"I stuck the pencil in his ear because the music didn't stop."

Such was Micah's explanation as to why he tried putting a pencil into Andrew's ear. I'm still trying to figure out the logic on that. We had to make a couple of Doctor visits this week. Lilia had fallen down while skating a couple of weeks ago and had been complaining about her hip popping and hurting ever since. We scheduled an appointment with the Doctor tuesday. Had X-rays at the hospital Wednesday and went back to the doctor who prescribed two prescriptions, said it wasn't serious and told her to stay off of it for 4 days. One nice thing about france in the health care system. Dr.'s visit - 22 euros. Two x-rays - 46 Euros, Two prescriptions 9 Euros. And everyplace asks if we want the paperwork to send to the government who might refund us some based on our income. I couldn't accept it even if we would have received it. It was cheap enough already. It was also neat that Angie and Lilia only had to wait ten minutes at the hospital to get the x-rays, even without an appointment. The Doctors appoitment was 6:30 a night. It worked out well. Also this week, we had our first real storm, hail started falling. I like storms and so I was enjoying every minute of it. We had a good week at language school and I feel like I am picking up a little more. Language learning comes in stages with plateaus. It is not a continual process, you have periods where you feel like you are learning nothing and then suddenly everything makes sense and then the process repeats. I think my plateaus are close together. Also attached is a picture of Andrew by the window. The hail woke him up. God bless, JASON

French Mother's Day

I just wanted to show you all what the kids made at school for me for Mother's Day here. Micah painted the blue and red pot for the "flowers". And he made green hanprints for the "plant". I think he also painted the hearts and then the were sprinkledCaleb wrote words on the heart flower bouquet (sweet, pretty, nice, star, mom) and Bonne Fete Maman. He also made a cute colorful card with a poem inside. Lilia made a bookmark that is clear with pressed flowers in it and letters she cut out to say Bonne Fete Maman. She said it was tough to cut out all the letters. She gave it to me in a purple crepe paper envelope. I thought these were very sweet and thoughtful gifts and it was neat to see how they celebrate here. ANGIE

Fête de la Mère

Today was mother's day in France (Fête de la Mère). There was a small celebration in downtown massy in celebrations, which is where we live. It was not much, a few booths and a live band. The streets were closed so we called Yvain and Virginie Saturday and moved the service time to 1:30. That is what is great about home churches. We did not have to call a business meeting either. Services went good, we presented a small gift to the 2 mother's present. In other news, Massy is alive with colorful flowers. On each lampost their hangs a basket of flowers and every patch of dirt has something blooming it seems. We were told that 20% of the city budget is spent on flowers. So far, I am loving spring in France. We have never visited here before summer, but it is real nice. I have attached some pictures of some flowers. Friday night, Caleb and I attended a local jazz concert. We enjoyed it. Caleb liked the drums. He managed to stay awake for the first 45 minutes. He said afterwards when I asked him if he liked it, "I liked it, it went into my heart and down into my feet." It was a good cultural experience and we even met someone there that we visited with when we made our survey trip over a year and a half ago. In answering the question from the last blog. "Je suis Jesus" = I am following Jesus (verb - suivre). "Je ne suis pas Jesus" = I am not Jesus (verb - etre). We pray that your Sunday goes well also. God bless, JASON

Its Wednesday!

We are excited about Wednesdays because we have no school. Our teachers do seem to know this judging by the amount of homework they give on Tuesday. Today I am going to go into Paris and buy some shoes. Yvain knows of some places that sell them cheap. He said that when people ask them why they are so cheap they say, "They fell off the truck." I have another french quiz questions for you. Both of the following sentences below are true, one is positive and one negative, What do I mean when I say? "Je suis Jésus, Je ne suis pas Jésus." God bless, JASON

Another blessed service.

Services were blessed again today. We had Matt Critcher visiting with us from Arkansas. I was a joy to have him and he brought a great lesson. We had great fellowship for several hours afterwards. The weather has cooled off here. It is supposed to get down to 44 degrees tonight. I'm looking forward to school this week. Last week we had a large test, and speech to give, and I preached during assembly time Friday, so it was hectic. Adding to that was Angie getting a little under the weather and the boys having no school thursday because of the strike. There was a protest outside of our apartment today. I received a flyer and could make out that they were unhappy with Sarkozy and were forming a new political party. I though about going to their meeting just for the socialization and French language acquisition. I killed a mouse in the garage yesterday. We are having some visitors possibly stopping by from Mississippi at the end of the month. We are looking forward to seeing them. Matt was graciously delivered my musical saw and several other items that we missed from the states. Pictured is Matt and the strikers outside. God bless, JASON

And Then The Police Came

So this morning I am home with the boys because there is a strike at the maternell school (preschool). It was 9:30 and I was just about to get the boys a snack when the doorbell rang. Who could that be I wondered- everyone is at school. I looked out the window down onto the street and it is the cops accompanied by the sanitation workers. Fortunatley, I could see why they were here because they were photographing the large pile of debris just outside our door. So even though it does not concern me I grab my keys and head downstairs thinking of the phrases I will say to try and explain the situation. When I got down there the men were not there. But then one man across the street came back to ask me about the pile of stuff. I triend to explain that it wasn't mine but the neighbor men were cleaning out their storage buildings. As I was explaining the police came back with one of my neighbors and he was giving the explanation. I asked if I could go because I had three kids upstairs and the man said yes.
So what may have happened was- Last night the neighboring men began cleaning out the storage areas behind our apartment. Maybe they were thinking that this thursday of the month was the one that the trash workers will pick up bigger things. So this is not an unusual thing to have junk piled out by the street but maybe the problem was that it stuck out too far and blocked the entire sidewalk. I'm not sure exactly. ANGIE

