Sick in the Spring

Arianna falls asleep on the floor.

I made a carrot cake Sunday.

Arianna models the summer gown series.

Another week is passed and this month looks like it will fly by like the last one.  Things went well again last week.  We got a lot of work done in the yard this week.  It had gotten run down and needed a good overhaul.  Everyone enjoyed working on it, the boys liked the work and the thought of earning money, Lilia liked the boys not bothering her, and Arianna just liked being outside.  The cherry trees have bloomed in the back yard and they look beautiful.  Angie had a few doctors appointments this week.  She visited the doctor, the radiologist, and the lab for a blood test.  Her blood pressure was high and she is now on medication again to lower it back down.  She had been having some pain in her neck, and had a lot of cricks in her neck over the past year.  After an x-ray it has been confirmed that she has a abnormal curvature in the spine due to an injury in the past somewhere.  It is called cervical kyphosis, literally the curve in her neck is leaning the wrong direction.  With some anti-inflammatory and some massage it should work itself out.  Angie has not complained at all at the thought of getting a few good massages  Thursday night after the Bible study, Andrew got sick to his stomach.  He just kind of layed around all weekend.  He was feeling better Sunday, but Sunday night he got sick again.  Arianna got sick also on Friday and Sunday.  I stayed home with the two sick ones while Angie went to church on Sunday.  It is rare for her to get to go to church without any little kids.  Currently working on first of the month paperwork, the Bible Study for this week, and some stuff for this summer.  We finally got our key for the attic and have been storing stuff here and there.  There is some really old stuff up there and I have asked permission to be able to use it of throw it away.  We also got Arianna's official name change requested.  We went to the office to get it done and they told us that we could not do it in person, we have to write a letter :(  What are the odds.  We are working with Andrew to get him to stop sucking his thumb. I think that is probably why he gets sick and spreads it to the rest of the family.  So far his thumb has remained dry all day.  We will see how long it stays that way.  Thanks for you thoughts and prayers.   Continue to be in prayer for us this week and for this month.  God bless, JASON



Just my size.

Peek-a-boo.

La vie en "roses"

She is as pretty as a flower.

We have had a good week.  The weather has been wonderful all week long.  It has been dry however, about two weeks since it last rained, and this is usually the wetter time of year.  Several people were out with traveling and so we ended up not having anyone for the Bible study.  We did have a Sunday School lesson for the kids instead.  Angie taught and I kept the nursery.  The market went well Friday morning.  It started off a little slow.  Nobody came the first hour, one person stopped by the second, but there were several more that came the third hour.  Friday night, we had basketball practice outside because the gym was being used, Angie took the kids to the park during my practice.  Today we did quite a bit of yard work, weeding and mowing.  I did find the opportunity to take a bike ride with Caleb and take some pictures.  One of our neighbors stop by and gave us some cherries from their garden.  She mentioned that roses are one thing that grows exceptionnally well here, as you can see in the pictures.  Another neighbor stopped by this week gave us a lot of clothes from her daughter.  Lilia was excited about that.  Currently Angie has taken Lilia to a youth meeting in Carcassonne.  I am excited that Angie is getting this opportunity. They needed to have at least one women there so Angie volunteered.  She always does a great job with people of all ages, being a natural "people person".  The grand event this evening is the Monster Truck show that has come to town.  The kids are excited, they even claim to have the largest monster truck in the world.  I'm sure the boys and Lilia will enjoy it.  I will make sure and include some pictures.  Enjoy you weekend.  God bless, Jason

Monday already.

Time has been flying by this month. I had a good language session with Cedric Wednesday. We discussed a lot about the Bible and what he believes. We had two come for the bible study Thursday. The person who we rent from came (I forget the title for the person who ownes the home you rent) and painted the new room. We should have the floor done in early August. We have been blessed with getting some free furniture recently including baby bed, dresser, and day bed. Thursday Caleb came down with a slight fever, Saturday the other two boys had it as well. There seems to be no other symptoms in the two youngest, just a slight fever. We have been giving them medicine and keeping them indoors. Lilia and I went to church Sunday. The services went well and there were some guests. The weather continues to be cool. Let me speak on Angie's behalf when I say, "Praise the Lord!". The date for the baby's birth will be Aug. 31. Angie has gone today to schedule the Anesthesiologist. She also got to tour the hospital where she will spend about 6 days. We have some former classmates of ours visiting us this weekend that we are looking forward to seeing. I have finished preparing a handout with information about our Bible Study and have emailed it out to be proofread. Attached picture is the French countryside with sunflowers in the background. God bless, JASON

