God will know his own.

I had a good language session with Cédric this morning. I asked him about his trip to Israel in 2007. It sounded like a lot of fun. We laughed quite a bit when he mentioned bringing a sword home for a sovenir for a friend. He brought it in his carry-on. For supper Thursday I had the desire to make some Gumbo (pictured). For those who might not know, gumbo is a Cajun dish, essentially all the leftover meats and vegetables thrown in with some rice. It turned out good. We had 6 join us for the bible study which was great. Vacation season seems to be winding down. Thursday Caleb and I went to rinse off the car and then to pick up an armoire from our friends house here in Magrie. It would not fit in the car so it went on the luggage rack. Some rope and a waterhose later, we brought it home. Soon after getting that unloaded here at the house we headed off for the town of Béziers (Bay zee ay). We met a lady there who had sold us the outfits. It was a good deal and we enjoyed the hour and a half drive in the car to get there. It was warmer yesterday and so the drive in the a/c was nice. Béziers was a pretty town. Many years ago the Catholics laid seige to the town because of the Cathars that were living there. It is from here that a famous saying was made by an Catholic Abbott when asked how to tell the Catholics in the town from the Cathars. He said, "Kill them all, God will know his own". An estimated 20,000 were killed, several thousand inside a church that was burned. (Pictured is the renovated and repaired church). I will be working at the Bible Exposition this evening. Church in Carcassonne tomorrow. Tuesday a group called "Mission Vacances" will be arriving to do some evangelisation in the area working mainly with the church in Carcassonne, they will be coming to Limoux for a day to do outreach as well. I am looking forward to working with them as time permits. I enjoyed the time last year as well. I will also be making final preparations for my parents and for our new addition to arrive. The final picture is a waterway crossing in Béziers, near where the Canal du Midi crosses the Orb River. God bless, JASON

Bi-lingual kids.

A few nights ago while I was washing the dishes, I have a conversation with Lilia, all in French. It was amazing to see her ease at talking. You could not tell a difference in her speed and comfort-ability. It was just as she was speaking English. We were walking to school one day and I was heading to drop off Micah and then Lilia when we heard a couple of boys say something to each other. Lilia and I could not make it out, but Micah heard what they said. Andrew went to the Doctor a few weeks ago for a check-up. He was a little shy at first, but lightened up and started following whatever the doctor said. Toward the end of the meeting the Doctor jokingly said that it was because he was so mean that the kids do what he says. Andrew replied right back and said "Non." He knew what the Doctor was saying and knew from the tone that he was just playing. All that from a 3 year old who barely spoke English when we arrived.  Caleb has never had problems with the French and he reads well in French. Angie gives Lilia and Caleb english lessons, for about 30 minutes a day during the Lunch break. She started yesterday letting Caleb read books to her. So Caleb read his first book in English. He was so excited he wanted to read it to everyone as a bedtime story. Friday night was our family night and we watched the movie "Up" ("Là-haut"). We had a wonderful time watching it together. It was an excellent movie I would recommend to people of all ages. We had to pause and rewind a few times because everyone was laughing so hard. Yesterday we also enjoyed a brief visit with the pastor in Carcasonne when we went there to do a few errands. We need to invite several people over this next week. God bless, JASON

un cours difficile (Difficult lesson)

We had a hard lesson in class today. It was so difficult that I can not explain the reason. It took our teacher several times to explain. She eventually just told just to remeber the that is the way it is and not to try and figure out why. There is a saying that we here frequently, "C'est comme
ça." "That's the way it is". Here are a couple of examples, and the literal translation and the meaning.

Ils ont monté l'escalier à pied.
They have climbed stairs on foot.
They climbed the stairs by foot.

Ils sont montés au huitième étage.
They are climbed to the 8th level.
They climbed to the 8th floor.

Ils sont sortis de la voiture.
They are exited of the car.
They exited the car.

Ils ont sorti les bagages.
They have exited the baggages.
The took out the baggage.

Ils ont passé les vacances à Lyon.
They have passed the vacations at Lyon.
They spent the vacation in Lyon.

Ils sont passés par la Suisse.
They are passed by the Switzerland.
They passed Switzerland.

