le Tour de France of the Bible

Another sponsor who threw out packs of sausages to the crowd.

Part of the caravane of sponsors.

The official starting point (man in center with white hat
spoke with me for a while about what we were doing).

Here I am wearing the banner.

The crowd waiting for the racers to exit their buses.

Their personalized car.

This weekend we enjoyed the tour de France.  We hosted a group called "le Tour de France de la Bible" that goes to the starting and finishing points of each stage of the tour de France and does outreach usually in participation with a local church. Limoux was selected this year as the starting point for the 15th stage of the race. There were activities all weekend long. We prepared as a family by putting personalized labels on all the tracts, Bibles, magazines, cds and everthing else that we were handing out.  The group arrived Saturday evening and we had supper together. One couple stayed with us, while the three others stayed with our friends down the hill.  We enjoyed a good time of fellowship.  The couple left early in the morning to work at Montpellier, the finishing point.  We started out at 9 in the morning and arrived at 9:30 at Limoux were we started handing out tracts.  I volunteered to wear the banner, which attracted a lot of attention.  It was not as easy as you would expect, with wind gusts, and obstacles overhead.  Several people, thinking that we were part of the Tour would even came and ask us questions about the race.  We mingled in the crowd and looked at some of the activities. Lilia, who went with some friends ended up being on Television, you can see it by clicking here.  She is 15'16" into the video on the far right with a pom-pom.  We did pause and enjoy the caravane (a parade of sponsor vehicules that are decorated and give away free stuff ) that was a little bigger this year than last year.  Afterwards we walked some more and made a tour around the charter buses and even saw a few races preparing.  They had expected a crowd of 50,000 but I dont think that many came.  We did distribute 2,000 tracts, and several Bibles, cds, magazines, and balloons.  There was one member of the church in Carcassonne who was coming to help, he ended up not making it in time because of road closures. He did make it in time for lunch afterwards.  The cyclists departed at 12:50 and soon afterwards we walked back to the car.  We enjoyed a lunch together at our house and then I ran them to the train station in Carcassonne.  I think it went real well.  God bless, JASON

The team that helped us, from Congo, Holland, & France.

The family, preparing the tracts.

Toques et Clochers

An aerial view of Limoux

Notre Dame de Marseilles is
 the church that will be restored.

We have had a good week.  We managed to survive the ten hours of French on Sunday.  I'm still having some French phrases slipping out when I am speaking English.  We have started the process to get our American Drivers Licenses exchanged for French ones.  So far it seems that this might be a smooth process.  Bible study went real well last night, we had four people including my langauge helper.  My stand at the market went well this morning as well. There were about 10 people who stopped by.  One reason was because there was a lot of people out because "Toques et Clochers" starts today. . . okay that might need some more explanation.  Toques (the hat chefs wear) et Clochers (bell tower) is a festival unique to this region of France.  It celebrates French cuisine and wine.  There are activities all weekend long and proceeds are used to repair one of the church bell towers in the area.  They are expecting a crowd of 50,000 people (about 5 times to population of Limoux). They have 120 police, 60 other security personell, 20 red cross volunteers and a helicopter standing by to help if someone is injured.  The main events are the concerts, meals, and wine tasting.  They have already closed many streets in Limoux.  I might stop by tommorrow afternoon to see what's going on.  I have been advised by several people, that it is not good for young children. I am a little saddened by the fact that they cancelled basketball practice.  I am looking forward to the weekend.  God bless, JASON  

The Carnaval at Limoux

We are nearing the end of the Carnaval of Limoux.  It is the self proclaimed longest carnaval in the world.  It is every weekend from January to Mars.  It mostly consits of live bands performing folk musique in a parade with costumed groups following along, and a lot of confetti.  I will attach later some pictures of the real carnaval that Lilia and I attended this past Sunday.  They also get the kids involved as well.  Monday morning was Micah's turn to join in a parade around the town square, dressed as a storm tropper. It was Andrew's turn Monday afternoon, his entire class dressed as clowns.  Lilia and Caleb had their turn this morning.  Lilia was a singer and Caleb was zorro.  They had fun and even though it consumed most of our day it was nice to see them and get to visit with the other parents as well.  They all really enjoyed throwing the confetti.  Arianna seemed to enjoy it as well.  She was worn out afterwards, here she is after falling alseep leaning on me.  God bless, JASON

Blowing against the flow.

