Computer Bug

The hallway in our future house.

The view into two bedrooms.

The back yard.

The side yard.

I'm not sure what this is.

Micah playing with some legos that my parents sent.

Seems like Arianna wanted some cereal.

Looks like she wanted to have some milk with it.

As I predicted the road is not finished yet.  I did get to say "hi" to the major a couple of days ago, as he was inspecting the work.  What has got us perplexed, is that it doesn't look like they are going to pave it.  Our neighbor said they should be finished in two days.   On Tuesday we got a box from my parents.  We enjoyed all the goodies.  Tuesday we also went and looked at our new house, we will be moving in the end of November.  We took some pictures (attached above).  I spent quite a bit of my time this week working on computer problems.  My computer locks up at random, more often when it is not being used.  I spent at least a day, trying several different things to get it to work right, but nothing seemed to help.  It seems like it will need to have windows reloaded.  Now it is just a matter of doing it.  Interestingly enough, I am not the only one recently to have computer problems.  Our church was struck by lightening and "killed" several computers, my mom's computer had a serious virus, and several others as well.  Someone at our church said something like, "Steve Jobs dies and all the computers crash".  I also had some troubles with out toilet.  I wonder if another inventor/inovator passed away this week. In other news, basketball practice continues to go well, but I didn't play very well this week.  I might need to find some time to practice with the boys a little.  Thankfully my main purpose is not the playing time or the excercise, it is meeting and getting to know my fellow players.  We have been wanting to invite some people over, but we are waiting for our road to be finished.  Thursday night, the Bible study went well, we had a first time visitor, and he seemed to enjoy the songs, prayer, and Bible lesson and discussion and said he would love to come back.  Friday morning at the market, there was not a lot of activity, but I did speak to a man who has a stand that sells bags and purses.  We talked for probably a hour, if you add it all up.  I also talked quite a bit with Philip, the man who came to the Bible study, we even enjoyed a cup of coffee together.  Friday afternoon we got a call from our landlord saying that someone wanted to some see the house, we got in touch with her and she ended up coming at 4 that afternoon.  That meant the afternoon was spent cleaning.  She came but didn't seem too interested.  I felt bad because she had to walk up our road wearing black, in high heels.  Friday afternoon Lilia was invited to a birthday party by one of her English friends at school.  She spent Friday night with the friends house.  She came back with excited stories involving painting fingernails and having cucumbers, avacadoes, and yogurt on her face.  Doesn't sound like much fun to me, but I am glad that she had a good time.  We let the boys have a friend over to fill the void at the house, so they had a good time as well, they played with legos for a good while.  This morning, I finished preparing for the services tommorrow, I will be leading the singing and giving the reading and devotional, and the devotional for the kids.  I really enjoy giving the kids lesson.  It captures a wide audience, because the kids tend to listen better, and the adults listen as well, so you reach everyone.  I pray that you have a blessed weekend.  JASON

Gifts

Sarturday finished well.  I finished all the lessons and had a good time at a friends birthday party.  The highlight was that we received a package from my parents filled with goodies for the kids.  Pictured is the boys playing with their new transformers.  We received a package on Friday from friends

 as well that had asked us what we needed.  Inside was the biggest jar of peanut butter I have ever seen (pictured).  We are going to enjoy that.  We may even make some peanut butter cookies. Sunday Morning went well.  The church in Carcassonne is preparing for a big Christmas outreach.  They are going to rent a room and have a Christmas dinner with a kids program.  We started working on the program on Sunday morning during Sunday School, looks like it is going to be real good.  Services went well Sunday.  The building was packed again.  I would estimate that there were 45 people, there were no empty chairs.  The church has begun looking towards getting another meeting place.  It has been great seeing God bless the church there.  Be in prayer that another suitable meeting place can be found.  Sunday afternoon

we took it easy and spent some time together with the kids.  This week will be more like normal.  Caleb goes to school early on Mondays and Thursdays for extra time with his teacher, working with him on French.  This morning, he was ready to go with a coat on, the weather had turned colder during the night. I asked him how he knew that it was colder and that he needed to put a coat on.  He said, "It's complicated. . . when it gets cold, I can sense it.  It is kind of like a gift from God."  Cute.  Enjoy the pictures and God bless, JASON

Day 4 without Angie

My day went well. I made the kids pancakes this morning for breakfast. Afterwards, I worked some more on a promotional video that I have been making. After sandwiches for lunch, we headed to the language school to play, after being there for maybe thirty minutes, Andrew had a dirty diaper, of course I forgot to bring extra, so we walked back to the house. While I was changing him at the house, I got a call from some friends inviting us to come to the language school and play with their kids. So we headed back to the language school. We had a good time playing and visiting. We had hot dogs with Chili for supper, the chili came today in a package from my parents. Many thanks! I'm letting the kids watch a movie and hope to get them to bed early because they are showing signs of tiredness. Attached is a picture Angie took of two books that belonged to Martin Luther. They were taken at a Lutheran Church in Paris. God bless, JASON

Le jour de Saint Valentine.

We finished a busy week, due mainly to tests. There was a test Tuesday over concession and consequence. Something I had never thought of was that there are different French words translated as "however", "nevertheless", "in spite of", and "yet". They have the same significance but each can only be used in a certain grammatical order. Tuesday's test did not have a word bank, which was a first. So we had to remember all the different phrases by memory and make sentences with them, 10 different words to express cause, 6 for consequence, 3 for concession and 3 for another one that I can't remember at this moment. Thursday we had a mid semester test which took two days. Thursday morning we did the grammar part and Friday we did reading and oral. For Friday we had to answer questions over dialogues the teacher would play for us, and then we had to give a three minute speech about a subject with the teacher and then she would ask questions. We only had ten minutes to prepare. Other than tests, we received two packages from our church this week. This morning I did work on our taxes and got caught up on email. This evening, Angie and I are going to watch the movie "Fireproof" from the makers of "Facing the Giants". It arrived in one of the packages from our church. Attached picture is of the flowers I bought Angie this morning, and a picture of a picture taken when we left our wedding (still have birdseed attached to us). God bless, JASON

Christmas Eve Eve

Christmas Eve Eve was a term we coined when we where kids for this day, two days before Christmas. We received a large package this morning from my sister and brother-in-law and their church near Palestine. The kids were really excited about it, mostly because it was big. As with all of our packages we gather around and say a prayer of thanksgiving for those who sent it. This package came via UPS and they charged taxes, which has never happened before. Andrew loved the packing peanuts. The weekend passed well, the new Williams family ate lunch with us after church. We have been making several runs to the store to pick up stuff and wrapping presents in between. The Pascall family is visiting us tonight for supper. They will be leaving for Senegal in a week. They have passed a lot of stuff down to us, all of their winter clothes that they will not be needing anymore. Since being here in France I have learned a lot about Africa. Pictured is our language school class, there will be three new students arriving in January that we look forward to getting to know. God bless and Merry Christmas Eve Eve, JASON