Normandy, France

The family on Utah Beach.

The Craters still remain from the bombing of Point du Hoc.

We left early Monday for our trip to Normandy with my parents.  It was a great trip.  The kids did well in the car for the 9 hour drive (it took us 11 hours).  It helped splitting them up between our car and the rental car.  We ate lunch at a rest stop and had supper at McDonalds before getting to our hotel in Bayeux.  The hotel was nice, inexpensive, and centrally located.  Tuesday morning, we had breakfast at the hotel and spent a day looking at the sights.  We first went to the Utah Beach Museum.  We arrived just after they opened and beat the crowd.  We spent about two hours there.  It was amazing and as an American with two grandfathers who served in WWII, it was a great visit.  We took a walk on the beach before packing up to head to the next stop.  We stopped next at the town St. Mere Eglise, where there is the Airborne Museum.  When the paratroopers where landing in the town one landed on the church steeple and was captured.  There is a dummy hanging there now in memory of him.  Afterwars we went to Omaha Beach followed by the Point Du Hoc.  It is a piece of land jutting out with views of both Omaha and Utah beach.  The germans could use it too target both beaches.  It was heavily bombed and then Rangers stormed the point before the main landings and scaled the 100 ft cliffs using rope ladders and destroyed the guns.  They then held out until reinforcements arrived.  On the more than 225 men that arrived only 90 were alive and fighting at the time reinforcements arrived.  The next stop was the American Cemetery, which was the highlight of the visit for me.  It is the burial site for over 10,000 American Soldiers who were killed in the battles in Normandy.  We stopped by one more musuem, the wreck museum, containing equipement salvaged off the seafloor.  It was already closed, but we were able to see what they had out front.  We made it back to a hotel and ate supper in a nice restaurant nearby.  We headed out early the next morning for Mont St. Michele.  It is an island in a bay that floods during high tides.  The island has a Cathedral built at the top.  Once again we arrived just in time, because as we left we saw a line of cars about 4 miles long waiting to enter.  The rest of the trip home went well.  We rested Thursday and Friday.  Friday, I took the papers in to turn in for our new house.  A few items were missing so  I will try to get those turned in on Tuesday.  Saturday we went and looked at some caves in the area.  We attended services in Carcassonne today.  God bless, JASON

Parents Visit

Mom and Dad couldn't wait to hold Arianna again.

Angie took this picture from our house, we are those
little dots hiking up the trail.

Mom playing a game with the boys.



Mom and Arianna trying to stay warm
at the beach.


I picked up my parents on Tuesday.  Monday we finished preparing for their arrival.  I also finished reading through the New Testament in French. I pickd up my parents at the airport in Toulouse at 5:15 pm.  It was an easy drive and a small airport, which was great.  We made the trip back no problem and they went to bed soon after supper. Wednesday, Angie and I had an appointment to look at a house, we liked the house and are going to try and get it.  It is in a good location and is roomy.  Wednesday afternoon I had my language session and then we went for a walk. Thursday, us boys went on a hike.  Friday, we went to the market in Limoux.  I set up my stand and everyone else did a little shopping.  I had one stop by and get a Bible and a tract. Friday afternoon we worked on repairing the kids bikes while a thunderstorm rolled through.  It has been different weather than my parents are used to.  In Texas they have not had any rain since May 14th, and it was 110 degrees (46 C) the day they left.  Here it has been cloudy and in the 70s (20c). Saturday we picked up the rental car, visited with the pastor in Carcassonne, did a little shopping.  In the afternoon we headed to the Meditteranean to go swimming.  The traffic was bad but we made it after 2 and a half hours, it was sunny and warm when we left, but when we arrived it was cool and cloudy. We had a good time anyways.  We made the trip back home in the normal hour and a half.  Suday we attended the services in Carcassonne. I resided over the services (led singing, brought the devotion, and kids lesson).  Dad brought the message while the pastor translated for him.  We listened together to the services in Walnut Street.  Tommorrow, not only are Angie and I celebrating our 13th year of marriage we will be making a trip to Normandy with my parents.  We are looking forward to seeing the sites there even though the drive will be long.  I will hopefully blog again at our return.  If you would like more information and pictures, you can check out my dad's blog by clicking here, or the link to the right.  God bless, JASON

The boys liked getting hit by the waves.

