Root canals, runny noses, ruptured disc, and earaches.....that's what the Jones' are made of !!

Sorry it has been so long since I have updated the blog. I have much less motivation to update since our internet connection can be slow at times which makes it hard to upload things and also my camera has not been working correctly since we got here to Kenya, so I'm not taking as many pictures as I would like to. (I actually started typing up this blog about a month ago, but was not able to get it finished and uploaded. So I will just be editing this one and adding a bit more.)

Most of you probably know that about a month ago Aaron started having a bad toothache, very bad. He was in a lot of pain for a few days and his face swelled up pretty ugly on one side. I felt so bad for him. Long story short, we found a dentist in Eldoret and he was able to have TWO root canals done last week and then went back yesterday for his permanent fillings. We praise God for providing this dentist and for giving us wisdom in how to deal with this here.

The day after we got back from Eldoret Braelyn had a low fever and runny nose and now for the last week both girls have had fevers, runny noses, congested coughs and all that good stuff! Since then they have both struggled with earaches, especially Layna who has is now finishing her second round of antibiotics. Please pray that they are healed this time. We will check them tomorrow.

We were really thankful to have some friends(Ty and Joi Hopkins) that we knew during medical school be able to come and spend Christmas with us here in Kapsowar last week. It was so nice to visit with them and be able to host them. We really did have a great Christmas here in Kapsowar and I am thankful for all those who were praying for us this Christmas as we were away from our families.



It is hard to believe we have been here 3 months now. To be honest, it has been a long 3 months for us. There have been a lot of adjustments for all of us and there has been a lot of sickness for our girls and a lot of physical pain for Aaron with his abscess tooth and now possibly ruptured disc in his back. It's been challenging to deal with all of this, but we know that all His work is done in faithfulness and He is working even in all of these struggles. We really do appreciate all of your prayers for our health and our family here. Aaron is planning on getting an MRI on Thursday in Eldoret and we are praying that this will give us clearer answers on exactly what is wrong with his back and how we should be treating it. Please just pray for this situation.

The work at the hospital is going well for Aaron. I think he is getting more and more comfortable with his surroundings and with all the procedures he is doing. Thank you for praying. On Christmas Eve, many of the staff sang Christmas carols at the hospital and then on Christmas day we were able to visit the children's ward and give away a few goodies to them.

 I have really enjoyed my time with the girl's during our bible study on Monday nights. We are taking a couple weeks off due to the holidays, but I am eager to get back into the word with them. They have been very faithful to come and study together. I am very thankful for them.

 Aaron is enjoying getting to build some friendships with some of the nursing staff and students. He feels like the Lord is giving him opportunities there to teach and model the love of Christ to them.

I think we have decided on a church home here in Kapsowar. There were definitely fewer choices here than the last time we were searching for a church home in Bristol :). There is really only one choice that works for our family and our circumstances (no vehicle). So we will be trying to get more involved in the AIC church here in Kapsowar which is right next to the hospital. Please be praying for how the Lord would have us get involved there and just that we could build some deeper friendships there.

Thank you all again for praying for us so faithfully. We are so thankful for all of you who have partnered with us in so many supportive ways that is enabling us to serve here. We thank God for all of you often. Please send us an email and let us know how you are doing as well. We always love to hear from you.

Hope you all have a Happy New Year and may God be glorified in each of us wherever we are!

1st Call

Last weekend was my first call here at Kapsowar Mission Hospital. Honestly, I didn’t know what to expect. I knew it would be busy mostly because I’m slow! The call schedule is set up here to be on call from Friday at 5pm until Monday morning at 8 or so. On Saturday and Sunday  the person on call rounds on all the medical patients.  I am thankfully only covering the medical patients as surgery has their own call system. Friday evening I was called to evaluate a 4 year old who had accidentally ingested organophosphates. Thankfully he threw up immediately and was only have lots of saliva. Then the unthinkable happened…no one called me through the night!!! I am so thankful for the answered prayers. I was called at 5:45am to come evaluate a patient who was not doing well. It was a patient that had been admitted the day before and I was surprised this was the 1^st call I had about him. He is a 70 year old with blood pressure of 70/40 with low oxygen saturation on 6 liters of oxygen. His WBC was 2.0 and HIV test was negative. CXR showed diffuse hazy infiltrates bilat. bases.  I gave him some fluids added flagyl to his ceftriaxone  and prayed for him. He had been moved to the recovery area of the OR due to the hospital being out of oxygen and there is a concentrator there. At this point it was close to 7am so I just started rounding. I went to the peds ward where there were 12 patients to round on there. I was unfamiliar with them all so I felt it took FOREVER to get though there.  The patients ranged from a 2 week old with neonatal sepsis to an 8 year old with an asthma attack. Most the peds patients are under 2 years old and the most common diagnosis here seems to be pneumonia.  Thankfully we don’t have malaria up here but the patients that come from the valley often have malaria and are really sick. So I read up on the patients, changed lots of kids from ceftriaxone to PO Augmentin, checked some post transfusion hemaglobins on malaria patients and probably didn’t finish there until 11 or so. The documentation is less here but not as little as I had expected. It’s probably 2/3rds as much documentation as I would do back home.  So writing notes and discharging patients still takes me quite a bit of time.

