Castle on a hill

Looking at Queribus

Panoramic view from the top.

Lilia presents Queribus from the parking lot.

Looking into the gorge.

Hail!

Easter egg hunt.

Time has gotten away from me again.  Last week passed well.  I do not remeber much now of what happened.  Arianna has been really cute.  Angie felt a little under the weather at times.  Most people here blame that on the change in temperatures on almost a daily basis, and sometime it even changes during the day.  One day this week it started out cold and rainy, then changed to sunny and warm and before long, it was cold and rainy again.  Bible Study and the market on Friday went well. Our Easter weekend went good as well.  Saturday, the girls went to do some shopping and so I took the boys on a bike ride.  It went well, they all learned a little.  Caleb learned not to wander in front of others.  Andrew (who was acutally on his scooter) learned not to go too fast, and Micah learned that it is not a good idea to look down to watch how your bike works while you are actually riding it.  Services went well Sunday, we did get to visit with several visitors at the church in Carcassonne.  We missed hearing most of the services with our sending church because the internet connection was poor.  We did take time for a brief easter egg hunt and had good discussions all day long about the meaning of Eastser.  Monday and Tuesday I helped a friend work on his ranch.  I am planning to help him get a internet site up and running.  This will be practice as well for when I get my own site up soon.  While I was helping, Lilia was riding horses, which she was happy with as well.  Caleb has school in the mornings this week, even thought they are on their two weeks spring break.  He is getting a little extra help in French.  We are enjoying all the Spring flowers around.  We almost lost them all a couple of days ago, and storm rolled through and we had a downpour of pea sized hail.  The boys were impressed.  Angie had gone to pick up Lilia from a friends house and missed the majority of the storm.  Yesterday I took our oldest four, and one of their friends to see Queribus, a castle high on a hill (click it if you want to know more).  On the way we stopped and looked at a gorge that was beautiful as well.  Today I finished up the Bible study and had a quick session with my language helper and am getting ready for the Bible Study this evening.  Enjoy the pics, God bless, JASON

Grab a quick family pick.

Rain has come and gone.

The big news Sunday and Monday was the rain. We got about 6 inches in two days. This may not sound like much compared to some other countries, but that is the equivalent to 4 months worth here. Our driveway started washing away, but thankfully there was enough to still drive by. Monday was shopping day and paperwork. Tuesday was getting my lesson ready. Tuesday night Basketball practice went well. I acutally had a couple of mini-conversations with some of the guys. Wednesday, I took the kids to their swimming class, and finished working on my sermon. Thursday, I took our car to the dealership for its 40,000 km check-up. It had a few filters replaced and the oil changed. I left directly from there to go to Montpellier for my appointment with the French Office of Imigration and Integration (OFII). It took about 2 hours to get their and then 45 minutes to find the place. The streets were horrible. There was construction going on as they are expanding the Tram. Some streets were closed and some streets that were once one direction, were now the other direction. My GPS actually started to yell at one point. I finally parked and took off walking. It still was a 45 mintue walk. After asking 4 people for directions it ended up being right across from the train station. The appointment went well, I had x-rays taken, met with the doctor and then with the "Visa lady". I also found out about Angie's visa. Normally they schedule husband and wife together so I was thinking there was a problem. You cannot get in touch with them by phone or email so I had to wait til my appointment. Come to find out that Angie's paper was stuck to the back of mine and they did not notice it. Wow. They said they would hurry and try to get her an appointment in a couple of weeks. I met a couple of people there, an american couple with a young baby, and a newly married couple from Chili. I actually gave the Chiliean couple a ride home because they missed their train because of the strike. That is another subjet all together. President Sarkozy is trying to raise the retirement age from 60 to 62. This has made many people upset. College and high school kids are striking because there will be less jobs if people work two extra years. Others are striking because their work conditions are hard and they don't want to endure it for two more years. Transportation has been slow as there are a lot less trains running. All but one Total refinery has been closed (hoping that there are not any gas shortages). Anyways it is nice to have the visa paperwork done (at least for me). I made it back home 30 minutes before the Bible study. We took a break from the sermon on the mount to look at the healing of the man born blind. There were three present not including us. Today I need to get gas (done), look at a friends computer (done), work on getting a bill paid (done), blog (doing), make a trip to the dump, move some furniture, and not forget to get the kids. Basketball practice is tonight and tomorrow there is a conference at a church in Toulouse on Homiletics that I will be attending. Enjoy some rainy day pictures and God bless, JASON

 

One or two.

