Holiday Weekend

I keep thinking to myself that I had just updated the blog, but now I realize it has been several days. We enjoyed the long weekend. Monday was a holiday, Pentecost, and the kids had no school. We spent a lot of the time enjoying the outdoors, the temperature was perfect this past weekend. Services went well Sunday. I taught the class for our boys and I think it went well. At the end I asked if Caleb understood me and he said he did. Tuesday we sent the papers off to begin the process for our visa (carte de sejour). I am hoping that it will go quickly and smoothly. After we receive our carte de sejour, then we can get our French Drivers license and Angie can get a carte vital, which reimburses medical expenses. This evening I will have my language session with Cédric. I have many questions for him, from the meaning of a song to phrases in my bible study lesson. Tomorrow Caleb has no school because his teachers are on strike. They are going to close his building and combine their classes with Lilia's building. Parents and teachers are worried that it will be too crowded so they are demonstrating against it. We were able this week to meet our next door neighbors officially. They are a young couple from Spain. They often have family and friends stay with them. They speak French, Spanish, Italian, and some English. I hope that we have the opportunity to have them over. Attached pictures are of the kids enjoying this past weekend. Playing a game on family night, enjoying their first banana split, and playing in the sprinkler. God bless, JASON

Break time.

The past few days have been a little different. Last week we had trouble with the electricity, now we have been having plumbing problems. It has been draining slower and slower, but Tuesday it stopped draining completely. I bought a snake and crawled under the house and did what I was supposed to (I will not go into a large amount of detail for those with weak stomachs). It has gone back to working slowly now. The only problem is that our washing machine has to be drained into a bucket, because the drain can't keep up. I just have to keep an eye on the bucket and empty it halfway through. If our snake had been longer it might have solved the whole problem, but I bought the longest one available. We called a plumber but have not heard back from him. Since it's a holiday today I think that everyone is taking a break. While I was at the store I was able to help a man from England who didn't speak French solve some issues with his bank card. It reminded me of those early months in France, when we had no clue what anyone was saying. The weather has gotten cooler again, it is supposed to get down to 40 degrees tonight. I am ready for the Bible Study tonight. I think we should have our normal crowd. I am excited about the future of the work in France. My parents have purchased their tickets and plan to be here the first two weeks in September. I am already looking forward to seeing them, showing them around the area, and introducing them to our friends we have been able to minister and fellowship with these past nine months. Tomorrow I think that we will take the kids to see a movie and Lilia is supposed to have two friends come over to spend the night tomorrow. It was supposed to have been for this evening but the older sister was gettting over a slight sickness. Attached picture is of the kids playing Ouistiti at our friend's house last Saturday. Enjoy your day. God bless, JASON

Labor Day

I found out watching the news that Labor day was started around 1887 in the US. There was a three day labor strike that Day. The next year the day was passed to France where there was a big strike on that same day. However in the US it had changed to September when there was an end to a strike that had lasted all summer. All that to say Labor Day in France is May 1st. Which means we had the day off. We had a good time and I was able to get a lot of other "labor" done. I finished my monthly report and got it sent out. I also prepared some more prayer cards for printing. I had received a couple of promotional emails from the company I use for printing (4over4.com). I really needed some updated prayer cards, the others were over 2 years old and outdated. I was able to get an order of 5,000 for under $200 including shipping. I was also able to take the kids to the language school to play for a little bit. The weather has finally warmed up to spring again. Micah gave me a good little saying the other day. I am going to have to start putting all of his sayings in a book. He said, "Daddy, you know if you are not racing against someone, you are racing against yourself." I thought that was very philosophical. Then at the language school he was wanting a toy that Andrew had. Just to see what his response would be I asked, "What if you just got and hit him and take it away?" To which he replied, "No, then he won't want it". ??? Interesting. I was also able to help someone through my youtube account. A man found my French praise songs and wrote me for the lyrics. A friend of his from Haiti had passed away and this man was going to do the funeral, he also asked me for the version of It is Well in French. I sent him the lyrics for that as well. He thanked me for being able to minister to others, some who are unsaved. I was glad to be able to minister in this way. Also Angie is feeling better, not yet 100% but close. 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

Another vacation.

The weather has been wonderful around here. The past few days have been great. It was slightly hot inside at times but real nice outside. On our day off yesterday we went to a couple of parks and let the kids play. Going to parks is also a great visitation as well. Last Sunday afternoon we went to a park and spoke with a young couple as our kids played. We hope that we can see them next sunday as well. The holiday yesterday went good. There were a lot of flags up and a small parade passed through town. The holiday was for celebrating the end of World War II (May 8, 1945). We have another holiday on Monday. We have enough homework to make up for it though. We planned on eating chicken and dumplings tonight but our chicken went bad when our electricity was out, so instead we made our second trip out to eat in 5 months. We went the the sandwich shop next door to us. The food was good and inexpensive and it was real great getting to know our neighbors. They were real nice and sociable, then even gave the kids suckers afterwards. Hopefully we can stop in and talk more often. The owner is a muslim and needs to hear about Jesus. God bless, JASON

Iced Tea

Yesterday was labor day here. Almost everything was closed and there were vendors in the street selling flowers. I don't know why you would want flowers on Labor Day. Yvain explained that this is called bridge month. Everyweek there is a holiday and if fro instance the holiday is on thursday then workers can take off on Friday. If the holiday is monday then workers can take off on tuesday as well. It leaves only a three day work week for almost the whole month. I found a grocery store open yesterday and while shopping I noticed they had lipton iced tea for sale in a bottle. Angie and I had found Lipton Iced tea in other places but it was always peach flavored. I decided to go ahead and pick this one up. After we tried it we read the ingredients (it is better to wait til after), It was carbonated and had lime flavor. It didn't taste bad though, just different. We have found that to be the case with a lot of things here. They are not bad, just different. Pictured is Gary and Judy Orr. JASON