I went from there to the male ward where we only had 1 other patient other than the one I was called about that morning. It is a 84 year old guy with diffuse muscle rigidity, pneumonia, and some of what I’ll call private part problems.  He was making slow progress but progress nonetheless.  I wrapped up there and headed to the female ward. Only 6 or 8 patients there I was familiar with (not to be mistaken with me saying I knew what was going on with them… It seems I rarely am positive of a diagnosis here!) ranging from a 70 year old lady with a major stroke who we are treating conservatively as she can’t speak, swallow or move the right side of her body to a 25 year old lady with elevated creatinine, low sodium (116) and malaria. One particularly sad case is a 57 year old lady with advanced cervical cancer with uncontrollable pain who was admitted for IM/IV medicines (pethadine is all we have to offer, which is Demerol). No morphine here, I think it is being used up in the US! I did read that the US uses 90% of the world’s pain medicines. I digress. So I rounded there and saw a few surgical patients we were managing blood pressures and so forth. It was about 1pm by this time. I wanted to go home and eat but you never know what is coming next so I really wanted to finish my rounds. I only had 1 postpartum to round on. We don’t round on patients with uncomplicated vaginal deliveries nor on healthy newborns. The postpartum was a C-section patient that was 16 years old with her 1^st baby. Evidently this is becoming more and more common (teenage single girl pregnancy). She was doing well. Then I went to the neonatal  nursery which is probably where I feel the least knowledgeable. Everywhere else I feel like I am a 2.3 out of 10 in knowledge but here I feel about 0.5 out of 10! Six sick babies. 2 with birth asphyxia having seizures on and off and 4 premature babies. The smallest of which is 1.01 kg (2.2lbs). There is one baby there that has been there for 40 days that dropped as low as 0.7kg (1.5lbs) but is now up to 1.7kg and about to go from NG tube feeding to breast feeding. She’s truly a little miracle baby. So I held feeds on some babies who weren’t tolerating them well and increased feeds on most the others. 

It was 3pm by this time so I went home for “lunch”. Around 4pm I was called to evaluate a 9 month old in the outpatient dept who had a loud systolic murmur. On my way peds called and said they had an emergency. When I arrived there was a 10 hour old baby that was born on the way to a health center and referred to us due to the baby having a heartbeat of 60 and not breathing on his own. He had blood coming from his nose when I arrived and was gray. We bagged, gave epi, did compressions but the baby didn’t make it. It was the parent’s 2^nd baby and the 1^st had died a few hours after childbirth again. I tried to comfort the parents and prayed with them but culturally it’s hard to know what to say other than give them truth from God’s word but in reality everything else isn’t much use anyway.

By this time a 2 year old from the valley had arrived lethargic and the cbc returned showing the hemoglobin at 3.2. We also didn’t have an IV line and I was asked to place one. That is another big adjustment for me here. If the nurses can’t start an IV line they call us. My IV starting experience consists of putting one in another medical students arm 6 years ago… well I’ve had a bit more than that but not much. So after 3 attempts we called the CRNA on call and I realized I should have done that prior to my 3 sticks on the child! Once he was “stable” I checked on some of the babies again and headed home around 8pm. Not bad for a days work huh! Then there was Sunday!

So once again I didn’t have any calls through the night which is completely unheard of but I am SO grateful for it. It made the rounding on 34 patients on Sunday not seem as bad since I had a good nights rest prior to it. I was called again for the same patient from Saturday morning at 6:45am Sunday morning and told they were trying to resuscitate my patient.  When I arrived he had no pulse, no breathing. We don’t have any operating ventilators so intubating except for surgery (or a newborn who can be bagged for a short while) is the epitome of futile.  We gave 2 doses of epinephrine and one dose atropine but after 40 min we stopped.  