le Tatou

Things are doing well for us. Monday was a holiday here (pentecost) and we went to Cora and bought some fans. They had a sale where you get 20% off the first three items that you purchase, so we saved some money. We looked at some TV's they had a couple that we were interested in but they were sold out. That is not unusual here. We went to another store the same day and they were out of several items (eggs, lunchmeat, lettuce) from the holidays. Our 13 in will work a little longer. We have a busy week of homework. We worked about two hours on Monday night. Thursday in the morning we have a test and that afternoon we both have presentations to bring (I'm doing mine on Armadillos- le Tatou). Friday, and I speaking to the school during the assembly time, about 15 minutes. I will bring the sermon I brought on Easter, which is on the blog previously ( http://abainfrance.blogspot.com/2008/03/la-leon-pour-aujourdhui-le-pques-sans.html ), except with the corrections. This weekend we are having a college professor and a couple of his students, who are here on a school trip, visiting in our services. I am looking forward to their visit. We are also having a visitor from Denmark who has moved to Paris for work. This could break our previous record attendance. Attached is what Angie wanted for Mother's day, and picture of her and the kids. Thanks for the Prayers and God Bless, JASON

Another vacation.

The weather has been wonderful around here. The past few days have been great. It was slightly hot inside at times but real nice outside. On our day off yesterday we went to a couple of parks and let the kids play. Going to parks is also a great visitation as well. Last Sunday afternoon we went to a park and spoke with a young couple as our kids played. We hope that we can see them next sunday as well. The holiday yesterday went good. There were a lot of flags up and a small parade passed through town. The holiday was for celebrating the end of World War II (May 8, 1945). We have another holiday on Monday. We have enough homework to make up for it though. We planned on eating chicken and dumplings tonight but our chicken went bad when our electricity was out, so instead we made our second trip out to eat in 5 months. We went the the sandwich shop next door to us. The food was good and inexpensive and it was real great getting to know our neighbors. They were real nice and sociable, then even gave the kids suckers afterwards. Hopefully we can stop in and talk more often. The owner is a muslim and needs to hear about Jesus. God bless, JASON

Return to school, then another vacation.

We returned to school monday. It was an interesting day. The electricity went off at 3 in the morning and didn't come back on until 3:30 in the afternoon. The entire street for one block was out of power. It didn't have a great effect, the worst part was we had very little hot water. We are off thursday this week, like the french 4th of July. We picked right back up learning in school and have leaned future simple tense. We also learned the difference between "savoir" (to know) and "connaitre" (to know), confusing. The weather really has been pretty the last week. It was interesting, for weeks it was chilly with 50% chance of rain everyday. Then one day it was clear and warm and has been for about a week now. Attached is the kids wearing the sunglasses that Angie bought for them. JASON

Last Days of Vacation

Today has been a good Sunday. We are savoring every hour we have left of our vacation. Tomorrow it is back to school for everyone. Services this morning went well with the newly established church. They are mature and it is a blessing to be with them. This afternoon when we went to a nice new park we found near our appartment. After a little bit a family arrived with a boy Caleb's age. I was trying to get Caleb to go play with him and the other mom was trying to get her son to play with Caleb. Caleb was being a little shy and so was the other little boy but after they played together on the playground for less than a minute they were ready to play ball together. Later they had another son arrive who was a year older than Lilia. They all played tag with the ball together. I had a nice conversation with the mom and she was nice enough to share some of their drink with my hot sweaty very red-faced boys. They seemed to be a very interresting couple and I would like to get to know them more. I hope we will meet again at the park soon and have more conversations. I don't know what God's plans are but I wonder if these people will hear about Jesus from us. What an amazing thing that would be. She was curious as to why we were working with a church here and not in Texas and of course I shared with her the only explanation for that is God. I guess it is possible we may never see them again but I hope that is not so. Next is to learn how to tell someone all that Jesus means to us in French. I was thrilled at just being able to communicate what I did with them. I'll have to try it again sometime soon.
A great blessing yesterday for us was being able to watch Sarah and Justin's wedding on Skype.(Jason's sister) It was nice getting to "be there" so to speak. We didn't have any sound but it was nice just being able to see. It looked like it went well and I know the newlyweds are happy. Congrats Sarah and Justin!
Lilia is talking with her friend Hannah G. on the phone right now. I think it may be the first time they have spoken since we moved. They are updating each other on all the recent stuff- who's birthday party they went to and what they got and what new toys they have and what their brothers and sisters have been doing and stuff.
And I got to talk to my friend Krys --- It was great and I just want to say Krys, that TEXAS accent sounded GREAT!!NAAAAAAICE - ANGIE

Iced Tea

Yesterday was labor day here. Almost everything was closed and there were vendors in the street selling flowers. I don't know why you would want flowers on Labor Day. Yvain explained that this is called bridge month. Everyweek there is a holiday and if fro instance the holiday is on thursday then workers can take off on Friday. If the holiday is monday then workers can take off on tuesday as well. It leaves only a three day work week for almost the whole month. I found a grocery store open yesterday and while shopping I noticed they had lipton iced tea for sale in a bottle. Angie and I had found Lipton Iced tea in other places but it was always peach flavored. I decided to go ahead and pick this one up. After we tried it we read the ingredients (it is better to wait til after), It was carbonated and had lime flavor. It didn't taste bad though, just different. We have found that to be the case with a lot of things here. They are not bad, just different. Pictured is Gary and Judy Orr. JASON