Empty Attic

The kids enjoyed playing Croque Carotte Friday evening. Micah really enjoyed teaching everyone how to play. Friday I got a lot of work done on the new blog. This blog will have all of my lessons and sermons in French. You can get there by clicking biblerichesses.blogspot.com or the link in the list of links to your right. Saturday morning we visited our first Vide Grenier (ilt. empty attic) or garage sale for us Americans. We found some wonderful deals on furniture, dishes, even a nice bike for 25 euros. We returned with a car load. After lunch we had Andrews birthday party which went real well. He enjoyed his cake and gifts. In the afternoon and into the evening I was able to get the new blog finished and updated and even planted a few rose bushes. It was a warm day, got up to about 85 outside and 80 inside. I will have to look into possibilites of getting an Air Conditioner for the house. In the summer we can usually keep it in the 80's just by venting at the proper times and closing the shutters. But Angie, being pregnant, was close to miserable at 80. It was a little cooler today (Sunday) because some rain moved in, and it is supposed to stay like this all week, so I will have a little time to research the A/C prices. Services went well at the chuch in Carcassonne. They were having Anniversary services, celebrating 13 years. They had a guest speaker and a meal in between the services. I enjoyed getting to hear
the sermons and getting to know the guest speaker who we might have been related too, as he was Irish and his last name was "Clark". Angie taught Sunday School this morning as well. I took them home for lunch and Caleb and I returned for the afternoon service, Angie was a little tired and didn't feel like staying for the meal. I was suprised to see just now that the Euro has dropped to its lowest level since 2006. Hungary announced problems with debt and possible bankruptcy. It will be interesting to see how the world handles this global crisis. Will this end with a global currency? Will one individual step forward with a solution for all?

I need to work on visa paperwork and getting our car worked on this week. The pump for the windshield washer fluid has gone out, but it is still covered under warranty, I think. Attached are pictures of the Birthday party and Angie teaching Sunday-School. God bless, JASON

A single question.

Another good week, Monday morning was spent shopping. Tuesday and Wednesday, I worked on my lesson for the Bible Study thursday night. I think that I am getting a little faster. I decided to have a lesson on salvation. We looked at the three persons on the cross. Afterwards someone asked a single question and made a remark about something that she didn't know, but had learned. They thought that you didn't go to heaven when you died, only when Jesus returns. It was great to experience someone learning a truth of God's word. It sparked a good 20 minute discussion. One middle age man has attended seminary before and is a mature Christian. He has demonstrated a good amount of Bible knowledge and I know that he will play an important role in our ministry here. We enjoyed fellowship after the bible study as well, there were 4 present (not including my family). I plan on starting another blog for my French Bible studies lessons. I will post the link on the side if you are interested in reading them. Google translator might be able to help out.

Today we spent the morning shopping for Andrew's birthday presents, he will turn four tomorrow. We will have a small party for him tomorrow afternoon. We also picked up some roses to plant in the flower garden. We have seen some beautiful rose bushes here, with what seems like hundreds of blooms on them. Maybe we will have the same success. Traffic was bad in town this morning. Friday morning is the market, and all downtown there are booths set up selling all kinds of merchandise. That takes up the downtown parking. Also the high school parking lot is closed for repaving and there was some kind of sports event in town today. it took a while to find a parking spot for the kids. Tonight is family night and we bought a game called "Croque Carotte". It is a board game that Micah plays in his class and we are going to let him teach us how to play. It should be interesting, I know that he will enjoy it. Attached pictures are of a flock of sheep that blocked the road for a little Sunday afternoon and an Escargot on our back porch. Let me leave you with this little tidbit that had Angie and I laughing all day. A grenade thrown into a kitchen in France would result in Linoleum Blownapart. God bless, JASON