I was called at this point for a patient in labor whose baby heartbeat was 70 on Doppler so we called an emergent c-section. I was assisted with a Kenyan doctor but thankfully all went well and the mom and baby did great, thank the Lord.  Then rounding began again. I honestly felt like I had just finished  rounding from the day before! I tried to methodically move my way though the wards giving attention and detail to every patient but after awhile the 8 peds patients with either reactive airways or pneumonia began running together. I finished around 4pm and went for “lunch” which was actually breakfast and lunch but was called in for a “quick” admission to the peds ward. I ended up being there till about 7:30pm due to this child with hypoxia and shock. He pulled though thankfully. So I headed home after 12 hours of solid work and was smiled upon by God with a 3^rd night of good rest and only minimal interruptions from a few phone calls about patients that I could answer without having to go in.

I agree with Dr. Rhodes who said he was asked what it feels like to be helping so many people in the name of Jesus in an area of the world where many would die if this hospital and staff where not here. After this weekend I agree with his answer. He said “it feels like a lot of very hard work”. I am fulfilled knowing I am exactly where God has led me but when it’s 3:30am, I haven’t had an hour of sleep since my previous 2 nights with a combined 9 hours of interrupted sleep, I’m getting a call that a woman has had a miscarriage and is hemorrhaging and needs a D and C procedure (this was Thanksgiving night while I was on call again)… it does feel like a lot of hard work. But I am thankful. Thankful for my training, thankful for the group of doctors and nurses here in Kapsowar Kenya, thankful for a hospital that is ministering in Jesus’ name, and thankful that God has and is equipping my family to be here during this time.

Thanks for reading! And most of all thanks for praying!

Praise God for Bible Study!

Just wanted to give thanks to God and to all of you who have been praying about a bible study opportunity for me here in Kapsowar. One of the visiting nurses from America started a bible study group with the female nursing students a few weeks ago. I had told her about my desire to be a part of one, and the Lord has just worked it out so well! I went for the first time a week ago and really enjoyed getting to meet the girls and be a part of their group (even though I am not a nurse :)). Last night we decided to start a bible study book on Ephesians by Kay Arthur called "How do you walk the walk you talk?" It's a 6 week study with no homework, but great discussion and bible study activities for the group.

  I am so excited and thankful for this group. I have been missing bible study so much! And I think this will be a great opportunity for me to get to know these young girls and encourage them in their walk with the Lord!

Please continue to pray for this group and our time together! May God be glorified! Thanks :)

Wrapping up October and our first month in Kenya

 We have had a pretty good week here in Kapsowar. Here are a few pics to enjoy. Above is one of Layna's favorite places to hang out. It's just outside our back door. She enjoys going up and down the steps or just sitting with her lovey and relaxing :).

 Above is a picture of Braelyn, Eunice(on the left, our house helper), and Edna on the right who is Eunice's sister and also a house helper for all the families on the station. Edna has a reputation for being the best cook around. She can make tortillas, homemade bread, pumpkin & banana bread, and probably lots more. So, she came over this past week to help teach Eunice and I how she makes tortillas here. Braelyn LOVES helping out in the kitchen. She has become quite the cook since we are doing so much baking and cooking here.

 Here are a few pics from a walk we took yesterday (saturday) to Rorock. There is a church plant there that meets at a school. We have been wanting to visit the church, so we just walked there to make sure we knew where it was and how long it took us to get there. With two whiny girls, it took about 25 minutes!! We were hoping to visit there this morning but it rained a lot last night and it is a dirt road, so maybe next week. I enjoyed getting outside the station and seeing a little more of the countryside.

 And we found a little friend on our way back :). The girls thought he was pretty cute.

So, overall, we have had a good week here in Kapsowar. I am learning that cooking two meals in one day really helps give me a break from having to think about meal planning all the time. We had pretty weather most of the week so the girls and I took a few walks outside. I shopped at the open market by myself on Friday. I will do another post sometime about food and what kind of things we eat around here. We got a lot of cards in the mail this week, which was really fun. Thanks to all of you who sent them. Aaron was able to go to the community outreach clinic on Thursday and he really enjoyed that. It was about a 45 minute drive from Kapsowar and they saw a lot of people there. He really enjoys getting out into the community. We have had power more consistently this week, which has been nice. Thank you all for supporting us and keeping up with our family. We really appreciate your prayers and support.