The weather has changed drastically the last few days. Monday and Tuesday, it was cold and windy. We happend to be parked by the river and the wind was blowing white capped waves on the river, and even more amazing was that it was blowing against the flow of the river. It actaully looked like the river was going in the wrong direction. Now it is sunny and mild. We have been trying to get Andrew nursed back to health. He still is not sleeping well, but has not had fever today. It affects everyone's schedule when he is off schedule. Today I gave the short lesson before the prayer time at the church in Carcassonne. I loved studying, preparing, and sharing God's word. I will attach the lesson later. It was over the prayer of Jabez (I Chronicles 4:9-10). I feel like I have not accomplished some things that I have needed to get down as a result of Andrew's sickness. Angie wakes up with him during the night, and I keep an eye out for him during the day so that Angie can get a nap. I am looking forward to our Thanksgiving kickoff. I am really just looking forward to the holiday season in general. Angie and I want to get the boys bikes for Christmas. I can see all of us riding as a family. We have been keeping our eyes open for good deals. Looking forward to Friday. If it is pretty again I need to do some more work on the yard to get it ready for company. Attached is a picture of the river Aude that runs through Limoux. God bless, JASON

House hunt approaches the end.

Our house hunt is nearing the end. A few days ago we visited again the house in Magrie and we received a call yesterday saying that we can come by Wednesday to sign the papers. So here we go. We still are trying to not get too excited just in case it does not end up working out. Services went well at church. A group of about 20 tourists from Holland visited in the services. We had to bring out all the extra chairs. Angie stayed at home this morning with a head ache and tired. The younger boys were real tired as well because some storms came through last night and they stayed up watching. Lilia, Caleb, and I enjoyed the services and lunch at the church afterwards. I will try to keep you updated as soon as we find out about the house. God bless, JASON

Confirmation

Friday - The beach trip did not go so well. It was a little cool and real windy. We saw 2 large jellyfish and caught a small one, but the worst part was that the wind would kick up the sand and sand blast us. The kids really did not like that. I think it all lasted maybe 20 minutes before we left. The wind has continued to blow all day and it cooled off to about 60 degrees by days end. This afternoon we went to Limoux. On the way I got a call from the Car salesmen who sold us our Dacia. He had the wrong address on a paper, so we stopped by a McDonald's and faxed him the right paper. He said everything was going well. I showed Angie the home that I toured Thursday. The only negative aspects are that is has no parking, no yard, and the front door opens to the street, but it is roomy, around the corner from a school and in good condition, and only about 2.5 miles from Limoux. I mentioned to Angie that maybe God wants us to start out living in a smaller town because we are going to make a lot of mistakes. It's possible. We have another house that I found online that we are waiting to hear back about. It was in Limoux and had a yard, I called and emailed and have not heard back yet. Tomorrow we are getting a visit from the pastor of the church in Carcassonne.
Saturday – We had a good visit with the pastor this evening. He offered to give us a loan for the car. We took him up on it. It is amazing how the love for Christ unites us. Can you imagine loaning someone that you have only met twice $20,000 interest free.
Sunday – Services went real well this morning. We had some good visiting afterwards. There were several visitors. One family from Ireland was spending there vacation in the south. We had a good visit, they come to this church each time they take their vacation here. There were also fist time visitors from Limoux! It was a French lady who had recently married a man from England and they had just settled in Limoux. How amazing is that. I had planned for the work in Limoux to start slowly. I had in mind to spend a year building relationships and having Bible studies before I even brought up the idea to plant a church. If things continue as they have been we could already have a core group. This couple makes four that we know from Limoux who travel to the church in Carcassonne. As soon as this couple introduced themselves and where they were from the Pastor leaned over to us and said, “interesante”.
Monday - Just got a call that said the house viewing for tomorrow was cancelled because the couple decided to stay in the home. So, I scheduled us to see the home in La Digne D'amont, so Angie can see it, and then we will probably try for it. We are currently at McDonalds, just finished some grocery shopping. God bless, JASON

Friday again.

