Two States, same day

Things have continued to go well. My sister's new baby, Elijah, was born Friday, finally. He was a week late. We have been trying to keep the kids caught up on their homework. We had been waiting for an email from Caleb's teacher giving his assignments. We got the email a couple of weeks ago, but it just had a few assignements. We printed them and had him work on a few. Then a few days ago we told him to get his homework out, and he brought us a big stack of papers out of his backpack that the teacher had made copies of. Evidently he "forgot" about all of those. We enjoyed the weekend. Sunday we shared with two churches in Palestine and one church in Virginia. That was made possible by phone. The pastor in Virginia had me call during the morning announcements at his church as a "surprise". As a first for me, I shared in four services, in two different states in one day. Attached picture is our kids with their cousins (before the new addition came). They had a wonderful time spending all last week together. God bless, JASON

And we're off.

Andrew's birthday party went real well. We had to change plans because it was raining so we had it at the house instead. It went really well and was well attended. Services went well this morning. I enjoy going to church. I have often heard people say that they can worship just as well at home, so why go to church. My first question to them is "Well do you? (have services at home)" Most of the time they do not. God however, commands and demonstrated by example that we need to go to church. Going to a place with other Christians to serve, worship, and learn. I heard once of a man who stopped going to church, whatever the reason. The pastor when to visit him one cold morning. The man let him in and without a word they sat down in the living room in front of the fire. The was an uncomfortable silence as either did not know what to say. Suddenly the pastor had an idea. He went to the fire place and racked one of the red glowing coals out of the fire and then sat back down. The coal faded to black in a matter of minutes. Then the pastor went back and put the coal back in with the others, it was just a matter of seconds before it was glowing red again. The pastor then got his coat to leave and as he walked out the man said, "Thanks for the sermon pastor, I will be back next Sunday." I enjoyed sitting in the French services this morning, I worshiped God, I learned more about him, and I served. I also enjoyed being in our home church's services through Skype.

Now that the kids are tucked in, we're off to the homework. Part of the homework that I will looking forward to is preparing some bible lessons in French. Enjoy the pictures from Andrew's birthday party and God bless, JASON

Friday again.

We have had a busy but productive Friday. Today is Andrew's birthday. He is now three years old. We will have a party with his friends at the language school garden tomorrow. He is pictured above playing soccer, he has a good level of skill already. He has already got it down to say three and hold up the three fingers when someone asks how old he is.

Last week we sent our papers by email to the real estate agent in Limoux. We never heard anything from him. We called earlier in the week and left messages but received no call back. Angie called and got a hold of the secretary today. She said that the could not open the PDF files. Okay. Angie asked why they didn't but the lady had no answer. So we got them faxed this evening.

In slightly less amazing news, Barak Obama arrived at Orly Airport today, just about 2 miles from where we live. He plans to be here for the D-day festivities in the North. I do not think that he plans on coming to the birthday party.

This weekend I have a lot of school work to do. We have a test Monday and Tuesday. The big language test on Wednesday. I have a short lesson to bring Monday and the chapel service to do Friday. And on top of that our usual homework. But right now it is time to enjoy a movie with the birthday boy. God bless, JASON

Two Fridays a week.

Wednesday has arrived, which means no school and a chance to catch up on all other things. We were talking with other students after school finished Tuesday about how it feels like we have two Fridays a week. Lilia is doing fine. She showed no more symptoms or signs of having any troubles. Last night we had a babysitter and Angie and I went to Paris. We planned on visiting the Bible book store, but found out it was closed when we got there. We did some window shopping which was fun. We ate at McDonalds (which was great!) and did a little shopping at Cora. Today we get homework finished up for us and the kids and housework. I would like to get a summary done of a study of Job I did recently. I will include below a poem that we were assigned to write in class on the subject of "Le Chant des Villes". I thought of our small town of Henderson and Limoux as I was writing it. God bless, JASON

Comment ça va, le chant des villes?
Est-ce que c'est doux comme la musique classique?
Ou plus chaotique que la musique électronique?
Chaque ville a-t-elle une unique pièce musicale?
Comment on trouve la partition locale?
Est-ce qu'on demande aux habitants?
Ou est-ce qu'il faut qu'on y vive depuis longtemps?
C'est le lieu qui est le concertiste?
Ou plutôt les gens qui jouent le rôle-titre?
Qui choisit les instruments?
Qui fournit cette ambiance?
Pourrait-elle être changée?
Dès-que les notes ont été créées?

