Whew!

Dear Friends,

  well...I'm done, or mostly. This has been a long intense and crazy term of school, certainly the hardest, but its finished (except for final revisions on my big paper). In addition to school work, we have been getting used to being a family of 5 (no more room in the back seat). Annabelle potty trained herself several weeks ago. Junio is doing quite well in 1st grade and got the obedience award for the 1st grade class. But now that classes are finished until Jan. for me, we have family here. Jamie's Dad and Step-mom arrived last sunday for two weeks. As soon as they go, my folks come for the rest of Dec. We are very excited to welcome them to our world. Thanks for watching. Enjoy the pictures. I hope to get Jamie to post a more detailed post here soon...this is all I can think to say right now. Thanks for your prayers.

Pics:

Lily- Let's go Shopping 

Junio and Annabelle at Gladwell's house (where her and her husband are building)

David, Gladwell's husband, and Lily

Lily playing with her bugs

David, Gladwell and Lily

Jeremy 

A new normal

Hi everyone. We have been quite busy as we get into the middle of my school term. Classes and assignments are busy but I are managing to keep my head above water (or maybe just my nose). Anyway, I wanted to share some more pictures with you. Lily will be 1 month on Sunday, the time has flown. She seems to be doing well, and slowly figuring out how to sleep at night and not all day.Crystal, Jamie's mom, was with us for about two weeks just after the hospital, which was a huge help. Junio and Annabelle are doing well. I think they had chicken pox the past couple weeks, but now that's over and we are slowly finding a new normal.

Little Lily...or Lillian Ginger Lang

Hey Everyone!

I have the pleasure of Announcing Lillian Ginger Lang was born a week ago 4/9/08 here in Nairobi. She was 3.75kg (8lbs 4oz.), and 50cm (19in) long. Momma and Lily are doing alright. I finally got to bring them back home monday, just in time for me to jump back into school. Jamie had some complications with blood loss after delivery but is recovering quite nicely. Lily had troubles with her blood sugar as a result of Jamie gestational diabetes, but that too seems to be doing ok now. Anyway...the best thing about this post is the pictures so enjoy!

JEremy

Waiting

Hi everyone,

  So where were we? We are now one week from starting classes again. My second and final year, part of me is really looking forward to getting back to work and another part is really not (I'll miss the time with my family). It should be a fairly difficult term, with 17 hrs in Translation a bit of linguistics, cultural anthropology and greek (for the first time). Junio has been in school now for 2 weeks and is enjoying 1st grade. He has a great teacher, and seems to be doing quite well. Annabelle went back to baby class today at the school here on campus, she also loves it and was scooped up by one of her favorite teachers at the door, and whisked away without any trouble. I am glad she has a good time and can be social too. 

Jamie is doing ok. As many of you know, she broke her foot, but it is mending quite well. We are still waiting for the little one ot come out, we've had a couple of close calls, been to the hospital a couple of times but still no baby. Last week we went in, after she had contractions all night, and it appeared she was in pre-term labor (35 weeks), so the doctor tried to stop it, but that didn't really work. So the doc decided ok, lets just let the baby come, but she wouldn't and the contractions left on their own eventually. We had discussed an induction, but in the end decided the best thing to do was to wait. So wait we did and waiting we are still. I keep telling Jamie it will be sooner rather than later, but still it's difficult with a big belly, on crutches, having  mini-contractions all the time. Pray for her. 

We have had our friends, Ian and April, here all week which has been so much fun.  They were able to do some work for Pistis School, the little Kenyan school here on campus that Junio used to go to and we also did some fun things with them like the giraffe center and the elephant orphanage.  They are also friends with Don and he was able to take them camping and on safari at Nakuru National Park.  Attached is a picture of all of us at a BBQ at Don's house.  

We'll attach some fun pictures. Thanks for watching. Keepin you posted.

Jeremy

my Cute Kids

Hi Everyone,
Well we finished, a couple weeks ago (with school i mean), and then it was off the the coast. Our organization had its annual conference, always a good time to reconnect with colleagues and friends, and also hang out on the beach a little and relax. So that's what we did. The conference was a week and then a holiday for a few days. We returned to cool cloudy Nairobi last Tuesday. Now its been time to catchup on things which got pushed aside during school and Jamie's sicknesses and stuff. But we are well, and happy. Jamie did very well on the coast with all that humid air, and even now is pretty well though she gets tired often up here at 6500ft. SHe is about 32 weeks now, so certainly on the homestretch. In fact she may be induced early because of her gestational diabetes (things to pray about). So we may be 5 at the end of next month, certainly around the time school starts for me.
We are house-sitting for one of my profs while he and his family are on furlough in the UK. Its nice, the house is large with a big yard, and a trampoline for the kids. One of the best things for Jamie and I is that it is actually quiet. School will start the 7th of Sept for me and the 15th of Aug for Junio. I hope everyone is well, and I am glad I have the chance to actually post a blog again to y'all. please email us or something soon. We will be sending a newsletter out pretty quick i think (its on Jamie's todo list). Enjoy the pictures of my cute kids.
Jer

