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| Our Finished House! |
Our personal life in
Highlights:
We moved into our house on May 31, 2016.
We left for America on June 3, 2016.
We spent time with family.
Celebrated one of our good friend’s weddings where Katie was
a bridesmaid.
Was thrown a baby shower by our church family at E3 in
Tallahassee.
We only got to see a few friends for a very short period of
time because our schedule was so packed!
Katie had a special needs team working with her in Uganda
the day we arrived back.
We began organizing our house into a home and preparing for
the baby that was due in a month.
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| Ready to Brave the Bumpy Ugandan Roads |
Nolan’s Birth in
Highlights
Katie’s water broke on Sunday July 17 at 11:00 am at home.
Katie and Cody drove to Kampala (2 hours away).
There was Very little traffic! What a blessing! (It could
have taken a VERY long time!)
Nolan’s heartbeat was very irregular throughout the labor
and was monitored closely.
At 2:30 Monday morning the Dr. decided that a C-section was
needed due to his heartrate.
Nolan arrived at 3:04 am Monday July 17, 2016.
He was 6 pounds 6 oz and 15 inches long.
Since then:
We have been adjusting to life as a family of three! J
He is such a blessing and gift from God.
He is now 5 weeks old, growing, and doing great!
Cody had a month at home with us until he started back to
school.
Cody’s school size jumped from 13 students to 27 in one
year!
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| First Day of School 2015 |
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| First Day of School 2016 |
We have added a new family to our missionary team at GSF!
Katie is staying home with Nolan for the time being.
She plans to continue her work from home after taking some
time off.
Katie has an intern coming next week to work with her until
December!
How we see God
working:
Providing an intern for Katie at the perfect time
Making it possible for her mom to come as soon as the baby
was born
Allowing Cody to have a month at home with Nolan.
Keeping the traffic low on the drive to Kampala and that
Katie was not in pain.
Even though Nolan was early, he was so healthy!
On Our Hearts:
Community
It was such a difficult decision to have Baby Nolan
here. There were sacrifices made on both
sides by family and friends to make this happen here, but we felt that this was
what we were supposed to do. We were so
blessed with community here and back home.
I have a much larger view of community and family after having
Nolan.
As for
community in Uganda, I really felt the GSF missionaries support us as a family.
During the birth, there was an iMessage group-text going for updates and silly
comments. One female missionary actually
came with us to the hospital for the drive and delivery. Another couple met us at the hospital to be
there as we needed them, and did little errands, visited us, and they actually
stayed in Kampala overnight! Another
family came the next day and brought pizza for everyone. The Global Outreach Africa Director and his
wife came to the hospital to visit as well.
At one point, we had 9 missionaries in the room visiting! That is
amazing for a couple who technically had “no one” with them, and all these
people lived at least 2 hours away! One
missionary actually came back the next day to spend time with me before my mom
arrived that night. There were phone
calls and texts from Ugandan friends and other missionaries in the community
that also warmed our hearts. We arrived
home to GSF, and there were kids and staff out to greet us, signs on our door,
and the missionaries had cleaned, decorated and organized our house for
us. There were also meals brought for a
week and a baby shower. There were so
many other things that I am forgetting to mention, but the important thing is
we were SO well taken care of!!!
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| Part of Our Amazing Missionary Family |
As for our
American Family, there were so many facebook messages and posts. My mom got on a plane and arrived by
Wednesday morning. (This was the plan all along) We were able to Facetime a lot
of people to “meet” Nolan. There were
gifts and donations made in Nolan’s name.
Our church announced the birth of their newest missionary, and our
sending organization Global Outreach celebrated with us as well. For being so far away, we felt so loved and
connected during this time. Thank you
for loving us and supporting us!!! The
ocean didn’t feel so wide.
