Finally we are in Namibia!

After 2 1/2 long days of travel we arrived in Windhoek, Namibia yesterday (Wed.). Our luggage decided to take a different trip and did finally show up this evening. We are trying to adjust to the time change (6 hrs ahead of AL) and the altitude change of 6000 ft. The weather is beautiful during the day (65 degrees) and cold at night (upper 30s and 40s) with clear skies all the time. We have been meeting lots of wonderful people from St. George's Cathedral. Their hospitality has been overwhelming. We are trying to get some rest before the big weekend of Jeremy and the Dean's instillation on Sunday. They say the service may be around 3 hours long. We will try and post more updates and some photos as soon as we can. Blessings,Penny

Last Post from the U.S.

Well tonight we are staying in the Sheraton Hotel at the Atlanta Airport and tomorrow morning we begin our 2 1/2 day journey to Namibia. We have spent this week saying goodbye to family and friends. It has been a very difficult week. Please keep us in your prayers as we begin this next part of our journey. Our next post will be from Africa. Peace, Jeremy

5 Days Left

Well after two weeks of Mission Orientation and Training in New York we are back in Alabama for our last week of goodbyes. It is wierd watching the 7 day weather forcast and thinking that next Monday we won't even be in this country. At this point we have passed the point of exhaustion and are running on pure momentum. Hopefully it will get us there and we can take a few days to rest once we arrive. I promise that our posts will become more frequent once we slow down. Peace, Jeremy

Quick Update

This morning Penny and I are on our way to NYC for Mission Orientation. We will be in NYC until the 16th. Yesterday we sold our last large item, our car, at a yard sale. This is the second time we have sold a car at a yard sale and we are really happy to have that out of the way.
On another note some people have been asking me for our address in Namibia. So far this is what we have; Our physical address is 19 Love Street Windhoek, Namibia (no zip codes in Namibia) we don't know what our PO Box will be because there is no local mail delivery in Namibia, we will have to pick up anything send via USPS. You will also need a phone number, which we do not have yet, to mail the package. DHL is also an option but very expensive. You could also mail things to St. George's Anglican Cathedral PO Box 65 Windhoek, Namibia. We should have access to that fairly soon.
Anyway, keep us in your prayers. We are trying to write thank you notes as quickly as we can but there are lots so if you haven't gotten one, and you have contributed to our cause please know how much we appreciate it and we will be thanking you personally as soon as we can.
Until then you can check out our new website hosted but the Diocese of Alabama http://missiontonamibia.dioala.org We are still working on it and Deacon Dave Drachlis is the rock star behind it. We can not thank you enough Dave.
We will be in touch as soon as possible. Peace, Jeremy

Out of Athens

I am sorry that it has been so long since my last post. We have not had home internet service since the beginning of April and work has been hectic to say the least. Last Sunday the 25th was my last Sunday at St. Timothy's Church. We had a great 4 years there and will miss all our friends. It was a sad farewell but one that saw me stand on the pulpit to remind everyone again that God loves them more than anything.
The next month will be another busy one. We are in Birmingham and Gadsden for a few days before we leave for NYC. We will be on Staten Island for 2 weeks at the Episcopal Church Mission Orientation. It is also known as "How to not make a complete fool of yourself in a foreign country, but you're going to anyway but at least we tried" We will be there till the 16th of June. As part of the orientation we will be going to the Everyone Everywhere Conference in Baltimore. So far over 350 people have registered for the conference. Check out their page and make plans to come. It's not too late.
I will be preaching at St. Peter's Church in Chelsea, NYC on Sunday the 15th of June about our upcoming work in Namibia.
We will be leaving for Namibia on June 23rd. We are scheduled to arrive in Windhoek on June 25th.
I will be posting more stories about our last days in Athens, including how St. Timothy's took up a gold offering and people actually gave their gold teeth. Peace.

U ha pandula novake

U ha pandula novake, I am told by my friend Lukas is a proverb in the Namibian language of Ohsikwanyama. I means that if you have great and good things done to you and you do not appreciate then, you are bound to steal one day!
This simple proverb is like so many other proverbs in that it seems so simple to begin with and then continues to expand the more you think about it. In this case the relationship between thankfulness and theft. This proverb suggests that our daily exercise of being thankful or not has future consequences for our life. If we are not thankful it leads us on a path to stealing in the future.
But I think that there are more present realities in this proverb. In many ways if we are not thankful for what we are given we are stealing right now. We are appropriating things for ourselves that we did not create and acting like we did. We are acting as if we created all of our wealth and in this way we are really stealing from God.

In this line of though Penny and I want to publicly thank everyone who has supported us up to this point. Before we leave we will publish a list but for now from the bottom of our heart thank you for sharing your gifts with us.

What a Month

Dear Friends,

March went by so quickly and we were busy non-stop. We sold our house in 10 days and had to be out by the 28th. We packed over Holy Week and Easter and moved the week after Easter. Most everything we own is now packed in boxes and stored. We will only be taking clothes our computer and a few books with us when we go. We are now living in a great house on the Elk River until w leave for Birmingham at the end of May and then Namibia at the end of June.

Our last Easter at St. Timothy's was made all them more special by the presence of our family and our friend The Rev. Lukas Katenda. This is a photo of Lukas and I after the Easter service. He saved me this year by preaching the Good Friday and Easter Vigil services. He was incredible. Lukas was featured on the front page of the Athens News Courier on Easter Day in a story written by our friend Vickie Johnston and we were in the "Meet the Neighbors" section the same day. Who says we don't know how to get publicity.

Last night we were hosted at Grace Episcopal Church in Anniston, Alabama. it was a great evening with friends from the Anniston and Jacksonville churches. Today was recieved word of a very generous plege of support from an Episcopal Church in Birmingham. sometime over the next month I plan on putting together a list of the pledges and gifts we have gotten so far. We think it is important to highlight churches that are putting their money and support where their mouth is. "Not only with their lips but in their lives"

We have truly been overwhelmed by the outpouring of support and we thank each and every person that has given of their time, talent and treasure to Mission to Namibia.