"Vacation" in full swing

We had to blow out some eggs for the
last youth meeting.  Caleb and Lilia
had the patience to do one apiece.

We had a nice trip to Marseille.  We left at almost 11 and had lunch on the way.  This was a test run for how Arianna would do in the car. Alltogether she spent 7 hours in the car. In a few weeks we are going to Normandy with my parents, which will be at least a 9 hour drive.  She did well, but did require a lot of attention, which might have been partly due to her having a slight temperature the day before, teething I would imagine.  All went well at the Embassy, we enjoyed talking and joking around with the Consul. We did forget the prepaid security envelope, but we just walked to a post office afterwards to pick one up and then we dropped it back by.  We took a scenic route home and had some beautiful views of the Mediteranean.  We arrived home at ten in the evening. Wednesday, the kids were invited to a birthday party of one of Micah's friends.  Angie went with the three oldest kids.  The mother of Micah's friend approached Angie during the party and asked several questions about what we believed and what religion we were.  She said that Micah had been talking with her son about God and her son was asking her questions.  Good job Micah! Thursday I had my conversation time with Eric and we prepared for the Bible Study. I didn't expect a large crowd.  One friend from the church in Carcassonne came and we planned for the next youth meeting.  We invited some of the kids friends (same ones who had the birthday party) over to spend the night tonight, and the whole family to eat lunch with us tomorrow.  Sunday I am leading the service in Carcassonne and I will be bringing their bible study on Tuesday night.  So far the summer "vacation" has gone good.  God bless, JASON

Good-bye

The Paris trip went well. We enjoyed the drive. As normal we take out time, stop every two hours or so and let everyone stretch. We saw some interesting sights on the road. We saw a corvette pulling a camper trailer, and a truck carrying two olive trees that looked a hundred years old. We said goodbye to some friends and met some new ones. The theme seemed to be something that I heard another missionary mom say to her kids, "Tell them good-bye, you will probably never see them again". That seems to be the case sometimes. After our return we received news that one of Angie's uncles had passed away. Evidently he had taken some pain pills from a friend that conflicted with some prescriptions that he was on and he passed away in his sleep. A reminder of the fragility of life, I spoke at his wifes funeral a few years ago. She passed away as a result of an aneurism. Do pray for their family who is dealing with this unexpected loss. The summer vacation is off to a start. Caleb and I went to Carcassonne to meet the new pastor and his family and also do some shopping. The other time was spent working in the yard and catching up with the office work. I made an attempt at making a special desert for the kids last night, a strawberry chocolate milkshake. After I passed it out to the excited kids, the first reaction came from Caleb, who said, "Berk (French), this tastes like beach sand". After sampling myself, he was exactly right. I do not know why the salt container ressembles so closely the sugar container. Attached picture is Lilia with her friends. God bless, JASON

Les Grandes Vacances

Such is the term for the summer break here in France. Today was the kids last day of school. Lilia stayed home this afternoon and I took her to meet a couple of friends at the pool. We are going to Paris this weekend to say "hi" and "goodbye" to a few friends. I will be leaving the computer behind (i'm going to hide it, so don't get any ideas) so this will be a good get-a-way weekend. School ended well for the kids. We only had one come for the Bible study tonight, which I expected because many are getting away for the weekend and/or have end of school meetings and events. We will return Sunday afternoon and are looking forward to greeting the new pastor of the church in Carcassonne who will arrive Monday. God bless, JASON

