Repairs

Some of the produce from our friend's garden - tomatoes, 
black tomatoes, yellow tomatoes, strawberries, peppers, cherry
tomatoes, Coeur de boeuf tomato, and zuccini. 

Candid shot before going for a walk to
fly a kite.

The weekend went well.  I thought I did a decent job at church Sunday. This has been a week of getting several small jobs done. Monday and Tuesday I prepared the lesson for Tuesday night.  I also got our financial report sent in. Wednesday I fixed a leak under the hot water heater, fixed a broken doorknob, and washed off the wall of the back porch that was growing moss.  We also placed a few orders for items that my parents will bring when they come.  The weather has really been cool and rainy these last two weeks. Today was the start of a couple of days of sunshine, so I should be able to mow the yard.   I plan on setting up the stand in the market tomorrow morning, and then I am having my lesson with my language partner.  We are trying to translate a really difficult text.  We have been babysitting the garden of our friends who are on vacation for a few weeks.  We are being blessed with all kinds of good stuff. God bless, JASON

"Vacation" in full swing

We had to blow out some eggs for the
last youth meeting.  Caleb and Lilia
had the patience to do one apiece.

We had a nice trip to Marseille.  We left at almost 11 and had lunch on the way.  This was a test run for how Arianna would do in the car. Alltogether she spent 7 hours in the car. In a few weeks we are going to Normandy with my parents, which will be at least a 9 hour drive.  She did well, but did require a lot of attention, which might have been partly due to her having a slight temperature the day before, teething I would imagine.  All went well at the Embassy, we enjoyed talking and joking around with the Consul. We did forget the prepaid security envelope, but we just walked to a post office afterwards to pick one up and then we dropped it back by.  We took a scenic route home and had some beautiful views of the Mediteranean.  We arrived home at ten in the evening. Wednesday, the kids were invited to a birthday party of one of Micah's friends.  Angie went with the three oldest kids.  The mother of Micah's friend approached Angie during the party and asked several questions about what we believed and what religion we were.  She said that Micah had been talking with her son about God and her son was asking her questions.  Good job Micah! Thursday I had my conversation time with Eric and we prepared for the Bible Study. I didn't expect a large crowd.  One friend from the church in Carcassonne came and we planned for the next youth meeting.  We invited some of the kids friends (same ones who had the birthday party) over to spend the night tonight, and the whole family to eat lunch with us tomorrow.  Sunday I am leading the service in Carcassonne and I will be bringing their bible study on Tuesday night.  So far the summer "vacation" has gone good.  God bless, JASON

le Tour de France of the Bible

Another sponsor who threw out packs of sausages to the crowd.

Part of the caravane of sponsors.

The official starting point (man in center with white hat
spoke with me for a while about what we were doing).

Here I am wearing the banner.

The crowd waiting for the racers to exit their buses.

Their personalized car.

This weekend we enjoyed the tour de France.  We hosted a group called "le Tour de France de la Bible" that goes to the starting and finishing points of each stage of the tour de France and does outreach usually in participation with a local church. Limoux was selected this year as the starting point for the 15th stage of the race. There were activities all weekend long. We prepared as a family by putting personalized labels on all the tracts, Bibles, magazines, cds and everthing else that we were handing out.  The group arrived Saturday evening and we had supper together. One couple stayed with us, while the three others stayed with our friends down the hill.  We enjoyed a good time of fellowship.  The couple left early in the morning to work at Montpellier, the finishing point.  We started out at 9 in the morning and arrived at 9:30 at Limoux were we started handing out tracts.  I volunteered to wear the banner, which attracted a lot of attention.  It was not as easy as you would expect, with wind gusts, and obstacles overhead.  Several people, thinking that we were part of the Tour would even came and ask us questions about the race.  We mingled in the crowd and looked at some of the activities. Lilia, who went with some friends ended up being on Television, you can see it by clicking here.  She is 15'16" into the video on the far right with a pom-pom.  We did pause and enjoy the caravane (a parade of sponsor vehicules that are decorated and give away free stuff ) that was a little bigger this year than last year.  Afterwards we walked some more and made a tour around the charter buses and even saw a few races preparing.  They had expected a crowd of 50,000 but I dont think that many came.  We did distribute 2,000 tracts, and several Bibles, cds, magazines, and balloons.  There was one member of the church in Carcassonne who was coming to help, he ended up not making it in time because of road closures. He did make it in time for lunch afterwards.  The cyclists departed at 12:50 and soon afterwards we walked back to the car.  We enjoyed a lunch together at our house and then I ran them to the train station in Carcassonne.  I think it went real well.  God bless, JASON