Please pray for me as I might have an opportunity to lead or co-lead a bible study with nursing students. Still trying to figure it out right now, but pray I would have wisdom with that.

Also, please pray for Layna. She has had a bad cough for almost two weeks now. Please pray it would go away soon. She usually wakes up 2 or 3 times each night with coughing fits. So we haven't been sleeping well in our house.

Also, please continue to pray for wisdom with ministry opportunities and a church home.

Thank you for joining with us in this ministry!

Hmmm, I don't remember learning this in residency!

Aaron here. So I've had a few people ask what kind of stuff I'm seeing here in Kenya. Honestly, I'm still not completely sure yet but I'll share some of my patient encounters with some added details for you medical minded out there.
I have been blessed to be "eased" into medicine here. I took the 1st week to get settled in our house, adjust to the time change and adjust to being at 7,000 ft elevation ( after playing some flag football yesterday I'm still not sure I'm adjusted!). Anyway, the first two days I spent following Kyle Jones around. We saw the men and women wards (maybe 6-8 patients each ward) then the peds ward (10 kids probably) Then OB (4 or 5 patients there post partum from C-sections). Also saw the nursery patients- you don't see the health babies here only the ones with problems. Then we went to the outpatient department and saw some patients waiting there to see the doctor. Also had 2 c-sections sometime during that 1st day.
The next day was similar then it happened...I was on my own! Well I still could call Kyle if needed but he's a busy guy and I didn't want to bother him on every patient.
So I started with the men's and women's wards and here is what I saw:
1. 70 year old man with an esophageal mass on EGD (the surgeons do those so that's great). He had been vomiting blood for months and unable to keep any food down during that time. He had 2 episodes of low blood sugar the night before, they use a different measurement for blood sugars that I'm still getting used to but he was low. Kyle had placed an external jugular line the day prior to get him some sugar as he for some reason had no IV line at the time of his low sugar. The day I saw him his family felt he wasn't acting correct and he seem to be somewhat delirious. but his urine output was only 300cc for the past 13-15 hours total. He was talking out of his head, vomiting blood and not getting any nutrition due to the NG tube not being able to go past the mass. His lungs sounded like there was a monster in there trying to get out with every breath!
So after standing there for a while and not sure what to do I prayed with him and his family and made some fluid adjustments, checked that he was on abx for aspiration pneumonia and went to my next patient praying he had something I could "fix" with medicine.
2. Next patient is a newly diagnosed HIV patient with cryptococcus mennigitis confirmed with india ink on lumbar puncture. He's on all the anti-retroviral therapy plus high dose fluconazole. The nurse asks if amphoterican B would be good for him... I smile and say let me check my book (oxford handbook of tropical medicine...every page I now turn to is something I have seen or treated!) so we changed him to Amp B per the oxford dosing guide.
3. Next patient is a community acquired pneumonia, seems to be improving but was also newly diagnosed with HIV.
4. Next man is an 80 year old man that has been admitted within the last few hours and is waiting on me to diagnose and treat him. complaining of hurting all over, vomiting for 2 weeks and diarrhea. Fever. I'm thinking some parasitic disease or Typhoid or both. He also has urinary retention and we can't get a cath in so he goes to the OR.
5. Final male patient has pneumonia and is improving but had a TIA yesterday but going home today
So that took about 2 hours... on to the women

1. 37 year old HIV patient with sepsis but we can't do any cultures so we don't really know what we are treating. Started on ceftriaxone but we ran out so started on sulbactamax (not a med we have in the US) but we ran out and now changing to Augmentin. Also has flagly, bactrim, fluconazole. She is in respiratory distress but on oxygen and evidently has been like this for a few days.
2. a 60 year old woman with a CT from a year ago from another hospital showing she has multiple brain tumors. She fell asleep 3 weeks ago and the family would like us to help her wake up. We all assumed she had herniated and is days from dying but now she is waking up and following simple commands.
3. New patient that needs to be seen. She is 24 and having consistent vaginal bleeding for 3 months. She decided to come in today due to heart palpitations and dizziness. hgb is 2.6 (normal is 11-14 and we transfuse anything under 7) I order 3 units to start with and recheck on her in 3 hours and she is still waiting on the blood due to lack of supply.
4. 45 y.o lady recovering from small bowel obstruction but now her hand where he had an IV is swollen and painful up to her shoulder and I can't feel a pulse so I send her to the OR where I do find a pulse with doppler but she still gets an I&D and started on cefuroxamine.
5. 18 year old with Typhoid doing better but HIV came back positive and she is in denial and doesn't want any labs (they always send a CD4 to Eldoret 2 hours away) or meds for it.
6. 40 year old with Giardia and Amobiasis recovering well on meds
7. 38 year old with cerebral malaria recovering on quinine.