Fruitcake

Christmas day ended well. We played with the kids, talked with both of our parents on Skype. I made some Fruit cake as well. I guessed at all the amounts, but it came out well. The color was a little of because the graham crackers (actually cookies) were a lighter color, and the only marshamellows we could find were pink and white. But it tasted good never-the-less. Saturday I got our financial reports done and spent the rest of the day straightening and playing with the kids. It rained all day long. Sunday was nice and sunny. Services where good in Carcassonne, the sermon was over Simeon from Luke ch. 2 and what we could learn from him. Afterwards we went home with Neil and Helen, a British couple who have a vacation home in a village not too far from Carcassonne. We enjoyed a good meal and visit together. They served fruit cake for dessert and it was very good. We all sat outside and watched the kids play and enjoyed the sunshine. We made it back in time to hear the services from our Church in Texas. Tomorrow I will work on the monthly report to be sent to all our supporting churches. Angie's cough which had seemed to almost have disappeared was worse today and yesterday. Please join me in praying that it does not get any worse. Attached pictures are of our meal and a view of the Pyrennes Mountains just south of us. God bless, JASON

Au revoir aux vacances.

We have said goodbye to the vacation. We had a good visit, I have attached pictures of some of our guests. The Columbine family with their two daughters, the Davey Family, and the Williams Family with their five. School started Wednesday for the kids. Angie and I have been getting things back in order. Yesterday was mostly spent grocery shopping. God answered our prayers is a amazing way as the exchange rate lowered three cents in three days last week. It actually had me scared. I had noticed that it was worse everytime I checked it, so . . I stopped checking it. Problem solved. I rechecked three days later and it had dropped three cents so I thougth there must have been something big happen. I was worried a terrorist attach and some major legislation passed. Didn't find anything. Must have just been a market rally. I really need to get working on some French exercises. We had just started a new book at the language school and we have several chapters in it left that we can work on. I need to get caught up in reading my French book and French Bible. God bless, JASON

Vacation in full swing.

The vacation has been good so far. Monday Angie got the shopping done. We have managed well to stay in our budget. Tuesday we had the visiting pastor and his family over. We had a real good time with them. Their kids and ours played together all afternoon. Angie left this morning to get our friends from Massy. I had planned on going, but this morning she decided she would like to so she and Lilia have left and will return tomorrow. Attached pictures are Lilia and Caleb reading their Bibles before we left for church (for Caleb's sake they chose French). God bless, JASON

Acts of Kindness

School finished well. Friday we had a breakfast with our class and the class below us. We had a good time sampling some good food. Angie made breakfast sausage that was a real big hit with the Americans especially. Also I received some Dr. Pepper that I had ordered off the Internet and was able to share with them. There were mixed responses from those that had never tried it. But once again the Americans were real pleased.
Another event developed late Friday. Angie talked to her missionary friend in Kenya. They have had a rough time with one of their close friends losing a newborn baby in the middle of which their own daughter had a bad fall and broke her arm in several places. They had to go to Nairobi for the surgery, so Angie had the thought to fly down and help out. Angie has a nice streak like that. She always wants to help others. Sometimes I have had to be the voice of region and hold her back, but I told myself early in our marriage that if I could I would let her help as much as possible. We looked online to get an idea of the costs and the tickets were around $1400-$1600. We have a two week vacation, so that wasn't a problem. We worked out the details with our friends in Kenya and put in a call to Bro. Jack who is a travel agent who works full time booking travel and logistic work for missionaries and missions teams. (We ate with him in Paris a couple a weeks ago) He was able to find a flight for just over $700 dollars! So, Angie will be leaving Sunday to spend a week helping and encouraging the Taylor family serving in East Kenya. As events proceed, Angie and I will keep you updates. She has gone shopping right now to find here some sandals, it has been a while since we have experienced a hot climate. God bless, JASON

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

Vacation drawing closer.