Before we knew it

The Neighborhood party went real well. There were only two families that came. Our neighbors, who also worked on the garage, and the family that comes to the bible study that we know well. It worked out perfectly because it was not up to us to keep the conversation going, we could just listen and add comments here and there. It was a lot less stressful that way. Before we knew it, it was 9 in the evening. Saturday we also decided that we would visit a church near Toulouse. Angie had mentioned to me that she wanted to find some english speaking kids for ours to play with occasionally. We contacted a pastor that we had connections throught the language school and visited in their services. We had a good time, we even met the man who started the church 32 years ago. After services we ate with the Pastor and his family, who are missionaries from America, invited us to their house for supper. We enjoyed the time getting to know them better. They have been in France for 11 years and had a lot of good advice concerning life in France from the American Missionaries perspective. We discussed a lot about ministry in France as well. Once again before we knew it, it was 5:00. We enjoyed the 2 hour drive home, nice scenery and the kids all took naps. Coquelicot. This is the name of a wildflower, called a poppy in English, that we have seen all over in France. We pulled over this morning and picked some for Lilia. She said their teacher told them to bring some to school. I am wondering what they need them for. As it is almost the first of the month, I will be getting our finances in order and working on our monthly report, which if you would like to receive just let me know. How about another Micah quote, I haven't posted one in a while, but he is still coming out with them. This morning he suddenly said, "Let's have a picnic by the lake, we can chase squirrels and run over dogs." God bless, JASON

Blooming

I ended up receiving a call from Cédric on Wednesday and we had our first language session. It was really good, we introduced ourselves. When he was sharing about himslef, he said, "My mother is Christian. Do you know what that means?" Wow. It ends up that his mother is active in the pentecostal church in town. It was great to find out. In fact Cédric mentioned that he wants to get back to attending church and was interested in coming to the bible study at our home. It was exciting and we had a really good talk. Thursday afternoon I went to print some pictures for Angie. She is going to have couple of months where she will want to stay off her feet some, so she wants to work on scrapbooks. I took my portable drive to the store to get some prints made of the pictures. I thought we had about 700 and they had a sale were you could print 100 for $12. I should have realized that I was in trouble when they took one hour to load onto the machine. There were over 5,000 pictures. Needless to say, I decided I needed to go through and prioritize clean and prioritize some. The Bible study was good. Three came and we learned about Faith. Today I am working on the Sunday School lessons for the youngers kids class. Today is a pretty day, it is supposed to get up to 75. The market in town was the busiest I had seen in a while. I will need to get the yard mowed tomorrow, it has been three weeks since the last mowing. Tonight we will have family night and we plan to make banana splits with the kids. So, probably a large part of Saturday morning will be cleaning up the resulting mess. The yard is blooming all over. There is, what I would call bramble, along our back fence that has three different flowering plants mixed in. I have attached a picture, along with some Fennel (a common vegetable) that grows in our yard, and some flowers in the flower garden. Enjoy and God bless, JASON

Mother's Day 1

This is the first Mother's day of the year so far. Mother's Day in France is in June. Angie will be treated twice, which she deserves. The Bible study went well Thursday night. There were two who came, and we had a good study and fellowship. Friday, I spent getting paperwork done and doing some shopping. In the afternoon Angie, Andrew and I visited the jardin aux plantes, a plant garden here in Limoux. It was like a zoo for plants, with labels and information on all kinds of plants. There were two acres and we could have stayed all afternoon, but Andrew was not as interested as Angie and I. They had plants from all over, I think there were at least 10 different types of Roses alone. Saturday, I took the kids for a hike in the hills behind our house. They all really enjoy walking around and exploring. Lilia was facinated by the streams that had formed in all the crevices in the hills. They had formed from the three days of rain that we received. Services went well today. Had a nice restful afternoon, got some reading done, listened to the services at our sending church. Angie is preparing a lesson for the kids at this moment and then it is off to bed. I have attached pictures of us planting our strawberries and tomato plants. They look like they will survive the cold weather and snow. God bless, JASON

Catch-up

The first part of this week has been spent catching up. We have tried getting our sleep pattern right. Monday night was wierd. Lilia and Caleb couldn't go to sleep until about 1 am. Andrew and Micah woke up at about 1 am and could not go back to sleep until 4 am. Monday morning, after dropping the kids off at school, we went grocery shopping. Then we returned home and did some more unpacking. We picked the kids up for lunch and enjoyed the meal with them. They seem to have all enjoyed being back in school and seeing their friends. Monday afternoon, I went and bought a lawmower. Apparently there has been a lot of rain, because our grass was high enough to make hay. I shopped around a little, alternated between electric and gas, and finally settled on a model. I decided gas, because I would need the extra horse-power. I purchased the lawnmower (pictured), returned home, assembled, dis-assembled, re-assembled, and started mowing. It was a slow going process that ended up keeping me busy until supper. The yard does look a lot better. Tuesday, the kids took some Double Bubble to the kids in their class as a gift from America. It seemed to have gone over well. Lilia said she had to teach them how to blow a bubble. We stopped by and spoke with one of our friends who was checking the mail for us while we were gone. We had a good visit. I weeded the flower garden. We had some pretty flowers that I had planted as bulbs that were now blooming (pictured). I also cleared my email inbox most of the way. Drving back into town to get the kids, I picked up a hitchhiker, Sedric, (I'm not sure how to spell it), lives in Magrie, and I give him a ride at least once a week. I mentioned before we left that we would like to have him over to eat somtime and he seemed surprised. I was glad to see him again. He is probably in his early 20's. I hope that we can build a relationship with him, and share with him about Jesus. After supper, I was prepared to got to the Bible Study in Carcassonne, but found Angie asleep in her chair. She was in a deep sleep, so I stayed. She had a good nap, but ended up staying up late as a result. She is gone right now taking Caleb and Lilia to their swimming class. So I'd better check and see what Andrew and Micah are so quiet about. God bless, JASON