Went back later for a 3rd C/S that day with Kyle, this one was thought to have a prolapsed cord but our Ultrasound machine isn't working, needs a new power cord. Baby heart rate is 175. Ends up being thick meconium. we suction at the cords and bag for 3 hours but the full term baby tires out and dies from likely meconium aspiration. we did give meds and fluids but we have no ventilators here which would have bought her some time at least.

So to make a long post longer let me share the outcomes of these patients. Sorry I'm being lazy you are going to have to scroll back and forth to see who I'm talking about. First the male ward

1.  Pt pulled out all his lines and ended up dying 2 nights later at the hospital
2. Improved then did worse then improved and was able to eat and set up then died 2 days ago at the hospital.
3. went home
4. just 2 hours after cath was placed in the OR he died probably from having massive amounts of vomiting and diarrhea
5.  went home

women
1. Was started on PCP treatment (high dose bactrim) then TB treatment due to an ESR of 60 but not able to get a sputum sample. XR showed pulmonary edema so she was also started on lasix. Then died 2 days ago
2. Is now more alert and getting feeds via ng tube but has some large pressure ulcers that need surgical attention
3. received 2 units but was waiting for her family to come give blood. started on an estrogen taper and last I saw her she was feeling better, and had been discharged but doesn't have the money to pay her bill so she just hangs out at the hospital until her family can get the funds to pay. She doesn't seem to mind though.
4. hand is healing and will probably go home soon
5. 6. 7. all went home

So again this is NOT what I learned in residency but I am thankful to be here and although it is still hard work I am glad to be a part of it...most of the time! I am also thankful that even though I didn't learn this in my training I did learn how to learn and how to use a history and physical to guide me in diagnosis. but is still have a LONG way to go. thank you for your prayers. I need them!

So I know it was long and boring for some of you but just for getting this far you get a pic of the girls!

Getting settled

 Well we have been in Kapsowar for 3 weeks tomorrow (friday) and we are learning so much! The above picture is at the entrance of the hospital. I (Aaron) am starting to almost have some small sort of idea of how to do medicine here! I'll post soon about my 1st week of work for all you interested out there. I did my first C-Section yesterday with Kyle assisting me. I was slow but everyone involved is doing well (myself included!)

 Last Saturday night we all woke up at 230am from a huge shaking of our house, we thought someone was trying to get into our house. Come to find out it was a huge branch of a tree that had fallen on the power lines. if fell about 30 ft. thankfully no one was hurt

 Here's mom leaving at 5am. She made it home but not the exact way we planned her too! She had to buy another ticket and wait for 9 hours in the Eldoret airport. We miss having her here but as Braelyn says "Nana had to go home to take care of Granddaddy". I'm sure he appreciates us letting her go back home! She is and was such a blessing to us here. Ready for our next visitors, so everyone plan a trip!

 Braelyn Layna and Isaac (the other Jones' youngest boy) watching the Ipad. It was a gift to us from a doctor in the states and has provided hours of entertainment!

 Jason and Anna Lattin and their family were here for a month and we were able to be with them for a couple of weeks. They have 4 children and their niece came with them. They finished the post residency program in 2010 where they served in Bangladesh. She is a family medicine doctor and he is a surgeon. They were so gracious to bring us diapers from the US and it was great letting the kids play together and hearing their wisdom and ideas about our 2 years here. We miss them so much!

 Braelyn and Esther Lattin. They played so well together! Braelyn is now naming her dolls after their family!

 Layna has become well reacquainted with her pacy (she cries for it and calls it her "Bassy, Bassy") It was a step back in my opinion but boy did we need it on the plane and the first weeks here. As Sonya has said "she could really go far in the fussiest kid contest" without it!

The girls are BIG fans of mud puddles. It is tough to keep them out of the mud! And the mud is plentiful when it rains here

Thank you so much for the prayers. We are living off of them right now. Things are good but any adjustment is hard for a while. We are trying to find our role and place in the community and in ministry. So much unfamiliarity but we are blessed to be here right now.
Thanks for reading! We miss you!