Finishing Well

Jer ran in his first race.  It was a fundraiser for the Bibleless people of Kenya.  It was supposed to be a 10K but the route ended up being only an 8.7K disappointingly.  He ran with his friend David who had been training with him.  And their friend Esayas did the 4K walk. Mommy and Annabelle and Junio got up at 6AM to watch Daddy.  There were tears when Junio realized that Daddy didn’t win the race and get a trophy.  I tried to explain that he was competing against former gold medalists in the Olympics and that Daddy was very happy with finishing in 47 minutes but I don’t think he quite understood!

Jer is also busy finishing the race to complete this school term.  He is slowly working away at all the presentations and papers.  Almost there and then it will be break!  Ahhh!

Junio just finished a week of Vacation Bible School.  He has come home beating his chest like Tarzan and singing silly songs all week. But then, what else is new!  

Annabelle is finally back to normal after a whole month of one sickness after another.  She is happy and soooooo talkative!!  She went back to baby class two days this last week and always comes home with lots of stories about her friends.  She is now working on counting in Swahili, which has been fun!  

I am feeling better now after a couple of trying weeks with blood pressure problems.  It turns out that I have gestational diabetes and even though the two things aren’t supposed to be related, when I went on this special diabetes diet, I have had hardly any problems with my blood pressure and I feel so much better.  Praise Jesus!!  Another praise is that a German friend of ours happened to have an extra glucometer so I can test my blood sugar.  We were dreading having to buy one here because they are so expensive but he said that I can use his extra one until I have the baby and don’t have to worry about it anymore!! Yeah!  

Mid-Term

Jer and I are both mid-term right now, him in his 3rd term at school and me in my pregnancy!  

Jeremy is very busy with school and trying to press on with all his papers and books.

Annabelle got pink eye last week which would have been fine but we forgot to tell the doc that she was allergic penicillin and so her first eye drops made her look like she just lost a fist fight. She is fine now though with different medicine.

We are having a little girl!  Yeah.  Junio's response was "Dad... that means we have 3 girls to take care of now instead of just 2."  The responsibility of a 6 year old!! He has proved his responsibility well this weekend though when he got Annabelle up on Saturday and made her breakfast all by himself.  We were not only impressed, Jer was also actually able to sleep in on his day off.  Wow!!

And now for something different

Dear Friends, greetings from Nairobi. I am done with school (and on my last week of a two week break before they begin again), and Jamie's family has left but we had a great time. When they were here we did a one day safari in Nairobi national Park, we went to the coast and spent 4 days on the beach and snorkeled a bit and ate alot and did a number of other fun things ( I also took 3 exams and submitted a couple papers). In the mean time Jamie has been regaining her strength and starting to feel better little by little. Thanks for your prayers, we are so grateful that God is blessing her with strength and energy and not as sick of a stomach! Indeed, Jamie also told me this morning she felt the Baby kick last night for the first time.
This week is my week to catch-up on all the loose ends which I did not have time to do during the term, and try to rest a bit. Its funny I was worried a bit about driving my car to the coast and back so I prayed "dear Lord may we get safely to the coast and back, and then anything can happen to my car, just keep us safe." SO the car did great, and on Sunday ( we got back last week) on the way to church it overheated and burned out the valve seals and a head gasket. But I got in touch with a highly recommended mechanic from the church we attend here and he picked the car up Monday and dropped it off last night (Tues) at about 4pm, not only that but it was only about 200USD for the whole thing! Anyway, I think the whole situation is ironic because God answered my prayer to the letter. anyway...Thats a quick update enjoy the pics.

A quick Hi

A quick Update:
Hi friends, here is another quick update.
We'll as most of you can figure out by now, we are still in Kenya,

which means the country did not degenerate into civil war, for

which we are grateful. As things have calmed done here politically,

our academic lives have also returned to normal. I have finished my

classes, but now i have to finish projects and take exams. Jamie's

family flew in for a couple weeks on friday, which we are very

excited about. Jamie has been sick as you know, but she started to

get a bit better last week before her family came, but then got a

nasty bug from somewhere, and now is on antibiotics and sick, if

its not one thing its another...but God is taking care of us one

day at a time. Thanks everyone for watching, sorry the post has

taken so long. we'll be in touch soon.

Jer