Another week behind us, which means that we have only one more week before we get a break. That means seeing my parents. We have had a good week. As I already mentioned, a good visit with our guests Wednesday. Thursday we had fun doing our "job interviews" for the class. I think we both did well. Friday night we had all our classmates over at our house for a party of sorts. It was a lot of fun, everyone brought food and we talked for a couple of hours. There was a lot of laughter. We managed to keep most of the conversations in french since our teacher was present.
I am making plans to get our Colorado drivers license so we can swap for a french one. Its a long story, I will explain more later.
Tomorrow (Sunday) I am going to stay here with the kids and let Angie go to the church in Paris for the services as I did last week. We may decide to go as a family, but maybe not. We have been trying to keep some routine in the kids life. I have had a good day today. Did a lot of paper work. Angie gave the boys hair cuts, it will be my turn shortly. Thanks for reading and God bless, JASON

August Vacations

We had a good weekend. Saturday Angie and I took the boys to the grocery store. Lilia went to a friends house. It is rare for all of us to go to the store. The local Cora is usually very busy and difficult to navigate with kids. We had a good time and the store was not as busy as normal. Services went good Sunday, we had a lesson over Ephesians 3: . I like how Paul explains that
"is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think". "Exceeding Abundantly" could be translated from the greek as "super-duper-abundantly". I liked explaining to the kids that God has the ability to do great things and chooses to do what is best for us. As always we enjoyed hearing and seeing Walnut Streets services live via Skype. Many businesses are closed around Paris for the month of August. The Sandwich shop next door to us and a Bakery around the corner have both closed for the month. I would like to take the kids to Paris a couple of times this month to see some sights, but we will have to see how that goes after the first trip. Summer school ended well, one of the students was a missionary kid from Kenya. I was wondering if he could take some gifts to the Taylors, our missionary friends who just moved to the East coast of Kenya, but he lives near Nairobi. But this week he is traveling to eastern Kenya for vacation and so he was willing to take the items. It worked out real well. The Taylors arrived a few weeks ago and have not received their container yet so I know they are missing some things. I had better get busy with the days activities. God bless, JASON

Trips into town.

We have already made a couple of trips into Paris this week. Tuesday Angie went with some girls from the Language school. They went to the largest Christian books store in Paris. It was about half the size of a movie store in the US. That shows somewhat the spiritual state of France. Yesterday I went into town to buy a new bow for my saw, I dropped mine last week and it broke. I went into an area of town (Rome street) that has several dozen music stores and found what I needed. I had a good trip, Lilia and Caleb went with me, it took about 3 hrs. The bow cost 75 euros (little over $100). Last night I found out about a mother and daughter from a church in Texas who were stranded by their tour group in Paris when the mother fell and shattered her knee. I called and made sure they are okay and Angie is now going to check on them. I can imagine how difficult it would be to be in their situation. School is continuing to go well. There are a couple of students who are teachers and other professionals who simply are here as a vacation and language polishing trip. It would be a good time. The school handles room and board and plans activities. It would be a nice three week trip in a good christian and safe environment. Check out their website if you would be interested. http://www.lescedres.com/ God bless, JASON

Our trip (part IV)

Of course the high point of the trip for the kids was the beach. We were only about an hour away. The beach was nice but the water was cold. It didn't bother the kids though. There was a somewhat embarassing moment when Micah decided that he needed to go to the restroom and pulled his pants down right on the beach facing the ocean. He wasn't embarassed though.

Our trip (part II)

We decided today while we still had the car that we would drive to the grocery store. Today is Bastille Day and the store was packed. Every check-out had about 10 people waiting in line, even though there are 50 checkouts in this store. We walked down one aisle and then left, that was enough. Continuing on our trip, we saw some really cool sights while there. We toured a large castle called cité de Carcasonne. It was a huge castle fortress with a small town inside of it. It was used on the movie Robin Hood - Prince of Thieves. There were some pretty drives, we found out while driving that a couple of our boys are prone to car sickness, lovely.

On the Road Again!