The Green

Friday I enjoyed playing a round of golf with my father. It has been several years since I had played last. It went well. I ended up just a couple of strokes behind my dad. We helped m parents clean up around the house and worked on the flower gardens as well. I have seen quite a bit in the news recently about the volcanic ash coming from an Iceland volcano causing delays in travel in Europe. As far as a I can tell the problems are staying more north of where we are. We will be flying in to Spain, so I don't think that there will be delay. We will be keeping an eye on it as the day approaches. We enjoyed spending the day at my grandparents visiting with my older sister and her family. We got a great picture of her new born smiling. The kids just said their tearful goodbyes to their cousins. I imagine that we will have more of those to come. I am looking forward to services tomorrow. We will be visitinn with a church Sunday morning that has supported us for a while, and Sunday evening we will be visiting a church that we were members of soon after we were married. The beginning of next week will be mainly spent saying final goodbyes to family in Henderson. We will then return to Hillsboro and finish getting packed. We came with only four bags and I think that we could have up to 8 for the return trip. My goal will be 7, but we will see how it goes. We will leave for the airport Friday morning to begin the return to France. God bless, JASON

A taste of Texas.

We have had another wonderful week. We have experienced some great experiences this past week. Last week, we went for a walk and I took our kids through a cow pasture. The got a taste of Texas as I showed them how to cross a barb wire fence (pictured) (really important, need-to-know information for young boys in Texas), how to recognize and avoid the thistle and bull nettle(pictured), and what those dark spots are and how to avoid them (pictured). The weekend passed well. Friday we celebrated my grand-fathers 86th birthday. We enjoyed seeing some family at the party. I have a lot of admiration for my grand-father, Jim Taylor. He pastored for more than fifty years. Saturday my father and I helped repair a leaking water pipe in my sisters house, and also ran a new electrical wire for her stove. They have a really nice yard and the her flowers were very pretty, in particual the Azaleas (pictured). Sunday, we visited in two churches and had a wonderful time sharing about our progress and work in France. At one of the churches I met a former professional rugby player. What are the odds? Rare in Texas. Andrew was stung by fire ants (pictured)this past week as well, that is a painful taste of Texas. Yesterday we visited with a Ladies group and shared with them about our work, and afterwards we had a wonderful taste of Texas foods as we enjoyed lunch together. The meeting was held at the church that I grew up attending, so we saw many friends and people I would consider family. We found out that there was going to be a funeral that afternoon for a lady that we knew and so we attended and was able to visit with some good friends of ours, some of which we had not see in 15 years. We ended the day visiting with Angie's younger brother and have now returned to my parents. We are now starting to make some preparations for heading back to France. We need to see how much luggage we are going to need. Enjoy the pictures and God bless, JASON

Blooming

The Easter weekend went really well. I participated in the Easter cantada Sunday Morning and my Father preached a wonderful message from Hosea 13:14. Sunday evening I was able to preach a message about the disciples on the way to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-35). Monday was spent mainly on paperwork. Tuesday we visited with our missions treasurer and helped him and his mother with getting our reports ready to be mailed out. We enjoyed the visit. I greatly appreciate our missions treasuer. He is such a great help to us. Tuesday night, Angie and I went for an overnight shopping trip to Waco. We have a mental list of items that we need to pick up while we are here that are cheaper than in France. The wildflowers are blooming in central Texas. There are fields of blues and reds and yellows. The State flowers are the bluebonnets shown pictured, here in central Texas there are fields full of them. If I have an opportunity I would like to get a picture of the kids in a field of bluebonnets. God bless, JASON

The clown and the magician.

