two more

A picture of our Christmas tree and annabelle and her friend showing each other their bellys.

Pictures of Christmas Tree

Friends here are some pictures of our Christmas setup which also happened to be Momma Jamie's birthday. Happy Christmas. Thanks for watching.

A Bit of Rest

Hi everyone. Its break time and that means rest. And rest is, in fact, what we've been doing. As well as getting a newsletter ready, and getting some gifts for our family back in the states and things. This week we are house sitting for one of our professors. They went on "holiday" as the British call it, to the coast, and so they graciously let us spend a week at their house. It is bigger than ours, nicer, has internet, a washing machine and a really big yard/garden around it so the kids can play. Its been nice and quiet because its on the other side of campus from where we live.
In other news, Jamie's Birthday was last week, Junio and Jeremy went out and bought her a fake Christmas tree for her birthday. We also went out to lunch, to Jamie's favorite place, Java House (www.nairobijavahouse.com), for American style food, she had a burrito, lemonade and a mocha frappucino for dessert. We took Gladwell with us. She loved it. It was her second time ever having a hamburger (the first time we found out was earlier this term when we all had to eat lunch at the cafeteria here).
In kids news, Annabelle has been loving the sand box in the back yard here and Junio has really enjoyed playing with a few of his closest friends instead being bombarded with tons of kids all the time. We were able to babysit Lilo and her older brother and sister,Jonathan and Abigail, while their parents went all the way to the other side of Nairobi for the day. They played so well all day. And Annabelle, of course, loved having her best friend Lilo over.
Jeremy was able to go and shadow with a colleague last week. The fellow is a translation consultant working with some languages in Tanzania and is based out of Nairobi. Jer absolutely loved the work. They had a great time checking the translation the native speakers had done and making comments. thats it for now, thanks for watching.

Its Over for now

Hi Everyone... we are done! we finished out First term out of 6 this week. Its nice to have a break. We go back to school on January 7th. IN the mean time we will be resting, spending much needed family time relaxing. Junio will finish school today (Thursday 29th). We had plans to go to Tanzania to visit some friends working in Northern Tz for Christmas, however.. it became a better option to have our friends come up to us. SO they are coming in a couple weeks. We also have the opportunity to house-sit for some friends (actually one of our profs). SO we'll do that, and have a bit more room for about 10 days or so. So thats the quick skinny. We are beginning our next newsletter, so y'all should get that sometime before too long. If you don't get it and you want. Post a comment here and tell me, and how to get it to you, and I'd be happy to put you on. Also if there is a particular question you have about our life and studies here, post that and maybe we can address it in a post or in the newsletter. thanks for watching -Jer et al

Pictures attached this time:
- Junio in his school Christmas program ( i dont know why the tall kids were is the front)
- Lilo helping Annabelle take a bath
- outside our house at night
-Annabelle deep in philosophical conversation ( takes after her Dad!)
- Junio's fantastic smile

its been along time

Hi, everyone...I do hope you are well. many people have mentioned to us via email that they really appreciate viewing our blog. So frist, let me apologize to y'all for not updating it as regularly as we'd like. Things have continued to be very busy for us, and they will only get busier for the next couple of weeks. We are now in our last month of our first term at school. We find ourselves deep in the middle of research projects (thankfully we've chosen good interesting topics), and various other things. In three weeks time we will be studying for exams. We end on the 28th of this month, and then praise the LOrd, we can rest until the 7th of Jan. when term 2 starts. It, truly, has not been bad at all. We have really enjoyed our classes (despite the work load) and have learned a ton that will be useful in the future ministry God has called us to.
We have remained mostly well this term. Really the only one who has been sick has been me (Jeremy). I have had a cold on and off for about 6 or 7 weeks now. I finally have access to vitamin C so, that is starting to go away again,(I hope this time permanently).
Annabelle is doing very well. She has decided to start her terrible twos a bit early, and so now she thinks she can do many things by herself. Luckily for us, we taught her to ask for help if she couldn't do something, and she still does ask every once in a while. She is at the point of constructing two word sentences now. her usual repetroire is "mow nease" - more please, "down now" "nakk pease" - snack please, "ain uu" - thank you, "santi" - thank you (swahili asante), and "dizi" - banana (swahili ndizi). Yes she is doing pretty well at swahili...as is Junio. However, Junio is a bit embarrassed to speak swahili to his parents. We also have to remind him to speak American English when at home so I can understand him.
Both the kids have good friends. Junio has a good friend next door, named emmanuel (manu for short). They love to hang out together and play soccer with all the other kids. In fact, we don't see Junio very much during the day (you'd think he was 16), he's off kicking the ball with Manu or somebody else and having a grand old time (with the occasional disagreement in the middle, you know they yell at each other, maybe one throws the other on the ground, victory is declared, and then back to soccer). Annabelle also has a couple of little friends her age. One is the daughter of an Ethiopian family here. They love to play together and in fact share toys and food together quite often. Her name is Lydia, though everyone calls her Lilo, except for Annabelle who says "wiwo." Her other little friend is a little boy a little younger than her (Lilo is a bit older). His name is "wiam" I mean Liam. He is the son of another American family here, doing a PhD.
We have over the past month been attacked by swarms of ants coming from the trash bins behind our house. The first time they came they came in our room at about 4:30am, we had our bed next to the window and Jamie woke up with them on her head and all in her hair. She was combing dead ants (or alive ones) out of her hair for a couple days. Several times they came in the kids room, very scary in light of Annabelles allergies to bug bites, and once they visited the kitchen. We have things mostly in control now, but it was really stressful for a while there. We kill them with boiling water, and kerosene, and bug spray. I check behind the house every night before I go to bed to make sure we are safe. They have not come for about a week now, perhaps its the coffee grounds we put on the window sill (a friend of ours said that works, so we tried it, and it really seems to -something to store away for the next time you are in Africa.)