More pics of Kapsowar

This was our first Sunday morning here. We are all on our way to church. This is the path from the station area to the hospital. The building you see is the Nursing School.

AIC Kapsowar Church. I can't tell you much about the service because I was outside with the girls most of the time. I think there was a translator though for the sermon. 

This is our backyard. One day we came home to Kenyan kids hitting this tree with sticks to get the fruit off. Braelyn decided to help them! Later we learned that they are not suppose to be doing that :)

This is the foundation of a small guest house they are building in our backyard. The next building is a small house for nursing students, and the roof you see beyond the trees is the Rhodes house. They already have the wall ups on the house now. We will have to post more pics soon.

Coming out of our gate of our front yard this is the "field" and basketball court. It is hard to see, but the court is toward the back. It is a nice play for the kids to run and play.

This is heading left out of our gate. The house beyond the trees is the other Jones'.And that tree line is the driveway that goes left to the hospital.

This is looking toward the hospital, the driveway we walk on to get to church, hospital or town.

During the week there are always ladies sitting here at the end of our road selling produce and things.

Ok, I hope to put up more pics soon. It takes a long time to download them here. It has been a little rainy today and yesterday. Not constant, just overcast. Aaron's first few days at the hospital went really well. Thank you for praying. Please continue to pray for us as we adjust to many new things and pray we can build relationships here quickly. Also pray for me as I get used to being a stay at home mom again and try to work out some type of routine for our family. It has been a challenging few days for me. Thanks for your prayers so much.
   Sorry there aren't more pics of girls. They are missing some of the families that left last week. One of there favorite things lately has been splashing in mud puddles after the rains.
   Hope everyone has a good weekend!
  

Pictures of Travels to Kapsowar

 In the airport in Amsterdam....tired Layna. The girls did so good. Thankful we brought the stroller.

 Enjoying some fruit squeeze snacks. Layna liked having her own seat. About to leave for Nairobi.

 This was a proud moment in the Nairobi airport. Here we are with 15 pieces of luggage!!. It really wasn't that hard getting it all together. Nana kept the girls off to the side and I kept bringing the rolly carts while aaron filled them up. In the pic below I was trying to find a "welcome to kenya" sign. I couldn't find it, so this was the next best thing. It says "Welcome to the place I call home, Kenya" :)

 Here are a couple of pics from the guest house we stayed in in Nairobi. The girls LOVED this tree swing. I would love to figure out how to get them a swing here. I think it could be easily made, just need to find the right tree and make sure it would be ok to have. There would probably be lots of kenyan children to share it with. There is a great space for a playground here on the station. Maybe I will check in to that and make it a project of ours. They do have two small swings at the hospital, but that's all I have seen so far.

Hopefully will post pics of our home and the hospital in the next week or so. It takes a while for pictures to download here.
Thanks for praying for us and loving us! Aaron plans to start work at the hospital on Tuesday. Please pray for him in learning and getting back into the swing of medicine. Also, his mom, Kathy , will be going back to the states on Monday. Pray for her safe travels and for us as we will miss her dearly. So thankful she could come with us and help us get settled.

More to come soon!

We made it to Kapsowar!! Praise the Lord!

Hello everyone! We are so thankful and excited to finally be in our new home in Kapsowar. I could go on and on and on about how gracious and good our Lord is. He has provided so much for us along this journey. I will try to highlight a few things. I'm sure I am forgetting some, but these are a few that stick out to me.....
*on our first LONG flight, there was a lady next to us whose tv screen wasn't working, so she requested to change seats. that left us with an extra seat, so layna could lay down flat and sleep.

*the girls did SO WELL! they both slept for good amount of time on the airplane and behaved themselves very well considering the crazy schedule and long hours we had.

*The guest house we stayed in was such a blessing. We were all able to stay in the same "room", including Kathy, which made it more convenient. They had a great swing and little slide there that the girls really enjoyed. We had one evening of "down time" there, which was much needed.

*On the second LONG flight, there were a lot of empty seats in the back of the plane. Aaron was able to go lay down on a row of seats and actually get a few hours of sleep. Then I rested for a little while too.

*Our travels were all safe and nice. Everyone has stayed healthy!!!!

*Vanessa Jones (one of the other missionary wives who lives in Kapsowar) was able to pick us up in Eldoret and help me do a month's worth of grocery shopping!! It was SO helpful to have her there to show me what i needed and which brands were better.