I can't even explain why that is so hard to get. When do you use être (to be) or avoir (to have)?
Just one of those language learning things. That's the way it is. ALSO, I uploaded me singing some praise songs in French on Godtube.com it should be available within the next 24 hrs, do a search for "il est exalte". God bless, JASON

Life in Europe.

It is different living in an area where there are multiple cultures. For instance, I noticed on the cereal box this morning that the ingredients are listed in 6 different languages, none of them English. Yet the name of the cereal is Chocolate Moons (in English). On the back the cereal there is a game that can be cut out. There is a warning in English, Kids should not use scissors without the parents supervision. This message was not translated at all. It would seem to me that that would be important to translate. In Micah's class of 3 year olds, there are 12 students who do not speak french. It is not unusual to see all different cultures of people just while walking down the street. You might hear other languages spoken as well.
We had a good weekend. Services went well Sunday. They understood my french sermon, listed below, so I guess it was good. We had few times this weekend when it snowed. The temperature dropped down to 28 degrees (-2) Sunday morning. I was sick with a slight temperature Sunday night and Monday. Not serious, but we called off our babysitter exchange and stayed home. Friday we watched the two children of a couple of classmates while they looked around Paris. Monday they were going to do the same for us. It seems we get the better end of it because they were going to watch our four children. It ended up okay that we postponed because the weather was not that good as well. Time to go back to school, lunch is over. Attached is a picture of the clouds looking out of our back window. God bless, 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

An average day.

Ok so far, this is what an average day is like for me. I arise from slumbler, discovering which of my sons has ended up in bed with me. We usually get up between 6:15 and 6:40. I get ready and get breakfast for the kids and get the kids ready, while Angie gets ready :-) We leave the house about 8:00. The kids school starts at 8:30 and the can arrive by 8:20. I take the older kids while Angie takes Andrew and heads to Language school, Les Cedres. I drop off Lilia at her school, walk the block over and take the boys to their class. It is then a hurried walk to Les Cedres to make it their by 8:35, when class starts. Morning classess are learning new things with a break at 10:15 for coffee, hot chocolate (my favorite), or hot tea. We finish school for lunch at 11:20. I leave to get the kids again, and Angie picks up Andrew from the Daycare downstairs and heads home. We usually gett back home around 11:45. Lunch usually consists of Sandwiches. The kids have a few moments to play and we leave to drop everyone back off at 1:00. Chapel time at the Language school is at 1:35. It consists of songs, prayer, scripture reading, and devotional (all in French). I have come to enjoy this time, especially the songs (tommorrow i will help accompany with my guitar). In the afternoon we usually have review and grammer and oral comprehension or phonetics. Class is over at 3:50, we have a few monents to collect ourselves as the kids get out of school at 4:30. We all meet back at the house. Usually the kids have a snack at the house, if they do not get one on the way back. This is the time where we run any errands we may have, bank, grocery store, etc. We go to the Grocery store every couple of days for the neccessities. Supper is anywhere from 6:30 - 7:30. After supper we try to get the kids in bed by 7:30 and then get to our homework and laundry. Electricity is cheaper at night and so we try to save night for the lanundry to run (we have a dryer now, a condensation one). Bedtime for Angie and I can range from 9:30 - 11:30. Thats all in a days work. JASON

Movie Night

Just a quick note of interest, we purchased a movie here and watched it last night. It had 21 languages on subtitles, including Hebrew, Japonese, Aramaic. I thought that was interesting along with the following that all parenst will enjoy. JASON

Toddlers' Property Laws
1. If I like it, it's mine.
2. If it's in my hand, it's mine.
3. If I can take it from you, it's mine.
4. If I had it a little while ago, it's mine.
5. If it's mine, it must never appear to be yours in any way.
6. If I'm doing or building something, all the pieces are mine.
7. If it looks like mine, it is mine.
8. If I saw it first, it's mine.
9. If you are playing with something and you put it down, it automatically becomes mine.
10 If it's broken, it's yours.