Long time

Hi Friends, I am very sorry I didn't realize its been a month since last we posted. We suddenly got very busy with papers and readings. We are in the middle of our first term. We are both enjoying our classes allot. Jamie has about half the work that I do, which is great so she still has time for the kids and taking care of some of the house work. However, our house help Gladwell has been fantastic, we are really getting along well with her.
The Kids are doing well, except that Junio is getting over an ear-infection. He also lost one of his front teeth now and the other one is loose. Hes doing well is school as well, and is really beginning to read. Annabelle is happy and health and decided to explore on her own for the first time today. She walked all the way to Junio's school and tryed to climb the ladder to the slide she didn't get very far up it thankfully, before Jamie got her.

news for the 4th of September

Hi everyone...I hope you are well. This week we have been involved in orientation for our school. Next week classes start. We are excited to be here and settled and we are looking forward to starting classes though everyone tells us classes are alot of work and we will be very busy, they may be right, but we'll see. Jamie is probably only going to take 3 classes and I will take a full load of 16 or 17 credits (5 or 6 classes).
We will both be taking some linguistic courses including phonetics, sociology of language and something about vernacular media (non-print). But I will additionally be taking Greek (probably) and something else I forget at the moment.
I am excited, but I don't want to lose our family life for the sake of our schooling. I want to have a good a balance.
In other news, we are in the process of buying a car. its a 88 Toyota Corolla Station Wagon, something to get us around nothing fancy. We are buying it from a missionary who flys planes for an organization here in Nairobi. I will post pictures as soon at I take them. I think its a good setup.
Thats it for now, thanks for staying posted. see ya.

Jer

PS. more pictures. The flower I took the other day and I thought they came out pretty neat. The others are self-explanatory.

Pictures

Hi friends...I have some pictures for you. without further ado... acouple are of the kids and two are of the school we are at, one of the area near the classrooms and the our our house (bottom floor, on the left). these were all taken on our new camera, its fantastic.

It's late now so I'm going to bed

Another long awaited Post

Dear Friends....please forgive me for taking so long for new posts. However here is another:

WE are now done with Tanzania for the forseeable future, we have arrived in Kenya and gone to the school were we are studing for the next two years. www.negst.edu . We are in the process of finding things, setting up house, finding house help and that sort of thing. Its been a very busy past couple of days and a bit overwhelming...but we are doing well and very very glad to be in one place. Jamie can set up our little appt the way she wants.
Also other good news, we have gotten our new camera and finally are able to document what has been going on. unfortunately no pictures of Tz now for a while, but I'll do my best to post pics of our life here in Nairobi. I'll put one here, but i need to resize some others and will post them next time. Thanks for keeping posted. see ya,

Jer

Junio's Bday, conference and Annabelles sick

Hi everyone...its been far to long since the last post. I'll add more pictures in a second, but to update you. We finished Language school, spent a week in Dar es Salaam and then drove up the coast to Malindi Kenya for our annual branch conference with our organization. We had a great week, and Junio had a great birthday during conference. However Annabelle continues to remain sick with rashes and a cold, and so instead of returning to Dar es Salaam Friday, we flew to Nairobi yesterday to see doctors about Annabelle's health. This is the best place for it. God is providing for a place to stay and access to a car and great new friends to help us learn where to go and how to go there. Below I intend on putting pictures on Junio's birthday, and Annabelle and anything else I can find. Our camera really has "died" now so the pictures are very limited...I am excited to get a new one form the states very soon. thanks for you prayers and for keeping posted.

Jeremy

Annabelle's Walking, Junio's cooking!

Hey everyone,
here are some more pictures taken this week. Thanks for watching.

For those interested: the verb "angalia" is to watch. to say "I am watching" you can say ni (I) na (am) angalia(watching)....ninaangalia! thanks

Jamie went to the house of one of the workers at the camp on wednesday when i went into town. She made Mandazis which are like little african donuts minus the holes and less sugar. The lady who is holding Annabelle in the picture is Mama Zaina. We were inside her house with dirt walls and floor but her house is a little fancier because it has a tin roof as opposed to the grass ones. The thing she is cooking over is called a jiko and it is a little coal stove. Junio helped cook the mandazi's by rolling out the dough and cutting it into triangles. We took them back to share with everyone after dinner for dessert and he was so proud of himself telling everyone that he made them.