Bienvenue!

We had a good day today. We straightened things us this morning. We had guests come over this afternoon. A pastor in Paris and his wife visited with us for a couple of hours. We had a really good conversation with them. He had a lot of good advice, answered a lot of our questions, and confirmed a lot that we thought to be true. We plan to visit in their services in a couple of weeks. We have a large project to do in school tomorrow. We have to do a mock job interview for 15 minutes.

Micah evidently is a little slow to catch on to some things. A couple of days ago he said to me, "Do you know Shane is in a different class." This having been the case for six weeks. After we were closer to school and he saw the people waiting to get in, he said, "Everyone is speaking a different language." Yep. I guess that is a very important step to learning French is realising that there are people around you speaking it. Attached picture is Micah enjoying an Ice cream cone in Paris. God bless, JASON

Une petite pause

I'm taking a little break from homework at this moment. I do not know for sure how much homework I have been working on but it has been a lot. I had to write my tèmoignage (testimony) for school tomorrow on top of my usual homework. We had bible study at the house this morning, the family was not all recovered yet. My kids have been doing a lot of interesting things, they are starting to resemble missionary kids more and more.

I was walking home from school with Caleb and he was showing me another kid in his french language class (CLIN). I asked if he spoke English. Caleb says, "No, he speaks British".

Yesterday, Lilia told Andrew that he was twenty-one (a number on his baseball shirt). He replies, "No way." While we are all laughing, she tells him that she is talking about his baseball shirt. He points at the ball on his shirt and says, "handball".

Lilia was also talking this week at lunch one day about two boys that were wrestling. Caleb asked if he had a red shirt on. Lilia said yes. Caleb then says, "Well, I suggest he is in my class."

Last Sunday, Lilia fussed about going to church. Afterwards she told me that in Sunday School the teacher had mentioned that fussing about church was a sin. She said she started asking God forgiveness right then.

Micah, who is our perfectionist and always has to have everything in its place, got out of the shower and somehow I forgot to comb his hair. It was sticking up bad after he had got his "gown" (pajamas) on and so Angie took him to the mirror to show him why we where laughing. As soon as he saw himself he said, "Whoa, give me a comb!"

Attached is a picture of (left to right) Micah, Andrew, Caleb and Lilia. God bless, JASON

Back to School

School has started up again. We have quite a bit of homework to catch up on. The kids did not seem to miss much. The lessons are going well again. There are a lot of new students that we want to get to know more and we have plenty of time. This week Angie is responsible for setting up and cleaning up the coffee break. Next week it will be my turn. I brought the music for the service this afternoon. It is nice to get back into a routine, as long as that routine brings honor and glory to God. The exchange rate has been real good, considering the last few months. I hope that the current financial woes of the stock market don't affect it much. I paid some of our language school tuition. I have also started researching prices and types of cars. The is a Pontiac Minivan at our language school that the secretary is willing to sell for 4,000 euros. It is ten years old and has 230,000 km. It has been sitting for several years and I'm not sure that that price would be worth what we could get out of it. Well supper is ready, so I'm going to eat, a popular french pastime. God bless, JASON

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

Homework, Dallas, and Dumplings

By ANGIE

Today we had Jen and Davis, Tova and Elami over. We were going to work on our homework together. At the end Davis said, "Well we got done in 2 hours together what we could have gotten done in 30 minutes alone." You know because of the kids and all. It was funny. But Jen said at least we got to hear it out loud some that's always good. She was a little sad to leave so soon but Davis was ready to get home and lay Elami down, she was ready for a nap. Jen also needed to get to the store today. She and I discussed maybe walking or jogging together. She already jogs after schools for 20-30 minutes. Maybe I could tag along.

So last night at Cora, the grocery store- I went to the guy cashier because he is kind and he smiles and not many of the women I've been to do. He laughed when i answered that i was from Texas. Everyone here has the view of texas they got from watching JR Ewing ? on Dallas. you know big cowboy hat and all.

Today I may try and make brownies. I attempted chicken and dumplings the other day and they turned out good- I didn't think they would be halfway through, but Jason thought they were the best I ever made. I said, "Well the food is supposed to be better in France." (or at least some think so) I wasn't sure it would work because the shortening that I used I bought by accident. Until I bought it I didn't think they had it here. It was in a rectangle package refrigerated and said "Fries" on it with a picture. It also said 100% vegetable but I guess fries are 100% vegetable too. Any way I'm glad I found it so I could make dumplings.