I have not been as sore after these last few basketball practices.  Unfortunately, most of the games are Sunday morning, so I will not be able to attend.  The practices have been g

Grape harvestor seen often this time of year.

ood.  I have learned probably half the player's names.  I have been waiting for it to rain for a few days now.  I moved a 1000 liter tank from our neighbors house to ours and have it hooked up to our gutter system so that it should catch the rain water.  This will give us water for the plants and other outside uses.  I am hoping that it will save on the water bill.  Thursday's Bible study went good. There were 5 who joined us.  We are continuing a series on the Sermon on the Mount.  Our market stand went good Friday morning.  Thankfully the weather was nice.  We had several good contacts.  I spoke with two older Frenchmen who said they already had a Bible.

The boys helping to set up our stand.

 I asked them if they read them and they said, "How can we read something that is American."  That confused me and I remarked that the Bibles were in French.  I asked Edouard afterward what they could have meant.  He thought it might be because they thought we were Jehovah Witnesses or that the printers of their Bible were American.  I think I will put a sign on our Stand stating who we are.  I am finishing up the Sunday School lesson now.  Arianna is sleeping some better, the last few nights she went to sleep at 1 or 2 in the morning instead of 3 or 4.  God bless, JASON  

The sick and the napkin.

Last week seemed to drag by. Angie was sick all last week. . . fever, achy, cough. We ended up cancelling the bible study that we had planned for Friday night. I know that it must be difficult for those single parents to raise children on their own. I have just been running all over the place. Thankfully, Angie has been there to point me in the right direction with phrases like, "Those clothes don't match", "It is time for ya'll to leave", "We need more groceries", "The kids need a bath" , "Don't forget . . .". She has been a lot of help even though she just kind of alternates between her bed and the couch.
It rained all day Friday, and Saturday I found out that quite a bit of the rain and entered into our garage where we store a lot of stuff in boxes. Needless to say, a lot of wet, it took a while to rearrange everything, but at least I know better where everything is at.
Sunday Caleb and I went to church. We had a meal afterwards consiting of soup, salad, quiche, new pototatoes, potato casserole, fruit, chicken, 3 cheeses, and 3 desserts. Good eating. Afterwards we attended the business meeting, which was my first business meeting to attend in France. I enjoyed it, there were a lot of good questions and the atmosphere was light and included plenty of laughter. We were made associated members of the church. The story behind that is we would like to participate in the teaching and preaching but there is a rule that only members can do those things. This rule was made because some people believe just by participating in the service and helping, they would merit a place in heaven. So for us and another couple who visit during the summer, we are already members of another church, so they made a special case for us, a kind of stamp of approval, so that we can aide in the ministry aspects of the church. We of course will not be allowed to vote during business meeting and such. If that has just confused you even more, then email me or make a comment and I will try to explain further. The church in Carcassonne has helped us already in many ways.
There are several things I need to get done this week. I need to get some things mailed. I need to get a letter written to our former internet service provider. They claimed to have not received the modem that we sent to them. After calling them, they instructed that we write a letter and fax it to them explaining the situation. Lord willing, we will have a Bible study this week. I am just about to go email someone to ask if they would be willing to be my conversation partner.
One thing that happened at the Thanksgiving meal that I forgot to mention. Micah, who can not stand to have a mess, had some food on his fingers and yelled out, "Napkin". Unfortunately napkin in French is a feminine hygiene product. I did not think about it until later. So since then we have worked on several other possible names to us in place of napkin. God bless, JASON

Back into the swing of things.

School has gotten started back up like there wasn't even a break. In fact, we have a test on Thursday.
Angie has been sick. She has a sore throat, achy joints, and a intermittent fever. She has missed school these last two days. Join me in praying for her quick recovery.
Spring seems to have left again. The high was only 58 today. It has been rainy, and there was even a little hail. The sunshine and spring weather are supposed to be back next week. I was walking the kids back to school after lunch today and it started sprinkling on us. Micah asked, "Is it raining?" I replied that is was. He then said, "It must be Monday." I don't know how he comes up with these things.
I am expecting a phone call tomorrow from a French Association that we might be looking to granting us the invitation to work here in France. I am looking forward to it but also am a little nervous because it is difficult to speak French on the phone, actually I think the harder part is to understand what the other person is saying more than speaking.
I have not mentioned in a while the young man, Clint, a member of our church who was severely burned (85%) recently, he is doing well, but still has a lot to face. If you would like to follow his progress more closely you can go to my Dad's blog, the link is to the right.
Andrew 's potty training is going real well. I am pleasantly surprised. What he really likes is the applause everyone gives him after a successful trip. Now he goes and tells everyone afterwards so that they will clap for him. God bless, JASON

Rain all day.