A Postal Experience

I have always heard that activities take more time in foreign coutries. I never really thought that would be true for France and "modern" nation. I went to the Post Office (la Poste) to mail our important papers for our visa. It was a special mail where you receive a signed letter that it has been delivered. I arrived at the post office, surveyed my surroundings, and went to an available cashier, who explained, (all in French remeber) that I needed to take a number. I took a number and sat down, my number was the next one called. I explained what I needed and she gave the neccessary paperwork to fil out and helped someone else while I was filling the papers out. The man she helped took a long time, and I could tell they were having trouble. He left and I approached and caught that the computers were not working. I waited for about twenty minutes then politely thanked her and said I would return later. Monday I return. I have my school books and Andrew in the stroller. I put the backpack on to get Andrew and his stroller up the stairs. I remember to get a ticket this time. A lady in front of me exchanged tickets with me because she was feeding the baby. Then another lady came in and asked to borrow a pen. I had to take the backpack off and put it on the stroller to dig out a pen for her, during which my number was called, so I ackwardly approach and hand her my paperwork. While waiting Andrew wants to get out, I get him out forgetting that the stroller has the backpack full of books hanging from the handles, so when I remove him the stroller begins to fall backwards. I quickly put my foot on it to keep it from falling and stand like that until our transaction is complete. Then as I leave the lady is waiting to return my pen. I let go of the stroller to take her pen and the stroller falls back all the way to the ground. So I'm trying to put the pen back in, pick the stroller up, while holding Andrew. Thankfully after a few moments I was collected and on the way back to the house, one more task completed. JASON

Massy

Our town of Massy is very nice. I was looking at the scenery when I took the boys to school yesterday. It is also, as I recently found out, a wealthy town. I discovered this when telling Yvain about seeing and early 70's model Camaro, yellow with black racing stripes. He explained then that is a rich suburb. The boys were rained out of their field trip to the woods. I noticed there were no posts to answer the last quiz. French has the same amount of vowels that we have but they have 16 different vowel sounds. JASON

The UPS guy drives a mercedes.

It is weird to see the UPS guy and all the big trucks being Mercedes. Here if someone has an American made car they are usually thought of as being rich, examples that I have seen are Pontiac Firebird, PT Cruiser, Hummer, Cadillac. They are several Ford cards sold here. They have some European commercials that you may (or may not) find funny. Examples http://youtube.com/watch?v=aJGtCe_26EQ http://youtube.com/watch?v=X-MZaV9uz6M CULTURAL WARNING: These are european commercials - content is not for animal lovers, or those with light stomachs!! Another cultural thing, We have a couple of German students in our class. We are always picking on them about having beer in their water thermos in class. Another student bought a beer and poured it in his thermos while he was out on break. I wasn't there we he returned and got a drink, but they said he was suprised.

Another funny word today, the French word for a dresser is commode. So, you put your clothes in a commode. There was another humerous moment, but I will let Angie share that one. Another strange thing: Words here as I said earlier are masculine or feminine. We found out today that the word feminine is masculine, try and make sense of that. I had to pray in French today. After I finished, I looked at the teacher to see what comment she had. She said," Wow". There was a moment of silence as the students, including me, didn't know how she meant it. Another student said, "Did God understand it?" She did end up meaning it positively.

Congrats, Krys (we see your name everywhere, it is a chain optometry store here, spelled the same way) for answering the last quiz, question. I will do more of those later. We had good services Sunday, attendence of 9, including my family. Angie and I both have been having many people come up to us and speak french, so we must be adapting some. We are learning more and more. JASON

Liaison

The hardest thing about about French so far is the Liaison. That is the "slurring" of words together. For example, "Qu'est-ce c'est?" (What is that) sounds like "keskuhsay". You have to pay a lot of attention to the Liaisons. If you miss one speaking to a French person they may not even understand you. That has happened a couple of times in class where the teacher didn't understand what we were saying because we missed the Liaison.

QUIZ question for you: As you may know French has masculine and feminine nouns. Therefore I pose the following question. If I would say, "I am an American", I would say. "Je suis americain (masculine)." But if I said, "My nationality is American" I would say "Ma nationalité est americaine (feminine)." Any know why please respond with a comment.