We picked up our rental car this morning. We are driving a Ford Galaxy. It is nice, standard transmission, diesel, 6 speed, 43 mpg, seats 7. I'll post a picture when we get back. We have already stretched ourselves, I have driven in Paris, France. It wasn't too bad. While we were on deputation, I didn't bother keeping up with how many total miles we drove. We went 5000 in one month. So this trip will not be to bad. I have not bought gas for over 6 months. It will be interesting to fill up at the pump. The display in the car said that it could go 750 km on one tank, so we should be able to make it all the way down there on one tank. We are visiting Limoux which is a small town of about 10000 people. It is about 25 miles south of Carcossonne where there was a accidental millitary shooting recently. That is just east of Toulouse and West of Marseille. It is about an hour from the Spanish border, where we will probably go to fill up with Gas. It is about 45 minutes from the beach, which is the main attraction to us. I will blog and post a lot of pictures when we return. The remaining language school students celebrated the fourth of July with a BBQ today. It was a lot of fun. Be in prayer for us while we are traveling and on vacation. Be in prayer for my grandfather Clyde Clark who suffered from a series of heart attacks and is in the hospital, he is very weak. Also be in prayer for Angie, her blood pressure was high still, so the Doctor told her to lay off the salt. That will be tough for her, especially when I am eating popcorn next to her, which I will. God bless and we will be back with you shortly. JASON

French Doctors Visit

Angie and I had our visit with the Doctor to move along our Visa process. We had to leave the house at 6:45 so we arranged for a friend to watch our kids and walk them to school when it was time. That meant we had to get up about 5:30 to get everyone ready. We left, walked 10 minutes to the train station. Caught the train for 40 minutes. Got on a bus for 12 minutes (most packed bus I had been on). When then walked one more block to the office. There was a line extending out the door. After we sat inside we waited for about thirty minutes where almost everyone in the waiting room was falling asleep, including Andrew. They then called a group of about 10 inside to the doctors office. We were last of the 10 but we went first once inside. It was pretty standard stuff. They took height, weight, blood pressure, chest x-ray, past medical histroy and such. After we got inside it probably was over in 20 mintues. Then we made the trip back home and got back around 10:30. After lunch we had a good little nap. We will prepare things today for our vacation. This "vacation" is actually a good step in our language acquisition. It is good to get out of your friendly and known environment to a new one that also brings about needs to communicate in french. Friday I will pick up our rental car, I need to start brushing up on my car vocabulary. God bless, JASON

What's next?

Final exams are finished, all goodbyes have been said, What is next? We received our grades from the last semester. Drum roll please. On the exam, Jason made 82.5 and Angie made 85. For the course Jason made 87.75 and Angie made 88.5. As usual Angie just beat me again. As far as a general overview of what happens next. School ends for the kids on July 4th. We will then leave for a weeks vacation to the south of France. We return and I get started with summer school which will last three weeks to the first of August. School starts again the first of September. The second week of school we will go to Greece for a Missionary Retreat. This next school year we will also be working on securing our visa for next year and searching for housing to have when we finish school. We finish school in June, make a trip back to the US for several months to check on everyone and then return again to France. Of course during all of this time we will be working to help get the church a firm footing here and training new disciple makers and hopefully a pastor as well. Wow, sounds like a lot, that helps get it straight in my head. Thanks for the thoughts and prayers. God bless, JASON

Return to school, then another vacation.

We returned to school monday. It was an interesting day. The electricity went off at 3 in the morning and didn't come back on until 3:30 in the afternoon. The entire street for one block was out of power. It didn't have a great effect, the worst part was we had very little hot water. We are off thursday this week, like the french 4th of July. We picked right back up learning in school and have leaned future simple tense. We also learned the difference between "savoir" (to know) and "connaitre" (to know), confusing. The weather really has been pretty the last week. It was interesting, for weeks it was chilly with 50% chance of rain everyday. Then one day it was clear and warm and has been for about a week now. Attached is the kids wearing the sunglasses that Angie bought for them. JASON