It has rained all day today. I don't mind the rain usually, but after walking four miles in it you do end up wet. The weekend was good. I traveled by bus and train and visited a church on the East side of Paris. Enjoyed a good sermon Sunday evening from our home Church. I don't think I have mentioned that our sending church's services are broadcast over the Internet through the local radio station you can go to this link http://www.khbrhillsboro.com/ and click "listen online" to enjoy the sermon and worship. It comes on 11 am central time which for those foreigners is 5pm - Greenwich time (GMT). School has started back up and going. We have a test tomorrow, but that means no homework tonight otherwise. Today we spent another hour (several over the past few weeks) distinguishing between two "u" sounds. It is difficult because one of the sounds doesn't exist in English. For those phonetically trained the two sounds are [y] (like if you were saying "stupid" - "steeeewpid") and [u] (all the other u sounds in English like "boo"). They are hard to say and to hear, and of course they can make a big difference in the meaning of a phrase. Tomorrow evening there is a "spectacle" at the language school, they will eat crepes and learn a dance from the northern "Breton" part of France. I graciously volunteered to stay home with the kids so Angie can go. I'm sure she will have a great time as I probably would have had a slightly lesser good time. Attached is a picture of me giving a sermon in French at the language school. God bless, JASON

Looking to the next puddle.

Hello again. Our weekend went well. It was nice to have health returned to the family. Angie and I enjoyed our date night Friday. We went out and eat and then went to talk to several friends at the language school for a couple of hours. Our thanks goes to Katie and Michael who watched the kids and even put them to bed. Saturday we planned on going to see the circus animals. Massy has a huge international circus and it was announced at the language school that we could take the kids to see the animals on Saturday or Sunday. We went to find out that the announcement was false, it was the following weekend. We let the kids play in the park and headed home and let them watch a movie. Saturday night Andrew had a fever. The night passed slowly with several interruptions. I took the three older kids to church Sunday. Andrew seemed to be doing okay by Sunday night. I was noticing something that caught my attention Saturday while I was walking home with Andrew. He loves to stomp in the puddles. He walks with one hand holding on to the stroller and he knows not to let go. So, as we walk I dodge the puddles as best I can so that they are out of his reach. He tries stretching for them, but usually he passes by without success. The first puddle he missed he looked back at it after we passed long enough that he missed another puddle, but every other one following that he missed stomping in he would just look on to the next puddle. That impressed me. Several times I get caught looking back at the puddles I have passed (opportunities missed). It is possible to miss more opportunities because you get caught looking at the puddles behind you. Our time would be better spent looking at the puddle we can see in front of us, not the ones behind and not the ones in front of us that we can't see yet. Why does he continue to try for those puddles, because he remembers those times he gets to land in one. I was wanting to include in that illustration something about how when he stomps in one I get splashed as well, but I think I would be dragging the puddle illustration out a little too much. I received word this past weekend that a pastor friend of ours is going to be laying over in Paris a couple of days on his way to visit his missionary in Kenya. We look forward to that puddle. Attached picture is of Andrew after desert one night, another puddle he enjoyed. God bless, JASON

Bring the rain.

It has been raining today. It started about 5:30 this morning with a lot of lightning and rain. I like the rain, the only negative is that the kids are stuck inside. To help them burn some energy I had them take all of their toys upstairs to their room one at a time. They enjoyed it and were breathing heavily by the time they had finished. I seemed to have worked. Lilia and Angie made lunch for us today. We had grilled french toast peanut butter and jelly. It was a peanut butter and jelly sandwich dipped in egg and grilled. It was real tasty, we dipped them in maple syrup. I think we may fire up the oven tonight since it is cooler and have pizza tonight. I think the Olympics start in a couple of days. I may actually be able to watch some this year, the last I remember watching much of them was in 1992 Barcelona (the Dream Team of course). Andrew has had fever for three days now. If he still has some tommorrow we will take him to the Doctor. He seems fine otherwise. He does not sleep well at night though. God bless, JASON

Rain, Snow, Sleet, Sunshine, Cold, Wind

The above title describes the weather today. I was told that this is how it is in March. It would rain for a little and while the sun was out. Then it would stop, then it rained and snowed a little. Then it stopped, then it sleeted some, then stopped. It does not get boring. Oddly enough I heard there was supposed to be snow in Texas today as well. It was very windy today as well. That's all for now, I'll try to add some more later tonight. God bless, JASON