We have had a busy but productive Friday. Today is Andrew's birthday. He is now three years old. We will have a party with his friends at the language school garden tomorrow. He is pictured above playing soccer, he has a good level of skill already. He has already got it down to say three and hold up the three fingers when someone asks how old he is.

Last week we sent our papers by email to the real estate agent in Limoux. We never heard anything from him. We called earlier in the week and left messages but received no call back. Angie called and got a hold of the secretary today. She said that the could not open the PDF files. Okay. Angie asked why they didn't but the lady had no answer. So we got them faxed this evening.

In slightly less amazing news, Barak Obama arrived at Orly Airport today, just about 2 miles from where we live. He plans to be here for the D-day festivities in the North. I do not think that he plans on coming to the birthday party.

This weekend I have a lot of school work to do. We have a test Monday and Tuesday. The big language test on Wednesday. I have a short lesson to bring Monday and the chapel service to do Friday. And on top of that our usual homework. But right now it is time to enjoy a movie with the birthday boy. God bless, JASON

House Hunting in France

Hello everyone, Angie here. I thought I would write about all that has happened lately. The trip to Limoux went great. Michele, a friend from language school went with me and we had a blast. We got a late start for the trip down south because we both had morning class and while she returned from her class in Paris, I watched Andrew so Jason could give his devotional at school. Finally we were both ready and we left. We had McDonald's on the way and saw a Tati (really good discount store)and had to do some quick 10 minute shopping because it was closing at 7pm. Back on the road we were just enjoying all the sunshine and green fields all around. It took a while but we finally arrived at our hosts home at 11pm. We were warmly welcomed by our hosts and their two little doggies. After putting our bags in our room Genevieve immediately took me out across the street to show me this superbly kept home. It was vacant thankfully since we were taking a very close look. The owner had even put in air conditioning. But I have already stayed in a house in that neighborhood and they are all almost the same and I really wanted something a little more spacious and private. This was a new neighborhood and non of the hedges were grown up enough for privacy. I wasn't too interested but it was kind of our host to show us. Saturday we met the agent and he said he had some houses planned to show us, one I had seen online and one that I had not seen. Another one online had already been seen by two couples who were both serious and he said he was going to let them have their chance at it. Then he had a phone call. Then we left to see house number one. It was outside of town about 3 miles in a little village neighborhood. It was updated with fresh paint and a new shower but it had tiny rooms and felt cramped. Another drawback was that the yard wasn't fenced so it wasn't as safe as we would like it for the kids. As we finished the tour of house 1 the agent begins to tell me that he really has no other product to show or offer me. I think what he was saying was none that are as well done as this one. But I said to him that I really needed him to show me another one to compare with this one. ( In my mind I was thinking that house 2 will have to be really bad to make me feel at peace with this one and besides that I made an appointment and drove 8 hours and I think I should get to see more than one house.) I have learned to be more insistent here because that is just the only way things get done. So he took us to house 2. It was right in town in a really cute neighborhood. The house was attached on one side to another house but the yards were divided and private with really big hedges. The house looks very old world French with the dark wood (which I love) and the French doors, just charming. The living/dining area was much larger than the first house. The kitchen was decent sized with a stovetop, oven and cabinetry already there! Somethings we would have normally had to purchase ourselves. There was a "back" kitchen with a sink just next to the kitchen (very commom here) which would be a laundry room. The back yard was really good sized (for France) with a cute cherry tree in one corner and totally fenced -good for the safety of the kids. Then we went upstairs, and at this point I hadn't caught on that it was a 4 bedroom but Jason and I had discussed having a 3 bedroom with a back kitchen that could serve as a guest room if needed. So I was already thinking that this house could work. Upstairs the bedrooms were roomy and they had closets already, something else we would have had to buy ourselves! What a blessing- God sure knows our needs! The bathroom had a bathtub not just a shower - I was really glad about that. Then we noticed that there was a fourth bedroom. And as if we weren't enchanted already that did it for us. One bedroom also had a cute balcony. I think the agent was surprised we liked it but glad he had brought us there. There were other great things about this house too. We had discussed the need for parking space if we had a home Bible study and this house looks out over a big square- one side with shrubs and benches and the other side with trees and along two sides of the square, there are about 20 parking spaces. Also, in the connecting house/building the lower floor looks like it is an office space and it looked empty. The agent said that the upstairs was an appartment that is vacant and the owner is not trying to fill it currently. Very interesting. The kids schools are very nearby. Hopefully, if all works out, we will meet lots of people from the neighborhood just on the walk to and from school. Let me say that I couldn't have done it without my friend Michele. She was such a great help to me in giving a second opinion. I knew I would need someone with me and the Lord provided me with the perfect person I needed for the trip! Although the agent didn't much like her. If she looked as though she was about to say something negative he would interrupt her. Salesmen and their tactics.
After the appointment we went to Carcassonne to enjoy having a car to do some shopping. I showed Michele the big castle and at 8pm we had dinner back with Roger and Genevieve. It was a really nice time and we stayed up late visiting. They were sharing some of their heartaches with me. Please pray for them. Sunday we headed back to Paris and read and discussed God's word on the way. It was a great trip- although short and busy. We are so thankful for our hosts generosity and pray a special blessing on them for it. We are also thankful for God's amazing providence. We hope to hear from the agent this week if we are accepted as renters. If something should not work out though we know God has something else in mind. God Bless You All, ANGIE

