Rain has come and gone.

The big news Sunday and Monday was the rain. We got about 6 inches in two days. This may not sound like much compared to some other countries, but that is the equivalent to 4 months worth here. Our driveway started washing away, but thankfully there was enough to still drive by. Monday was shopping day and paperwork. Tuesday was getting my lesson ready. Tuesday night Basketball practice went well. I acutally had a couple of mini-conversations with some of the guys. Wednesday, I took the kids to their swimming class, and finished working on my sermon. Thursday, I took our car to the dealership for its 40,000 km check-up. It had a few filters replaced and the oil changed. I left directly from there to go to Montpellier for my appointment with the French Office of Imigration and Integration (OFII). It took about 2 hours to get their and then 45 minutes to find the place. The streets were horrible. There was construction going on as they are expanding the Tram. Some streets were closed and some streets that were once one direction, were now the other direction. My GPS actually started to yell at one point. I finally parked and took off walking. It still was a 45 mintue walk. After asking 4 people for directions it ended up being right across from the train station. The appointment went well, I had x-rays taken, met with the doctor and then with the "Visa lady". I also found out about Angie's visa. Normally they schedule husband and wife together so I was thinking there was a problem. You cannot get in touch with them by phone or email so I had to wait til my appointment. Come to find out that Angie's paper was stuck to the back of mine and they did not notice it. Wow. They said they would hurry and try to get her an appointment in a couple of weeks. I met a couple of people there, an american couple with a young baby, and a newly married couple from Chili. I actually gave the Chiliean couple a ride home because they missed their train because of the strike. That is another subjet all together. President Sarkozy is trying to raise the retirement age from 60 to 62. This has made many people upset. College and high school kids are striking because there will be less jobs if people work two extra years. Others are striking because their work conditions are hard and they don't want to endure it for two more years. Transportation has been slow as there are a lot less trains running. All but one Total refinery has been closed (hoping that there are not any gas shortages). Anyways it is nice to have the visa paperwork done (at least for me). I made it back home 30 minutes before the Bible study. We took a break from the sermon on the mount to look at the healing of the man born blind. There were three present not including us. Today I need to get gas (done), look at a friends computer (done), work on getting a bill paid (done), blog (doing), make a trip to the dump, move some furniture, and not forget to get the kids. Basketball practice is tonight and tomorrow there is a conference at a church in Toulouse on Homiletics that I will be attending. Enjoy some rainy day pictures and God bless, JASON

 

Fixed

Monday and Tuesday have passed quickly. I'm having trouble remembering what happened. I was able to make it to the bible study in Carcassonne. The new pastor is Carcassonne will be arriving soon. They are working on getting his house fixed up today. Spent a lot of time working on the Bible Study, I changed my mind on the subject Tuesday morning and so I had to start from scratch. I am about to have my session with my language partner. We will have a couple friends over tonight to work in music. Angie continues to get tired easily. Thankfully she is usually able to rest for a little and get back to it, it is a temporary fix. I have fixed a few things around the house recently. Our grill wasn't working probaly, there was a problem with the regulator, which I fixed. A knob had stopped working on the washing machine, got that fixed. A shelf in the boys closet fell out, got that fixed. We had bought a large bag of legos at at a garage sale, got those cleaned. Soon I will be going over my lesson for tomorrow and hope to have it fixed. The kids will not have school tomorrow because their teachers are on strike, trying to get some things fixed that they dislike about the school system. Attached picture is a rainbow we saw during the rains that passed through last week and Caleb fixin to shoot a target at the school fair. God bless, JASON

Jason's Flying

Jason left today for Colorado to get his driver's license there so it will exchang directly with the French one. Jason's should arrive in Colorado around 8:30pm mountain time. You know flights always make me pray more. Especially when it is me or Jason flying. Anyone else do that too? Then I have to remind myself that I am in God's hand no matter where I am.
The kid's schools were on strike today and Andrew and Micah are a little under the weather. I have had Andrew home all week. But as soon as Jason was out the door the phone rang and it was the kids school saying that Lilia and Caleb could come. Caleb's teacher was not on strike and neither was Lilia's french teacher and she could just stay in that class. So I thought ok here we go. The call was at 9:35 and when I told the kids we all realized we hadn't done their homework the night before. So we got that done quick, got shoes on, and walked them to school at 10:30. I thought ok the kids can eat at the cafeteria and I can go back home and take care of these two little guys. But no! There is no cafeteria today because they are on strike. So I took the little guys to a park by the school for the hour until school was let out for lunch at 11:30. Then we came home and got all warm and I called my friend Lauren and asked if she could walk them back to school. She said yes and was also kind enough to offer to come this afternoon and watch the little ones while I go get Lilia and Caleb. It is nice to have good friends who can help you out when you need it. GOD BLESS, Angie

The recital, the fair, the train.

It is hard to believe that it is Saturday again. We were blessed to receive a gift box from a church in Henderson, Texas. As is our custom when we receive a package from the US, we unpack it all together and give a prayer of thanksgiving. We had Lilia's piano recital Thursday night. I was unable to attend because Caleb had a small fever that day. This morning we went to the fair at the boys school. It was a lot of fun. Angie voluntered to help run a booth where the kids would make omelettes. She burned herself pretty bad on the arm by accidentally touching the cooker thing on the top of it. We got her some medicine from the Pharmacy. It worked really well. This afternoon I was going to go help our friends move some stuff to their new apartment. Caleb and I walked to the local RER station and it was closed. I thought that was unusual, but they have been having contsruction to install an elevator. We took a bus to a larger station a mile or two south. The electronic machine for buying tickets there was not working. So we waited in line to buy tickets, there was a sign on the door that said the windows would open at 1:30, but they did not. Someone asked and apparently they were not going to open at all. So we did what any good Parisiane would, we decided to take the train without a ticket. Of course we would purchase our tickets when we got off and explain everything. We walked to the train platform (quai in French) and the train was sitting there empty. I checked the monitor which said no trains were running today. Grève! (strike!) So much for those plans, I feel bad for people who had bigger plans like going to the airport. It wasn't official until this morning so there was no warning. C'est la vie. Que sera, sera. I am looking forward to services tommorrow. Monday we go for our Doctors appointment for our Carte de Sejour (visa). Thanks for the prayers and offerings and gifts. JASON

Another blessed service.

Services were blessed again today. We had Matt Critcher visiting with us from Arkansas. I was a joy to have him and he brought a great lesson. We had great fellowship for several hours afterwards. The weather has cooled off here. It is supposed to get down to 44 degrees tonight. I'm looking forward to school this week. Last week we had a large test, and speech to give, and I preached during assembly time Friday, so it was hectic. Adding to that was Angie getting a little under the weather and the boys having no school thursday because of the strike. There was a protest outside of our apartment today. I received a flyer and could make out that they were unhappy with Sarkozy and were forming a new political party. I though about going to their meeting just for the socialization and French language acquisition. I killed a mouse in the garage yesterday. We are having some visitors possibly stopping by from Mississippi at the end of the month. We are looking forward to seeing them. Matt was graciously delivered my musical saw and several other items that we missed from the states. Pictured is Matt and the strikers outside. God bless, 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