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

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