Odds and Ends

Allow me to jump around and little and gives a few tidbits. I went to the sous-prefecture this afternoon to find out if we could extend our visa for a few more months to June of next year. After waiting in line for two hours I find out that it should work out. They would have expired in February, waiting to June would allow us to get the kids closer to finishing school. We are close to getting all of our paperwork together for the house. I hope that it goes smoothly after we get it all to him. We had two tests this week and another on Tuesday. The TCF (official test of french knowledge) is creeping up on us as well. Monday is a national holiday, Pentecost. We all made a good trip together to the store. The weather has been beautiful that last couple of days and it was nice to get out as a family and get some shopping done. Caleb and Micah got some new shoes which boys always seem to need. The exchange rate has been on the climb the last week but seems to be dropping down a little bit which is good. I will need to get started soon on getting my monthly report out. The whole family seems to be really looking forward to moving on to Limoux. It is great that the kids are excited about it was well. I brought a short sermon at the school last Friday. I tried doing it without a transcripts and just glancing at my notes. It went fairly well. I only tried doing it this way because it only had to be about ten minutes long. I hope that you can hear and understand it well enough. There was a moment of laughter because I mispronounces the word for "sin" and said "fishing" instead. Enjoy and God Bless, JASON

House Hunting

Angie made a trip this past weekend to look at houses in Limoux. She had a real nice trip. We rented her a small car and thankfully she had a friend from the language school that was kind enough to accompany her. We had some friends from Limoux that offered them a place to stay the night. Be in prayer for this elderly couple because they are unsaved and God has really put them into a position to need Him. Angie was able to view two houses and found the second one really what she was looking for. It was a good size and in a nice location and had a pretty large yard by French standards. We will start the paper work and see what happens. God has been opening the doors for us in wonderful ways. We have found a car, and well on the way to finding a house, there is a good church in the area we can minister with while we wait for our work to get started, we have several contacts in Limoux already and many opportunities to make other relationships.

In other news, Caleb had a field trip to view the museum of national history in Paris. It was a pretty day for it. It got up around 80 today. Of course realize that there is no A/C in any of the buildings. Some of the students from the south were mentioning how hot it was. I was picking on them for being from the south where it gets up to over 100 every summer. Another student was England came by and complained. I mentioned that he was going to serve in Africa after school, he should be wearing a coat. A front is supposed to come through tonight and cool things off. It did get warm, but I didn't mention it to anyone that I noticed also. God bless, JASON