*We recieved ALL our luggage!! Even after one piece was delayed in Nairobi, we were able to locate it Friday morning and send it along with all our other luggage in the van. (our luggage was driven to Kapsowar separate from us).

Braelyn said it well when we pulled up to our new house here...."Praise the Lord for our new home"!
I think we are all so happy to finally be here and to get to be settled in to a routine and family life.

We are so thankful to have Kathy, Aaron's mom, here with us. She has been so helpful in so many ways.

Pray for us as we get adjusted to this new life. Pray that we can get settled in and makes this "home" soon. We appreciate your prayers so much! Thank you all for the encouraging words and love you have showed us.

Looking forward to posting some pictures soon of our journey here!

It's Go Time

Wow what a whirlwind week...or year for that matter. In the last week we have successfully packed all 15 suitcases and Rubbermaid boxes for our next two years. We have moved out of the mission house and into my (Aaron) parents house for 3 nights. We had our last round of shots and Sonya was diagnosed with Graves Disease! Yes that's right it actually all happened in the last 5 days. Not to go into too much detail, Sonya had been feeling bad for a couple of months. Weight loss, to which I attributed to stress ( we have moved 2 times in 3 months and now moving again to Africa!), heart palpitations to which I told her she needed to exercise (I admit I was wrong!). Nausea and near passing out some mornings (no not pregnant). So we thought it would be a good idea to have her thyroid checked before we leave although she has never had any thyroid problems in the past. Labs were drawn Wednesday (6 days before we leave), results called Thursday, special trip to Bristol (2 hours away) for part of a thyroid scan then a return trip the next day for the rest of the scan, a meeting with an endocrinologist and 2 medicines later she is starting to feel a smidgen better (yes, no thanks to me).  We know this was allowed by God and for a couple of days last week we weren't sure if we would be able to keep the flight tomorrow but God worked and allowed us to get 2 months worth of waiting and appointments and test done in 2 days! Dr. Beasey (the endocrinologist) encouraged us to go so here we go. leaving for the airport in 10 hours! Just a few requests before we go:

• please continue to pray for our health as we go and for Sonya as she adjusts to these meds.
• We will need to have her thyroid checked in a month or so to see whether to go up or down on the dose of meds and I'm sure this can be done in Kenya but we have not been able to nail down any details of where it can be done.
• Please pray for the kids to sleep and obey and the flights/connections to be smooth.
• That all our luggage would arrive when we do...intact!
• Grace as we adjust to all the changes we have been experiencing and will be experiencing 
• Pray for our families as they adjust to us being (a little) further away

Thank you for praying and thank you for giving. We are blessed over and over by you. We are SO excited to go and see what God has in store. It has been a long time coming and it is finally here! To God be the Glory, Lord Willing next update will be from Kenya!

Yay! Progress in Packing!!

Just wanted to give an update on how our week of packing has been going. First of all, thank you all so much for your prayers. This is a tough process, but it is encouraging to know we are being prayed for.
   The first of the week started out slow, but I was glad that my Mom was able to come and help me out some. Another highlight was that my good friend Stephanie offered to bring us dinner Tuesday night! What a blessing it was to have a good meal and get to see her too.
   Today, my sister and my brother and his wife (Carla, Michael & Katy) were able to come to the mission house and help us with many things. My sister has become my personal shopper the past week trying to help me locate random things like sippy cups and make up at several wal-marts and targets. She has been such a great help.
    The most exciting news I would like to share is that after working hard all day today, with the help of my family, we were able to pack SEVEN pieces of luggage!! Woohooo!
    It felt so good to see this progress. I am SO thankful that they were able to come and help. We could not have gotten it all done without them. To top it off, Aaron's mom surprised us by bringing over homemade vegetable beef soup!!

    We are not sure how many pieces of luggage we will have altogether....maybe 12 or 14. That means we are hopefully halfway done!
 
    Tomorrow night we will celebrate Braelyn's 4th birthday! I am thankful that we get to share this special time with family before we go. 
     Praising God for such amazing provision today! And here are some pictures of the process. Actually, these were taken after we got them all done, so the floors are actually much cleaner than they were!

  

New look

Yes, because I have so much free time...I decided to change the look of the blog a little bit :). Really I just didn't like the other one that much. So, hope you like it. Thanks for keeping up with us!