The team that helped us, from Congo, Holland, & France.

The family, preparing the tracts.

Fireworks

Wednesday evening there were fireworks in Limoux.  The French "independance" day was Thursday but Carcassonne has their famous firework show in that day so most of the cities in the area have theirs on Wednesday.  We arrived early and spent 30 minutes looking for some friends that we were supposed to meet up with. We ended up being on the wrong side of the river and had to cross back over.  The fireworks were nice, they started out with the Canoe association, canoeing down the river with laterns on their canoes.  They then shot off the fireworks from the bridge. Afterwards they had an orchestra and ballroom type dancing in the square, but it started raining heavily.  We stayed for a little while visiting under the covered areas and then headed home. We decided late thursday to attend the fireworks in Carcassonne.  I did not really want to go, but we needed to make the trip to Carcassonne anyways and so we finally decided to stay for the fireworks.  We actually found a good parking spot close to a friends house.  We walked a little ways before finding a nice hill to view the fireworks from.  The show was awesome again this year.  Caleb made a friend who almost talked during the entire show.  After the grand finally we walked back to the car and started making our way slowly out of town.  It was one in the morning by the time we made it home.  The kids were exhausted after being up late two nights in a row, but it all went well.  Now time to focus on preparations for the Tour de France.  God bless, JASON

Lake at Puiverts

Tuesday morning I attended a funeral for one of the ladies who attended the church in Carcassonne. She had no family that could be found and there was just a small group of friends there.  Tuesday afternoon, we went to the lake with some friends.  It was a small lake, what I might even call a pond, but it was nice.  There was a nice play area for the kids and the beach and swim area was not too big.  It was cool and cloudy so there was not a lot of people there. Arianna did not care much for the water so she spent most of her time hanging out with the grown-ups or sleeping.  The kids swam while we played petanque.  I happened to win every game, a shock because this was only my second time to play.  We breaked for lunch, and played a little more in the afternoon.  We really enjoyed the drive there and back.  It was a nice relaxing day. 

Video Done



When the kids play video games they give Arianna a
remote as well.

 It seems like this whole weekend was taken up working on computer problems. I thought I had a good start on the video with all the filming done. But that was just the beginning. I was going to use windows movie maker but it would no longer recognize the video format from my camera. After a lot of research I found that codecs were the problem. After several tries I found a codec that worked, but I still could not get the audio working. Finally I had to download a converter to change the file to something that was a little more windows friendly. It then took a while to get the software working. Then it took a while to convert the videos. Then I could not load them into the movie maker. I tried at first re-indexing my folders and several other things. After more research I found out that there was still a compatibility issue. I had to re-convert all the videos to another format. Finally I was able to start working on getting the video together. That part went fast considering everything else. I only had one problem that was shortly resolved. I finished it this afternoon. Finally. I would imagine it took 30 hours of work over the weekend. The trouble is I don't like having things hanging in the air, when I start something I have to get it done. Otherwise the summer is passing good. We are looking forward to the Tour de France outreach this weekend. I am going to attend a funeral tomorrow of a lady who came often to the church. Later in the day we were invited to picnic at the lake with some friends. Micah talked to one of his friends on the phone today. It was very funny. His accent, his expressions, just the way he talked was funny. Neither one of them knew how to converse over the phone. Angie got some of it on video. I would attach it, but I don't imagine that you would understand much. Sunday afternoon I did take a break and played some basketball, but I ended up pulling a muscle in my groin/hip area. It doesn't hurt as long as I don't move a certain way. That made it okay to sit and work at the computer. The kids have enjoyed summer. They play a lot and take dips in our little swimming pool. Lilia has gone to the public pool with friends a few times. I don't know if I mentioned it or not, but Lilia was accepted on the swimming team next year.  Angie has been trying to stay cool.  God bless, JASON



Some horses walked up while we were filming on the hill
overlooking Limoux.