Gypsies

We found out Monday that a line of 250 campers was trying to pull off the Autoroute onto the park here in town. Gypsies. The police were trying to stop them form entering because if they did then it would take two months of paperwork before they could get them to leave. Traffic was blocked for about 10 hours. Finally they had to let them in. According to the paper there are now 450 campers in the park. I will attach some pictures of the process. Everyone was afraid that the crime would increase in town like when a similar thing happened about 5 years ago. Thankfully these gypsies are pentecostal so that there has not been any problems. Besides our park is overrun. Yesterday I met a friend in Paris who brought us some goodies, including peanut butter. Matt has made several trips here to France and I enjoyed seeing him again. Angie is preparing to go to Limoux this weekend to look at houses. She will traveling with another mom from the language school. They are going to really enjoy eachothers company the trip there. We got a call from a older couple we know there and they invited Angie and her friend to spend the night with them instead of getting a hotel. I rented her a car yesterday, a small one. I will make sure and get a picture of it as well. Thanks for reading. God bless, JASON

I'm back!

It has been a week since my last blog and it has been a busy one. I was sick until Thursday. Tried to spend some of that time doing homework, but evidently one of the side-effects of my illness was lack of inspiration to do homework. Wednesday was my first time to venture out as I walked to the language school to take a test in the Lab. I was wore out by the time I made it back home. I made it through school all day Thursday and by Friday was almost back to feeling 100 %. The weekend passed well. I took Saturday off from homework and did a lot of work around the house, trip to the grocery store, and took the kids out to the park to give Angie a break. It ended up raining most of the time the kids were playing, but they didn't seem to mind. Sunday we enjoyed the services at the church in Massy. Angie kept the nursery. We listened to our sending church services that evening. Afterwards we talked with my parents and my sister and brother-in-law via Skype. We are looking forward spring break in two weeks. We will have two weeks off from school and will look into getting a car. Wednesday and good friend, Jack Story is visiting from the US. He is involved in a ministry that does travel and logistical support for pastors and missionaries. He is coming from England where he is preparing for the 2012 Olympics in London. We plan to eat lunch with him Wednesday. The attached picture is looking over Limoux, where Lord willing we will move in three months. Thanks for all your prayers. God bless, JASON

Beautiful Day

The weather was beautiful today. It got up to about 60 and there was sunshine. Reminded me of winters in Texas. The weekend went real well. We had some good play time with the kids on Saturday and good services Sunday morning. The preacher spoke about the qualifications of a pastor and he did a great job, in my opinion. The church here in Massy is voting soon on a new pastor soon. I missed the services at our church. Usually they are done by Skype, but this time the sound system guy who usually sets it up was absent, so I was going to listen on the Radio online, but the Skype call serves as a reminder that time is near and so I didn't notice until it was too late. School started well this morning. It is interesting to see how everyone kind of drags on Mondays. This afternoon we had Biblical French. We are doing forming lessons at that is going well. It happened again that we found a doctrinal disagreement with our teacher, but that happens. I have been talking with another student who purchased a car recently about the process. In a month or so, we will, Lord willing, do the same. Right now, I am going to go make my favorite meal for the family - hot dogs. Attached is a picture of Lilia "wowed" at the hat museum outside of Limoux. God bless, JASON

Two Fridays a week.

Wednesday has arrived, which means no school and a chance to catch up on all other things. We were talking with other students after school finished Tuesday about how it feels like we have two Fridays a week. Lilia is doing fine. She showed no more symptoms or signs of having any troubles. Last night we had a babysitter and Angie and I went to Paris. We planned on visiting the Bible book store, but found out it was closed when we got there. We did some window shopping which was fun. We ate at McDonalds (which was great!) and did a little shopping at Cora. Today we get homework finished up for us and the kids and housework. I would like to get a summary done of a study of Job I did recently. I will include below a poem that we were assigned to write in class on the subject of "Le Chant des Villes". I thought of our small town of Henderson and Limoux as I was writing it. God bless, JASON

Comment ça va, le chant des villes?
Est-ce que c'est doux comme la musique classique?
Ou plus chaotique que la musique électronique?
Chaque ville a-t-elle une unique pièce musicale?
Comment on trouve la partition locale?
Est-ce qu'on demande aux habitants?
Ou est-ce qu'il faut qu'on y vive depuis longtemps?
C'est le lieu qui est le concertiste?
Ou plutôt les gens qui jouent le rôle-titre?
Qui choisit les instruments?
Qui fournit cette ambiance?
Pourrait-elle être changée?
Dès-que les notes ont été créées?