Prayer Request: I have blocked off all of next week for "packing".....real packing, like in action packers and suitcases! So, we would really appreciate your prayers for that process. Pray that I can be quick in my decision making and not get overwhelmed. Thanks!

Tickets... check!

Well it's official we are leaving September 25th 2012 for Kenya! We booked our tickets last week. We will be leaving on that Tuesday at 2:30pm from Knoxville then to Atlanta and on to Amsterdam. Then Amsterdam to Nairobi...scheduled to arrive at 8:15pm on Wednesday night. Total of about 24 hours of travel time. Spend the night in Nairobi then pick up a few items Thursday in Nairobi and spend the night again there. Then Friday morning flying to Eldoret where we will do the grocery shopping and be picked up by the hospital ambulance and ride to Kapsowar. We are told it's about 2 hours unless you take the "scenic route". I'm not sure we want to find out what that means!
My (Aaron) mother is taking the trip with us to give us an extra hand (or two) on the way there and while we unpack. She will be in Kapsowar about a week with us, which is such a blessing!

Still lots to do here. We are still gathering the last few "needed" items. It's hard buying so much but at the same time I'm pretty sure we won't be buying much in the way of clothes and shoes while we are there. No amazon free shipping there!

Please pray for Layna she has another ear infection and started antibiotics yesterday. That stinker ran a fever of 105.5! Last night was much better.
Also pray for our packing. We NEED wisdom! How to pack, what to pack in. How much to pack and what to take.
Please also pray for all of our health (including my mother) as we prepare and as we travel.

We are so thankful to be able to go! Thank you for your prayers and love. 20 days from now we will be checking in at the airport!

I heard a quote in college that really stuck with me that I want to share.
"If being named an ambassador for your home country in a foreign land is considered an honor in this world, why should we consider being an ambassador for Christ in a foreign land a sacrifice!"
Thank you Lord for the privilege to serve!

A few pictures for your viewing pleasure!

                                         Camping with Sonya's family over Labor Day Weekend

                                                                      Cousins!

                                            Braelyn staying warm after playing in the river

Braelyn's results

Thank you all for your prayers for Braelyn. The test did come back positive, so she is allergic to penicilin. We are very thankful that we were able to find this out before we leave. Now we know to avoid those medicines in the future. The doctor did say that she could be tested again when we return. He said sometimes they grow out of it.
  
Braelyn was so brave during the appointment!! Aaron said she did so good. No crying, no complaining. Thank you again for your prayers for her.

On today's agenda......trying to find me a new pair of glasses and another list of more things to purchase before we leave. I have never really been a "shopper" and so this process of having to find and buy so many things has been tough. I think I will be totally fine with not entering a Wal-Mart for another two years :). At least that's how I feel right now.

We appreciate your prayers so much! We are working on getting our email list put together so that we can send out our first email update before we leave.

Update and Prayer Request for Braelyn

Just a quick update....

Things are going pretty well. We have been having a lot of opportunities to share at churches which has been great. Last Sunday we shared at the church I grew up in, FBC Dandridge, and a lot of my extended family was able to come and spend the afternoon with us. It was a great time of fellowship. I'm very thankful to my mom for getting it all together.
    This weekend we are traveling to Christiansburg, VA to speak at Good Shepherd Baptist Church. This was our home church during four years of medical school. We are excited to see everyone there and see how God is working.

 Prayer Request: This past January Braelyn had an allergic reaction while taking Augmentin. However, it was not the typical presentation of an allergic reaction to this medicine, so we have a doctor's appt this Monday morning with a children's allergist to try and figure out if she is truly allergic to this medicine or not. Please pray that the tests come back negative and that she is not allergic.

Also, it is looking like our leave date might be Oct. 2nd. We were looking at the end of the last week in September, but we are told it would be better if we leave at the beginning of the week.

We are busy trying to make our final purchases and sorting through the rest of our "stuff". I practiced packing an action packer full of the girls toys.....unfortunately, we can find our scale to weigh it and see if it is under the 50 lb limit. But it is a pretty amazing thought to think that most all of our toys can fit in one trunk! That is minus any books......probably going to have to spread those out in a few different pieces of luggage. Hopefully it will meet the weight requirement and I will know how to pack at least one thing :).

 My Pop, who is 90 years old, was able to make the trip and spend the day with us!

 

Thanks for your prayers and support. This season of transition seems like an emotional rollercoaster at times. We are excited for the opportunity, but it is a lot of work getting there.