Annabelle has started walking all the time now although she reverts back to crawling on uneven ground. She is so proud of herself. Junio and his friends, Brennan and Luke caught a lizard the other day and put him in a jar and spent the day catching bugs for him to eat. We let him go at night though!

We have been trying to cram all that we can into learning Swahili since we only have a week left of class. Pray that we will keep going with it and won't get discouraged!!

More pictures..

The real thing

Hey Everyone!

Yeah..the last post...oops, I'm still figuring out how this all works.

Only two weeks to go, and the we are done with Swahili school. I for one am truly amazed at how far I've come. Jamie is once again very confortable with her swahili. Its great that we both know it now, and can communicate with one another. Just wait till we come back to the states in a couple years and we can have a personal conversation right in front of y'all and no one will know what we are saying.

The kids are doing well. Annabelle, has tripled her vocabulary this week. She trys to say everything Mom or dad say. I talked to her on the phone tonight and she said "hi" "i love you too" and "bye" and something else I can't remember, with prompting from Mom, but tis wonderful. Jamie said she said "diaper" today which of course is a very important word for a little girl o know. I'm in Dar es Salaam this weekend helping pick up a vehicle and friend of mine and his wife are buying. Its a nice 98 Toyota Land Cruiser, big tires rugged off road suspension, a nice car. We'll drive about 7 hours back to Iringa tomorrow. WE go through a game pack, which when we came through coming to Dar, we say gazelle, giraffe, Elephant, warthog and Junio's favorite Zebra. I'll try to take some video for him on the way back tomorrow.

In other news, we've had rats in our banda recently, the night before I came to Dar, we had set traps, and ended up catching two coming into our house, however, they still were running around knocking things over on our night tables, and making noises under the bed. Certainly an unnerving experience for Jamie. But last night she didn't have any trouble( which is great because I wasn't there to protect her :o) ). Anyway...such is life in Africa. Thank for listening. Peace.

Jer

Onward...through small streets.

Sorry...here are the pictures...yes one is here twice.

This week

Here are some pics of our place: One is a pic of the house we have mostly been living in. Another is a picture of the girl, Jiliani that takes care of Annabelle and Junio while we are in class, and the last is a picture of Junio and his friend Mikayla outside the tent we lived in while they were putting a bathroom on our stone house. We just moved back to the stone banda with a bathroom and it has been so wonderful.
Today both Jeremy and I got to come into to town to run errands. There are only vehicles that come into town every so often and usually there is not enough room for the whole family. So, we celebrated when we found a shop with Ice cream cones. Yeah!! Some of you have asked about our access to e-mail. We only have e-mail when we come into town and use the internet cafe. Sometimes it is slower than mud and we never know when we will for sure be able to come into town. So, thank you all for your patience in our slow returns to e-mail and things.
Swahili school is going well. My class is doing a play of the story of Joseph in Kiswahili. We are writing it and performing it ourselves. I am playing the part of Jacob, Joseph's father and the baker who has the bad dream and gets his head cut off. We have to memorize all our lines in Swahili so it is a little nerve-wrecking. Jeremy is getting prepared to teach a lesson in Swahili to his class on how to play a song on the guitar. He has to completely explain it in Swahili. This should be challenging but fun.
Annabelle is doing well, for those of you who didn't know, she did take her first steps but hasn't really started walking. She prefers to crawl or swim in the dirt. She is always covered from head to toe in dirt when we pick her up from childcare.
Junio is doing well. There is another American family coming tomorrow with 5 and 10 year old boys. Junio will start taking Swahili lessons with the other 5 year old boy on Monday for an hour a day. This is very fortunate because his friend Mikayla is leaving to go back to New Zealand next week and they probably won't see each other again for awhile.
God Bless you all and thank you for your prayers!!

Welcome to Africa!!

HI everyone, sorry this is the first post I've had in a very long time. With internet connections being so slow and all, its been difficult. We have, as you know, moved to Tanzania, and we are now is Language school, learning Swahili. Jamie already nows it and its been great for her to get reacquainted with it, but as for me its new, exciting, and a lot of work.
We've been here now for almost a month. The campsite we are staying at is a fantastic place, great for Junio to play in and everything. The food is great, the staff are really helpful, and will speak swahili to you if you want to, but also know at least some English. It seems to be a really good introduction in the culture. We study in the morning, and then have the afternoon to go into town or whatever. Town is about 12 km away.
One bummer, is our camera has broken. So the pictures will be scarse for awhile until we find something here or in the states ( and someone coming over). A friend of mine got it to work barely, with a bit of sauder and a piece of a pop can, but this is really a temporary solution. So much to say, Annabelle was sick with Malaria, she got the prize for being the first one. though, unfortunately the price was sleepless nights which Mom, Dad and Annabelle enjoyed together. But is all better now, and back to her happy healthy self, which is a huge blessing.
One of the most intersting things is that, here the stars are different, or at least certainly in different places. I'm no astronomer, you'll have to ask someone who knows ( like my dad), but they are really bright and different. just FYI.
I don't know what else to say, I hope to update this when I get into town every week, that way you all can stay more connected, eventually we might even have pictures we can post too. thanks for praying. see ya.

I'm back

After almost a year of no posts, i am now posting...nothing once again.