Newsletter Subscription

By Jacob

Subscribe to our Newsletters

* indicates required

Recent Posts

A Long Week

By Jacob
Image
I am lying here on the bed next to Carmen, Esther, and Tivoli. The day has started and it is getting hot outside. Fortunately, there is a breeze and we do not have a power outage so the fan can keep running. It seems we get our daily (or more) power outage which lasts anywhere from a few minutes to five hours. I don't think you realize how nice it is to have consistent, reliable power until you just don't. The boys are outside somewhere, and Dinah is cleaning the house. The sound of construction and the occasional horn or loud music overwhelms the sounds of bustling Dar Es Salaam. Earlier this week on Sunday afternoon we moved across the city to a two bedroom apartment making our commute to language training a leisurely five-minute walk. Since then, we have found a fridge, borrowed two couches, and bought mattresses to sleep on and mosquito nets. We are quickly learning our way around the city! Jason contracted a fever, stomach ache, and runny stool on Monday. Thou...
Read more

Meet Our Girls

By Jacob
Image
Welcome to the world Esther Tianna Joy and Tivoli Moriah Rain! May God give us the strength and wisdom to raise you to love the Creator, God, who has brought you into this world.  Yes! I got my two little princesses! I am so proud of her. Five hours of incredible pain and eight months of carrying the girls through a move across the States and two weeks in Tanzania. I am so blessed by her. Right now I am so grateful for two healthy daughters and wife. God is so good! Born at 36 weeks Esther: Wt - 5 lbs 2 oz, born 8:02am Tivoli: Wt - 5 lbs 6 oz, born 8:20am  We were so grateful that my mom could be there to help out.  The boys were super excited to meet their new sisters...though before long they were more interested in the grapes brought to Carmen for lunch and all the light switches. Going through the pictures, Carmen and I are having lengthy debates as to who is who. I am convinced that Esther is on the left an...
Read more

Haydom

By Jacob
Image
Tuesday last week I flew out with another MAF pilot, Kirstein, to Haydom. Our schedule was full with flights out to even more remote villages, and we would not return back to Arusha until Friday. On one of the afternoons we needed to haul to the maximum capacity of the aircraft, and so I was left on the ground.  As I waited to catch a few pictures of Kirstein taking off to the villages, these two girls kept begging me to take a picture of them so they could see themselves. They were quite pleased, and a little shy, when I showed them my camera screen. After he was off, I began my hike to the large hill beside the town of Haydom. Having grown up in the mountains of Idaho, I miss the tranquility and peace of being in the wild. Being away from busy city life gives me time to think and process. I began to contemplate how different Tanzania is from the world I grew up in. For instance, it took me multiple visits to the Haydom airstrip before noticing the ridicu...
Read more

57 Hours Later - We made it!

By Jacob
Image
Over two days later with a total of fifty-seven hours of travel - we finally made it to Pennsylvania! Below is a condensed version of our trip on video.
Read more