Good times

All the kids at the dinosaur museum.

The group at church, Sunday.

We had a lot of good times with our friends.  The Manary family arrived Saturday afternoon and stayed with us until Wednesday.  On Saturday we went and saw the Dinosaur Museum and Hat Museum.  Saturday night Arianna, slept bad and had Angie and I up most of the night.  We all made it to church Sunday, but cancelled our plans to see the Walled City of Carcassonne afterwards.  We ate at KFC and returned home.  Monday afternoon we went to see the Walled city which everyone enjoyed.  Angie and I liked it as well, probably because the kids were in school and not begging us to buy souvenirs.  Tuesday we had a good restful day before they left Wednesday after lunch.  We were very grateful and encouraged by their visit and our kids just loved have new playmates for a few days.  What is really touching is that they were willing to drive here, which took three days.  Just had my language session with Eric.  It is going well, we are working on reading with the right rythym and intonation which is interesting.  French is actually boring rythmically.  Every syllable is pronounced the same and the voice does not change tones as often as it would in English.  It is a hard thing to get the brain to do, but it will come with time and practice.  Eric even had a question about the lesson.  Looking forward to the Bible study tonight and the market tommorrow, weather permitting. God bless, JASON

All French.

The Bible Study, Thursday evening, was well attended. There

was a first time visitor so I spent some of the time reviewing last weeks lesson.  Meaning I had to stray from my notes,  that is always more difficult.  Friday, my throat was still bothering me, so I didn't set up the stand at the market.  Angie and I spent most of the day working on finances and getting a financial plan for the coming months.  On Saturday, I noticed that it would be rainy for the next few days, so I herded the kids outside and played the game, "Tickle Monster".  It consits of me chasing the kids and tickling the one that I catch. They seem to really enjoy it and it gets them some good excercise, and me too.  Thankfully, I remembered to turn the clocks back before going to bed. Sunday, there was a conference at the church in Carcassonne in the afternoon, so after services, I took the Angie and the kids back home and returned for the conference.  It was very informative.  A former Catholic, who was even an instructor in a Catholic school, who had converted to Christianity, gave his testimony and spoke about the Bible and Catholicism.  Sunday evening, seeing as it was Halloween, I wanted to scare the kids with some scary stories.  Didn't happen. Even with just candle light, the kids could not be scared.  Especially Micah, who was analyzing the stories and predicting what would happen next.  Monday we ate lunch with our friends and had a really good visit.  Five hours of french really gets you messed up the rest of the day.  There was French words and phrases popping out the rest of the day.  That is good though and I would like that to happen more often.  Today we are preparing for Lilia's birthday party that will happen in a few hours.  Her birthday is tomorrow, but they start school tomorrow.  This will be the first birthday party, entrirely in French, that we have had.  Lilia will be 11 years old.  Wow.  Everyone told me that time would go by fast once I had children.  They were right.  Well, I am going to help make the final preparations for the party.  Enjoy the pictures showing what the kid have been up to the last few days, painting, playing Legos, and enjoying Arianna. 

 God bless, JASON   

 

Unexpected

Things do not always go the way you expect. Some tend to think that this is always bad. I am thankful for the encouragement in the scriptures that "all things work together for good, to those who love the Lord and who are the called, according to his service". I know that all things that happen will work together to be for my good. We had to cancel the Bible study last night, because I was sick. The morning started out with one of my eyes constantly watering. By late afternoon, I had slight fever and a headache in addition to my watering eyes. We cancelled the Bible study, I took some medicine and a nap. Angie took the kids to school this morning and picked up some more medicine for me. It didn't ask what it was when she gave it to me, but it must have been some good stuff because I slept until 11 and I feel almost normal now. I missed going to a French conversation class this morning. This is a group in Limoux, foreigners and a couple of French people who meet together and talk for an hour and a half in French. Might sound boring, but it is an excellent chance to meet people and to work on French at the same time. Today I need to work on the kids sunday school lesson. Tomorrow, I plan to work on the yard, the garden in particular. Here are some pictures of the boys after school one day. Lilia didn't get one taken, because she didn't think the outfit she was wearing was worthy of a photo. And to think we will soon have another girl. God bless, JASON

Liberation.