The Bible study went well Thursday night. We had four people visiting. We had a lesson over the cleansing of the leper (Leviticus 14). Friday we got our tickets purchased for the states. Friday night we enjoyed having some friends from Carcassonne over for supper. We enjoyed the evening. Lilia talked almost non-stop the entire evening. Saturday I got some flowers planted and got my kids Sunday school lesson ready for Sunday. Services went good in Carcassonne today. Afterwards we went to a event in our town that was a mix between an end of year party and a city coucil meeting. There was a clown and a magician that the kids really enjoyed, and they had snacks and presents for all the kids. It was enjoyable and we really liked being able to get out into the community. It lasted almost to seven o'clock, so we rushed home and grabed some sandwiches, bathed the kids, and got their homework all checked over. I missed hearing our services from our church in Hillsboro, but I am glad for the opportunity to make new contacts. This next week will be busy with Doctor appointments and studying. Attached pictures are from this afternoon. God bless, JASON

From flowers to hair.

The weekend went well. Friday morning at the large market in Limoux, I picked up Angie some flowers (pictured) to go in a new vase that she had bought. The market in Limoux is very well attended and there are at least a hundred venders selling all kinds of things from food to clothes. Friday night family night went good, attached is a picture of the kids settling in for a movie. Saturday Andrew did not have any fever. It is nice to have him somewhat back to normal. Sunday services went good at Carcassonne, they were some visitors. Sunday afternoon, Angie planned on cutting the boys hair. After Andrew she proclaimed that she would not be cutting the boys hair anymore and that we would take them to a professional. Son Andrew ended up being the only one getting his cut (pictured) We have been having wonderful weather this weekend and today. We had planned to have visitors over tomorrow. A couple that we met when we first came to Limoux we invited over but they had to cancel because a family member of theirs is gravely ill and they are staying home awaiting a phone call. This morning besides doing a little grocery shopping, mailing, finances. e-mails and the such, we stopped by a place to get a quote for the price of installing cabinets in our home. The owner of the home said that they would reimburse us half the cost if we decided to have permanent cabinets installed. As of right now we are using several cardboard boxesm and though they work well, they are not very economic or long-lasting. This week I will need to get our invitations to our Thanksgiving meal prepared and do some research on getting a web site set up here in France. I have been picking up a lot of vocabulary recently. A couple of times I have seen new words that I thought were just mispellings. For example I saw "las" in the hymn book at church which I thought was a mispelling of "là", an adverb meaning "here" or "there", but it actually is a word meaning "weary". Also I found saw "çà" which I thought was a mispelling of "ça" which means "this" or "that", but it is actually another word meaning "hither". Ahh, the joys of language learning. God bless, JASON

Fall

The weekend has gone well. We are enjoying the fall weather, cool at night pretty during the day. Most of the early part of this week was getting the internet completed and getting caught up on emails. Saturday, I planted some flower bulbs in the garden. I finished reading two books this week as well. One dealing with answers for Muslims, the other was dealing with atheism. They were both in English, which is how I got them read so fast. I forgot to mention that we took Lilia and Caleb to the doctor last week for a check-up that they had to have for the swimming program. We found out that one of Caleb's legs is longer than the other and that Lilia could have scoliosis, abnormal curvature of the spine. Nothing serious, but we will probably take Lilia for x-rays just to make sure. Tomorrow I am leading the prayer meeting again and am looking forward to it. The kids have been cute and funny the last few meals. The stories are too long to include and without context it wouldn't be the same. So, just trust me, they are funny. God bless, Jason

Today is Monday.

"Today is Monday". That was the phrase that Caleb got to teach his class in English this morning. His teacher has been helping him teach the English classes a little. He seems to really enjoy it. I asked him if he knew all the days of the week in English and he did not, neither did Micah, so we will spend the next few car rides practicing the days of the week in English. We had a good weekend. Saturday, Angie and I worked on the yard all day. We transfered some cactus (aloe vera) and cleaned out the flower bed to get ready for some flowers. The new cactus garden looks really nice. I will try and get a picture of it posted next time. Sunday services went well. Being the first of the month we treated ourselves to Dominos Pizza. We saw it a few weeks back and it was great to get to enjoy some finally. Sunday afternoon I got some good studying done, spent almost and hour looking into one Hebrew word. Afterwards I was even able to get a small nap with Andrew. Hopefully this is the week that our internet will arrive. God bless, JASON

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