Good days.

The last few days have been good.  No one came for the Bible Study last night, but we knew that many would be gone on vacation.  The market went well this morning.  One Muslim stopped by and asked for a Bible.  He said that he had seen several times on television people mention things about what was written in the Bible and that he would like to read for himself. I pray that he finds about the love of Jesus.    I have just about finished making all the parts of the VBS video that I am putting together.  It has been fun, I am think about putting a gag reel at the end.  We just noticed that Andrew's passport will expire this month and that means that we will be making a trip to Marseille to get it renewed.  God bless, JASON

Summer Shopping

At the last youth meeting in Carcassonne, they had a
picture scavenger hunt, I am not sure why but this was
one of the pictures they took.



Andrew with the soccer ball he got for his birthday.

 We had a good weekend.  Services went well Sunday at Carcassonne, there was a first time visitor. We enjoyed a meal after services and a nice Sunday afternoon here at the house, including listening to our home church services in Texas.  Monday the kids started the real vacation.  It was warm, so we let them go swimming in our little pool.  Angie went shopping in Carcassonne, one of the members of the church there wanted to buy each of our kids an outfit.  What a blessing!  July is a month of sales in France and you can find some good deals.  Tuesday, the girls went grocery shopping, (and Angie bought a purse for 70% off) and I managed to finish preparing my lesson for next week.  I played basketball with the guys Tuesday as well. It was 90 degrees, 27 % humidity, and no shade on the basketball court. Somehow I still managed to play for two hours. It was good exercise, but it took a while to recuperate afterwards. Caleb and I got home to find out that Angie had grilled because it was warm in the house.  Today we started working on a video for a church in the states.  Their Vacation Bible School is going to be taking an offering for us and we are making a short video for them.  It is going to be fun to put together, I hope to have it finished by Thursday or Friday.  We are about to leave and visit some friends on Carcassonne and also run a few errands.  We have a new cell phone that we are trying to get used to and we want to use the older one in place of our old prepay phone.  Tomorrow I will have my language session, I will be filming on location in a couple of areas, and also preparing for the Bible Study.  I hope that you are enjoying your summer as well.  God bless, JASON

Bugarach

We saw this pretty view at the
horse show last week.

Another week behind us.  This was the kids last week of school.  It ended well.  Micah ended with all A's on his report card.  Caleb had more of an average grade.  Andrew had a lot of compliments from his teacher as did Lilia.  We are looking forward to a good summer.  Bible Study went well Thursday evening, we are still in the first chapter of John.  Several people stopped by the market on Friday morning, I did give away one Bible after assuring the person several times that it was free.  Recently in the news there has been a lot of talk about a cult that has moved its way into the area.  The are a New Age group believing that the world will end in 2012 and that a local peak (Bugarach) will be a place of safety.  You can read the wikipedia article by clicking here.  I hope that this will not affect our credibilty any.  The French organization for cults has already issued a proclamation warning people about his groups and will attempt to limit their growth.  They are worried about the posibilty for mass suicides and also swindling. Hopefully we have already distinguished ourselves in the area well enough.  We rearranged the house a little this month.  My office is now in our bedroom to give me a quiet place to work during summer.  As a result Arianna found a new place to play (pictured).  Last night I attended a meeting for our basketball association.  They are planning on growing next year and expanding into other cities as well.  It was a good occasion to meet some new people and to get to know my team members better.  Arianna surprised us by sleeping all night a couple of nights ago.  She made up for it the next night by waking up four times. We have a little pool for her in the backyard and she enjoys playing in it and watching the boys splash in their pool.  I received a call from the director for the Tour de France de la Bible.  I am excited about this opportunity.  God bless, JASON