game on Saturday, as well as go ice skating, swimming in the pool at their hotel with Junio and Annabelle, playing tennis and just hang out. It was really a great time.

Oh, before I forget, I wanted to let you know a couple things.

1. We have the opportunity to speak at Rocky Mountain Presbyterian Church, my brother Ben’s church, on the 8th of November. We look forward to connecting with those folks again, especially the several supporters we have in the church.

2. We have been blessed to be able to join some of my ‘long term’ friends from undergraduate on the East Coast for Thanksgiving. They try to get together each year for Thanksgiving and this year, because we are in the US, we’ll join them. While we are out there we’ll be speaking at our friends’ church, Reformed Baptist Church of Franconia. That will be on the 22nd of November. We will be in the area until the 2nd of December, then back to Colorado for the holidays.

So, all in all, we are doing very well and while we don’t have a normal really, I think for the present, we have a really nice ‘usual.’ Enjoy the pictures.