Encouraged

So it really has been a busy couple of days. Seriously. Wednesday I had a good session with my language partner. I had him explain a song to me. I have attached the song below. I like the song and music, but even thougth I knew the meaning to all the words, I could not get the meaning of the song. He explained it to me well.
Then Wednesday night, there was a little excitement. Storms had moved in and we heard some noises like there was a loose shutter beating against the house. Then we heard glass break and loud voices. We looked out the window and found that the neighbors double pane glass door was broken out. We turned off all the lights and listened quietly by the window to try and see what was going on. While there, Angie wanted to move closer to the window. She lost her balance kicking a metal trash can, leaned against the wall and turned the light on. It was hilarious.
Thursday, Caleb had no school because his teacher was on strike. We dropped the other kids off at school. Came back to the house and made invitations for a nieghborhood party (fête des voisins). The party will be Saturday at 6:30. We passed them out to all the neighbors except one that did not have a mailbox, picked up the kids for lunch. On the way back for lunch we stopped by and dropped off the last invitation, Angie had a good converstation with the lady. It was the same lady who stopped by last week asking about the cats. They talked for a while. Turns out that last night a young man stopped by her house with cuts on his arm saying that there were some crazy guys at our neighbors. He was the victim of the broken glass evidently. She said we should talk to our home owner because he is a police man and would know what to do in instances like those. She gave us several jars of jelly that she had made and invited us over sometime. She said she would have loved to come to the party, but this is her first weekend off in a while and so she is going to make a trip to Spain with her husband. Angie was really encouraged to have this contact. After lunch we dropped the kids off at school, made hair cut apointments for me and Caleb. Then we stopped by an association that has scheduled French language conversations. We then went back and got our hair cut. Then returned home. We received phone calls from the home owner and from a neighbor. The neighbor had called to say that she would not be able to come to the party because she jsut lost her husband. Then another neighbor stopped, who has been working on the garage enclosure, he said he and his wife would love to come. Then the plumber stopped by and said he would be there in the morning to fix the problem. We had supper and then bible study. There were 5 who came for bible study. We studied encouragement from Hebrews 12. It went well, the praise, study, and prayer time was great. I am praying that God will bless the party Saturday. It has already given us some contacts and we at least know that one couple will come. I am already encouraged.
Today Caleb is sick and staying home. We are trying to get things ready for tomorrow and looking forward to family night tonight. Attached is the video that I spoke of previously. The song is On s'attache by Christophe Maé (see on youtube). It was a number one hit in France a couple of years ago. God bless, JASON

Kill them before they open their eyes.

This week has continued to be blessed. Sunday services went well. Sunday night we met a neighbor of ours, who was wanting to kill some kittens. Not as bad as it sounds, perhaps. She had seen a stray cat around that had just had babies and was wanting to find them to end their misery because she knew the mother would not be able to take care of them. She described how she planned on doing it. Awkward. She also said that she must do it before they open their eyes, because once they look at you it is too hard to do. Okay. Nice to meet the neighbors. Monday and Tuesday passed well. I spent a part of both days getting pictures together to print. Leclerc is having a promotion on prints, and so we are going to get some pictures printed so Angie can do some scrapbooking. Lesson is about halfway done for the bible study. I have not heard from my language helper who said he would call today. I hope to hear from him. Yelena will be coming over this evening for supper and to practice music. Last night we lost track of time, which seems easy to do here. We got home with the kids and they played outside some, while we staightened up and started supper. It ended up being 7:00 before we started eating. It worked out okay since the kids did not have school on Wednesdays, but I missed the bible study in Carcassonne. We are still dealing with plumbing issues and I need to go to the store tomorrow to pick up some more items to deal with it. It is supposed to be 75 degrees tomorrow, which I am looking forward to. Attached is a picture of our cherry tree which is producing several ripe cheries a day. I am going to wake Angie up from her nap. Wish me luck :) 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