Mixed Time

The past days have been well spent with a good mix between playing with the kids and preparing for the Bible Study.  With the kids we have played Badmitton, went on a hike, played ball, and several indoor games as well.  I got tickled at Andrew while we were hiking, he just loved running down the hill.  He would throw his arms out and run as fast as his little legs would carry him.  He was full of joy.  He had found a magazine on the side of the road and he carried it with him the entire time.  Caleb and Micah were content marking all the rocks with an arrow in case we got lost.  Yesterday I also got the yard mowed.  It looks a lot better now.  Angie took the kids to the park this morning while I had my language session with Eric.  We found out that I was mispronouncing words with "ui" like "cuisine".  I was pronouncing it more like "oui".  Slight difference, but noticeable.  I just got a call from the lady I met at the market last week, she is coming to the Bible study this evening.  We will be studying about Easter.  Enjoy some pictures that we took during the day yesterday. God bless, JASON

Long Walk

We have enjoyed another week here in the US. This week we came to visit Henderson, the city where Angie and I were raised and were I attended Seminary. We drove around the town for a little bit and it was amazing to see some of the changes that had taken place over the last two years. We stopped and chatted with friends and family as well. Thursday and Friday my Dad and I went for an overnight hike. I enjoyed it. We ended up walking about 10 miles over some rough terrain by the end of the trip. When we were kids we would travel to Tyler State Park for a few days every year as a family and camp out. I have many wonderful memories from there. It was great to be able to visit it again. I have attached a map with the trails that we walked on Thursday (red) and Friday (blue). Today we visited some more family. Sunday I will be visiting, preaching, and sharing in two churches. We have less than a month before our return to France. After trying to help Caleb with French homework, I feel like I will need a week or two once we get back to freshen up my French. We did watch Ice Age III this morning in French and that helped some. God bless, JASON

Father/Son hike II

Voici - the pcitures from our hike Saturday. It was cool seeing the fall colors coming through. Got some good pictures looking over Limoux on this hike as well..

Father Son hike Pictures (Randonnée)

Caleb and Micah and I went on a hike together last week. Here are some pictures. This one of the boys in a tree we found.

As you can see we found a really nice trail. We didn't know that it was there. But it was well marked and easy to walk. One day we will have to find the start of it.

There is a good picture of the town of Magrie. You can see the church in the center of town on the right side. Our house is just a little left of center, the third from the top.

Here are the boys who successfully hiked the mountain. We ended up being gone a lot longer than we planned because we found the trail. But the boys loved every minute.

Barcelona to Rome to Athens

The kids all had a great first day of school. All said that they made new friends and a couple of the kids could even remeber their name. We left right after they got out and drove to Barcelona. Stayed the night in a hotel and woke up at 3:30 to head to the airport. We flew to Rome them on to Greece. All the flights went well, flying still holds some awe for the kids. I would think that they would be getting used to it, but it was like it was their first time. We met our good friends the Taylors (missionaries in Kenya) at the airport and Athens, rode over to the hotel and went out for supper at McDonalds together and even let all the kids watch a movie together. Tomorrow we are going for a walking tour of Athens and then we will head to Aegina where the retreat will be held. We are all very excited about it.

Let me also mention how well we have enjoyed our car. It has been hauling a lot of furniture and people the last few days and has still averaged 45 mpg. Attached is a picture of me and Caleb when we took a hike together. God bless, JASON

Outreach, Shopping, Hiking, & the Accident

Thursday I went to help out the church in Carcassonne with outreach. They had a door to door outreach in the morning. We paired up and went into the North African section of town and visited several apartment buildings. Things went well, we used as an opener and Bible Exposition that is being held at the church in Carcassonne during the week. Many were not home, several were clearly not interested, some did not speak French, some took some tracts and literature, some seemed real interested. Thursday afternoon I worked on finances. Our church has decided to help pay off the rest of our language school expenses and so I was working on getting the money into the account. It ended up not working out. Thursday night I went back to Carcassonne to an open air preaching they were having at the entrance to the walled city, a very popular tourist attraction year around. It was neat to watch the reaction of everyone to the preaching and singing. Many whispers about us being a kind of sect, most ignored us, some looked for a little bit, a few paid attention and stayed, some even talked with us (some foreigners).
Friday, I took Caleb for a father/son hike. We had a great time, we hiked up to the top of the hill behind our house. It was a difficult course considering our house is at 800 ft and the hill tops out at 1300 ft but he had no problems. He really enjoyed spending the time with daddy. Near the top he asked the ultimate question. “Dad, what happens to me if you die up here?” Friday afternoon we went to IKEA and got a few more things for the house.
Saturday – I cleaned up a lot in the yard today. Angie went and got the kids some school clothes. The exciting even happened while we were preparing for supper. Lilia walked into the living room with her cup of water. Suddenly she walks back in the saddest crying voice says, “I'm so dead.” I walked around to see that she had spilled water onto my laptop. I got it dryed up as best as I could while Lilia went to her room crying. Angie said, “I'll get my hairdryer to dry it out.” I held the laptop while she ran the hair dryer. Suddenly I smelt something burning, sure enough she had melted a half dozen of the keys to the keyboard. Evidently I am typing this on the keyboard so everything worked okay. I trimmed the melted edges off the keys and everything seems to be running fine. Keyboard just looks a little different. I had to assure Lilia that everything was okay and I was not mad before she would finally calm down. I will probably order a new keyboard just to be safe because the “ctrl” key is getting stuck even though it is not being pushed.
Services went good on Sunday. We enjoyed a visiting speaker who had been a missionary in France for 50 years. In the afternoon he gave a conference on Jean (John) Calvin that was very informative. We met a couple at the Church in Carcassonne this morning who had just moved to Magrie, the same town that we live in. Amazing. God bless, JASON