Limoux.

We had a great trip to Limoux. We picked up the rental car (an Opel Zafira - 7 passenger) Friday evening. We took the chance to take a couple of language school mothers shopping. Almost all the language school students do not own a car so when one of us have one everyone likes to be able to pick up some stuff from the store that you don't want to have to haul back. We left Saturday morning for Limoux. It only took us about nine hours to make the drive. Andrew got car sick twice (his expressions is - "I'm hot"). Other than that the trip went real well. The car got excellent gas mileage, it was diesel and cruising at 75 MPH (130 km /h) it got 42 miles to the gallon (5.5 liters per 100 km). The rental house was wonderful. About 5 km outside of Limoux, it had a nice yard with a creek running behind it, it was spacious inside with 4 bedrooms and a fireplace. Sunday we went to church in Carcassonne (about 25 km away) at the Èglise Évangélique Baptiste. We gave a ride to one of the members who lived in Limoux. The services went well and we had a meal afterwards. Lilia was excited because there were two girls there about her age. The meal was excellent, we ate salad, soup, rice, quiche, bread, cheese, dessert. The conversation was excellent and very informative. We made it home and rested the rest of the evening. Monday we went back to Carcassonne to get some more minutes for our cell phone, but they were closed. We stopped by McDonald's and got the kids lunch and checked the e-mail. Back in Limoux we went to the office of tourism and got a lot of good information. Tuesday we went shopping and checked out prices and picked up some things. The prices are significantly lower than in Paris and they have a good foreign foods section which sells Dr. Pepper among other things. Tuesday afternoon I visited with another pastor from Carcassonne and one of his members from Limoux. Keep in mind all of these conversations were in French, good practice but exhausting. Wednesday, Angie went out with the young lady we picked up for Church. They had a good visit and afterwards Angie stopped by a couple of Realtors and found out among other things that the rent is about half of what we are paying in Paris. While Angie was gone I was playing outside with the kids enjoying the southern France weather, when a couple stopped by, Jehovah Witnesses, what are the odds. I visited with them for about 20 minutes and learned some good information. Wednesday night we had a couple that we met last July over for Supper. They are a really nice couple, retired from Belgium. We had a really good visit with them, we picked up some new words for sure. Thursday, we took the kids to see a dinosaur and hat museum. We had a really good time, the kids loved all the dinosaurs. Some of the dinosaur bones came from Texas. That afternoon we visited with the young lady and her roommate at our home. They are musicians and we had a good visit and stressed the need for more workers in Limoux. Talking from the other pastors, I learned that they work several small villages in the area during the week as well. One pastor had a Bible study in a different village every day of the week, all started by word of mouth. Angie and I both fell sure that this is were God wants us to work. We came back Friday without problems other then Caleb who was car sick (his key word "my mouth hurts"). Thanks for the prayers for us during this trip. Enjoy the pictures (1- our car, 2- T-rex, 3-giant scorpion, 4-the road into Limoux), I will post more in the Future. God Bless, JASON

Vacation time again.

Finished with the school and tests for at least a week. Now we are preparing for our trip to the south, where it is 10 degrees warmer and the sun is shinning. Join us in praying for this trip that God would make his will evident. We are deciding if God is calling us to work in Limoux or if he has another place in mind. That is he purpose of a survey trip. We made a survey trip to Paris for two weeks, prior to our start of raising support, just as we are making a trip to Limoux. These trips can be expensive, but they are well worth the money. What we discovered on the trip to France several years ago, saved us a lot of time and trouble as well as money. If we would have come without the trip it would have been a lot more difficult. After the survey trip we could have decided that France was not what God had in mind for us, if we would have moved here and then figured that out, it would have been a much larger expense. That is why this trip to Limoux is important. We plan on visiting with some local pastors, checking into prices and availability of housing. Visiting and outreaching to some locals, and praying. I may not have the time or Internet connection to update, but I will let you know how things turn out. I will attach a video I found that I liked, it would make a good church skit. God bless, JASON