First Week Home

Hi Everyone. I hope that everyone is having a great week. We are finally recovering from the trip home and have been criss-crossing the state visiting family for the past week. We are in Birmingham until Monday when we will head to North Alabama. So far it has been a great trip we spent Memorial Day with my sisters family and

the new baby Max. These photos are from their house. My bro-in

-law Phil made some incredible smoked BBQ and we had a nice relaxing day. This past Sunday night we went to St. Francis to share a little about our mission work. Monica Romano produced a great video for us and we had a really great evening. Thank you to everyone who donated to the cause. This weekend we will still be in Bham and I will be preaching at St. Stephens Episcopal Church in Cahaba Heights. They have two services, one at 9am and one at 11:15am. During the Christian Education hour Penny and I will be giving a presentation on our mission work and selling all sorts of Namibian gifts to raise money for the cause.

Next week we are headed to North Alabama to visit with our friends from the Athens/Decatur/Huntsville/ Madison/Florence areas. We will be at St. John's in Decatur on Sunday the 7th of June. That night we will be at St Timothy's in Athens for a dinner and talk at 5:30pm. Ok that's all for now. Have a good weekend and follow us on Twitter. Peace, Jeremy and Penny

Feeling the trip

There is a great comment by one of the characters of Willam Gibson's book Pattern Recognition. She says that when you fly long distances you move faster than your soul and leave it behind. It takes a few days for it to catch up. Today it feels like our soul has come crashing into our body. Since Wednesday when we arived we have been doing OK with the jet-lag but today it has hit us like a ton of bricks almost at the exact same time. We are doing alright but are having waves of dizziness and upset stomachs. I am sure it will pass. Please join us tomorow night at St. Francis of Assisi in Indian Springs for our first official dinner and talk if you can. Blessings and Peace, Jeremy and Penny

We're Home!!

Hey everyone just wanted to send a quick email to let you all know that we arrived home safely yesterday around 12pm. We stayed awake until about 7pm and got up around 7am today. We are just hanging out recovering at my Mom's house in Bham. If you need to call us the number is 205 871-1084. We will be getting a cell phone in the next few days to have while we are home and I will send the number when we get it.  Our first official event will be this Sunday evening the 24th at St. Francis of Assisi in Pelham. I think it is at 6:30pm. We will have dinner and then we will have a talk and give people a chance to buy a few things we brought home.  Hope you are all well and thanks for the great weather in Birmingham. We are really looking forward to seeing everyone. Peace, Jeremy and Penny

Coming Home

We hope that everyone is doing well. This will be our last post before we come home on May 20. On Sunday Penny and I are headed to the North for a week. Penny will be helping with an HIV/AIDS prevention and home based care training of trainers. I will be going for the second week of the clergy training program. We will be back in Windhoek on Sunday the 17th and begin our travels on the 19th. The last few weeks have been really great and we have made some great connections for our return. A few days ago Penny had a meeting with one of the directors of I-TEC (International Training and Education Center for HIV/AIDS), Yesterday we had the blessed opportunity to meet and have tea with Father Michael Lapsley and members of the training team from the Institute for the Healing of Memories. Here is a little about his story from the Forgiveness Project. Today we are going to sit down with Father Rick Bauer who is the director of Catholic AIDS Action in Namibia. It is great to be able to make these connections. We realize how much they could help with the work we are doing with the Diocese. This past week the Cathedral hosted meetings of the Cathedral Chapter and Standing Committee. The meeting included the Archdeacons from around the Diocese. There are so many stories from this country and diocese and the faith and hope of Anglicans here is beyond almost anything I have ever seen. Most priest in this country work for less than $200 USD a month. They are usually responsible for more than one parish and several outstations. Since almost none of them has a car they hitchhike between locations and then walk many kilometers to get where they are going. The parishioners go months sometimes without seeing priest but carry on with Lay Ministers doing Morning Prayer. The situation is desperate but there is hope. Next week will be the second seminar for out new clergy trainees and they are excited to take up their place in a few years. The Rev Deacon Linea Haufiku is now studying in the U.S. at Seminary of the Southwest and will be coming to the Diocese of Alabama for a three month internship this summer. She will be based at St. Matthews in Madison but will do some travelling to tell people about Namibia and share her own stories. She is an incredible person. I want everyone to know that your support for us has been turned into support for Linea.
We are really excited to be coming home for a month and look forward to seeing as many people as possible. On this trip we will be in Birmingham, Athens, and Gadsden to see family and friends and to do some preaching and presenting about our work in Namibia. Unfortunately we will not make it to the south or west of Bham on this trip. We won't make it to Montgomery, Auburn, Selma or Demopolis or to the Tuscaloosa area. On our next trip home we will make sure to put you all on the top of the list. If you are able to come to Birmingham, Decatur or Gadsden we would love to see you there.
Our next post will be from the U.S. Blessings and Peace, Jeremy and Penny