We were blessed with another goodweekend. Saturday there was a parade of antique military vehicles and come to find out it was the 60ish anniversary of the liberation of Massy. Someone remarked how that unlike Britian and the USA, France has not had a major conflict since WWII and so it is still fresh on their minds. Services went well Sunday. I had a good couple of calls with my parents this weekend which we enjoyed. I love modern technology that gives us the ability to freely call home and talk with our parents and see them at the same time. We visited the language school today and when we returned we had a letter from the prefecture (government office) that said we have an appointment to pick up our carte de sejour (visa) on wednesday. We will need to find someone to watch the kids for us. The rest of this week will be spent refreshing my mind on all things french. I did some work sheets today to get my mind back to thinking French. I am looking forward to the end of this school year when I will have it all behind me. We will also be preparing this week for Lynn and Brenda Raburn to come visit with us. They have been our missionary mentors and good friends since we first felt called here. I am looking forward to having some good conversations about . . . just plain stuff. Attached is a picture of Caleb and Micah with their skateboard and Andrew in the bath where he likes to make sounds with his ears under the water. God bless, JASON

How do you pronounce the "R"?

We had a great weekend, followed by a difficult day at school today. We spent 50 minutes trying to pronounce the french "R" sound. It was very difficult for us english speakers. The Germans did not have any problem at all. I still have trouble doing it, but I know now what it is supposed to sound like. It is hardest when the R is in the middle of the word like "Paris" or at the beginning like "rois". We went around the classroom with everyone trying to pronounce each word. If you don't believe me and want a challenge visit http://www.fluentfrench.com/nllandfrenchrtrick.html and try for yourself. Download the mp3 and pdf and give it a shot. Bonne chance. JASON

Another blessed service.

Services were blessed again today. We had Matt Critcher visiting with us from Arkansas. I was a joy to have him and he brought a great lesson. We had great fellowship for several hours afterwards. The weather has cooled off here. It is supposed to get down to 44 degrees tonight. I'm looking forward to school this week. Last week we had a large test, and speech to give, and I preached during assembly time Friday, so it was hectic. Adding to that was Angie getting a little under the weather and the boys having no school thursday because of the strike. There was a protest outside of our apartment today. I received a flyer and could make out that they were unhappy with Sarkozy and were forming a new political party. I though about going to their meeting just for the socialization and French language acquisition. I killed a mouse in the garage yesterday. We are having some visitors possibly stopping by from Mississippi at the end of the month. We are looking forward to seeing them. Matt was graciously delivered my musical saw and several other items that we missed from the states. Pictured is Matt and the strikers outside. God bless, JASON

Return to school, then another vacation.

We returned to school monday. It was an interesting day. The electricity went off at 3 in the morning and didn't come back on until 3:30 in the afternoon. The entire street for one block was out of power. It didn't have a great effect, the worst part was we had very little hot water. We are off thursday this week, like the french 4th of July. We picked right back up learning in school and have leaned future simple tense. We also learned the difference between "savoir" (to know) and "connaitre" (to know), confusing. The weather really has been pretty the last week. It was interesting, for weeks it was chilly with 50% chance of rain everyday. Then one day it was clear and warm and has been for about a week now. Attached is the kids wearing the sunglasses that Angie bought for them. JASON

Kids Recital

We have had a good week. It seemed to have passed real fast. I was thinking one day I'll have this blog available in French as well. This week the kids did not have school and we did, so the school put together a daycare for them. It was real nice, they were able to play with other missionary kids and they learned songs and memorized verses in French. It was real cute. So far I have found that writing in French takes more space that english. I was talking with a German student at school and German is a lot longer. He wrote a letter, one page from and back, and then translated it into English and it took only one side of one page. It gets interesting in class when you are trying to get the teacher to explain what a certain word is in French, while trying to use what little French you know. This week marked the point of no more English, or German, or any other language while at School. This has made the conversations a little simpler. It helps us speak with the German students, because French has become our common language. I am really looking forward to having it learned. JASON

Okay - That's wierd.

One of our classmates shared about his experience at the public restroom outside of Notre Dame. The public restrooms are always a good topic. First, there are very few restrooms available, even inside stores. Second, unless you have to pay (like the one pictures), they are usually in bad shape. When we went to Notre Dame the restrooms were locked and we had to change Andrew's diaper in the hallway. After hearing what another student went through we are grateful. There was a long line to even get in. And while he was using the restroom, a woman was standing there repeating, "These restrooms are free, but I clean them and you can pay me if you want!" While in close proximity to the patrons of the restroom. The restrooms were very small as well.

Another thing, these two statements are pronounced exactly the same.

C'est un inconnu.

C'est un nain connu.

So one could only tell by the context what you mean. The first statement means, "That's a stranger". The second means, "That's a famous midget." Could be either one. JASON