Angie is in the Living room watching Star Academy (the French version of American Idol) and Celine Dion was just on there as guest. The Lord blessed us in a special way. Andrew (1 1/2 years old) hurt his arm again last night. Back at Thanksgiving he dislocated his Radius bone at his Elbow. It happened again last night, when I was helping him up. We knew that is what it was because he was not using in the same way as when it happened last time. So today we planned on making the appointment with the Pediatrician that we use here, who speaks English. However when Angie arrived at the school this morning to ask them about making an appointment, the principal said that one of the Language students is a Doctor (medecin). It happened to be Ian whose daughter is in the class with Lilia. He looked at it, found out that it had already popped back into place and explained more stuff to us. It worked out great.

Micah and Caleb sat in class with us Thursday (juedi). They did real well, and I was proud of them, and shocked. They both have been going to school okay for us now. I did have a funny experience one day this week. I walked Caleb to his classroom door and let him in and walked away, thankful that it went well. Suddenly I felt a tug and there he was behind me in tears. He said, "Daddy that was the wrong classroom." Oops (oh la la). Thankfully he calmed down quickly and I again dropped him off, at the correct room. Thank you for taking time to read and God Bless (Dieu vous bénisse), JASON

Psalm 23

We read this in Chapel and it was nice, even thought I can't read it that well, yet. Note: 45% of English is from French. It is interesting.

Psaumes 23 - Psaume of David
1. L'Eternel est mon berger: je ne manquerai de rien.
2. Il me fait reposer dans de verts pâurages, Il me dirige près des eaux paisibles.
3. Il restaure mon âme, Il me conduit dans les sentiers de la justice, a cause de son nom.
4. Quand je marche dans la vallée de l'ombre de la mort, Je ne crains aucun mal, car tu es avec moi: Ta houlette et ton bâton, voilà mon réconfort.
5. Tu dresses devant moi une table, En face de mes adversaires; Tu oins d'huile ma tête, Et ma coupe déborde.
6. Oui, le bonheur et la grâce m'accompagneront tous le jours de ma vie, Et je reviendrai dans la maison de l'Eternel pour la durée de mes jours.


JASON

Culture

Another day is finished (C'est finite). One thing humerous that we learned in language school today was the French word for a suit is costume. After school today we took the kids to a large park nearbye and let them play with several other children whose parents attend the language school. They had a great time. They were tired and fussy on the way home. I don't know what is causing it, maybe all the walking, but the kids are always hungry. We can feed the lunch, snacks, chips, drink and they will still be asking for more. The only thing we know to do is feed them more. Thursday we have a grève, a strike. All the public transportation and sevaral of the schools will not be working. Contrary to the US, things just shut down and people do without. We will have to find somewhere else for our two middle boys to be because all their teachers are striking. No one will take buses, trains, or subway. The people here in France do not seem to mind much, because they all like the freedom to do so themselves. I have found that many of the French seem to like to break the rules. It is illegal to honk your horn unless it is an emergency. You can guess how many times that gets broken. It is also against the law not to clean up after you dog has done his business on the sidewalk. All that I say is you better watch where you put you feet. Caleb has been saying a few things in french that I don't know. Nobody else does either though. He has a good friend at school that only speaks french, but they get along good. No school tommorrow but we are going to the lab to get some practice. God Bless, JASON

School and Strikes

Things are still going well. We received a few of our tests back today. We both passed. Angie did better than I did. There are several sounds in French that we have trouble distinguishing, for those familiar with french the "et" and the "est" for an example. I imagine one of these days it will become second nature. Some of the German students in our class shared this video with us http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TviUh0yJ6Vs It was funny. It is good to be in a class with other who are having the same struggles. Angie met with Lilia's teacher today after school for a two week evalutation. She knows Lilia well. She said she is very smart and competitive but doesn't want to learn sometimes. We have known that for years. I received a paper today from Caleb and Micah's teacher. Thursday there will be no school because the teachers and all the public transportation is going on strike. Our first strike. The weather cleared earlier today. It got up in the 50's and the ground almost dried up. So far I have seen puddles ever since we arrived. By this afternoon it was misting and a cold wind was blowing. It loks like it will be a cold morning. Actually though I think it is colder in Texas right now. God Bless, JASON