Birthdays and visits

Playing basketball at Micah's party.

Rain clouds coming in.

Monday again.  Monday's never really bothered me.  I always seemed to carry the excitement from Sunday over into the work week.  We had another good week.  Our kick off for the Bible study was well.. There were 5 in attendance.  We continued our study through in the book of John and had a good time of updates and prayer for the future of our work here.  Wednesday we had Micah's birthday part, which ended up being on Angie's birthday.  I bought a new rug for Angie's birthday, and wisely enough, I let her pick it out.  I ended up coaching Wednesday afternoon almost all by myself.  There were 8 kids present again.  I had a good time with them.  We had a good number show up for the grown ups practice time as well, 20.  The market was well attended, I had a good visit with a another christian who was there selling matresses.  Also, the pastor from Carcassonne stopped by with the guest speaker who was at their church this last Sunday.  We had a good visit.  He will soon be attending seminary in Fort Worth.  Angie has still been on call to translate for the Australian friend of ours expecting twins.  She is two weeks past the date that twins usually arrive, and so I think they may induce her today.  Saturday, it rained all day.  We were supposed to go to Magrie to their art exposition where a friend of ours had some paintings, but we were rained out.  Angie went shopping instead and I did enjoy a visit from a friend in Carcassonne.  Sunday services went really well.  The visiting speaker did an awesome job sharing his testimony and sharing God's word.  We stayed for the meal afterwards and invited the speaker to eat with us on Monday night.  Sunday, late afternoon I finally made it to the art exhibit.  Our friend won an award and Caleb and I had a good time attending and visited for a little while afterwards.  We are looking forward to another blessed week, and pray that you have one as well. JASON

I might have shared this picture before, but this time I'm
ignoring the sleeping beauty and
pointing out the rug that was Angie's present.

Catching up with people.

Arianna and her friend are ready to walk.

Lilia enters the clouds.



Some of the local wildlife.

The boys run up ahead.

With the kids getting bigger, it was time to get some more
dressors.  Thanks IKEA!

Someone else took this picture in Turkey,
Andrew drinking out of the pitcher,
wearing his turkish hat, we me
oblivious in the background.

Greetings!  Another week has gone by.  We have been blessed to have had the opportunity to see almost all our contacts this past week.  We had visitors Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Saturday and Sunday.    Friday morning market went well.  It was good to catch up with everyone.  Same for the services in Carcassonne, we had a great time, though I found out when I arrived that  I was supposed to be officiating.  Oops.  Thursday night we had a friendly basketball game with the team in Castelnaudary. We had a great time. We lost by ten points but played well considering we had two new players to our team. I scored 4 points. First part of the week, we got setttled back in, shopped, and hosted guests.  Wednesday basketball went good again.  Thursday we celebrated Micah's birthday and we bought them a Wii. We thought about getting him a Nintendo DS but they ended up being more expensive. A good thing about the Wii that I didn't know is that it can also play DVDs and surf the web.  I had a good time with Micah.  We gave him the game but not the console.  I told them that he could play it in the DVD player.  After several failed attempts I finally brought out the console, to many delightful cries and sighs of relief.  The following market went well, really windy again, as a tropical storm spins in the Atlantic, sending us rain and wind.  Saturday night we were invited to a BBQ with friends in a forest up in the mountains.  We had a great time.  The kids enjoyed wandering on the paths and the food and fellowship was good.  Services went well in Carcassonne, Angie offered to be a translater for an Australian couple who is expecting twins any day now.  The husband is a rugby player in Carcassonne. Sunday afternoon we made a visit and had a couple come visit us, and still managed to hear most of our sending church services on Skype.  Looking foward to this week.  Tuesday night will be our restart of the Bible Study.  God bless, JASON

Micah opening some presents, his official party will be this
Wednesday.

Arianna falls asleep on Angie's new rug, Angie's birthday present.

Visitors and Coaching

Coach Jason

The group in Barcelona.

Notre Dame de Marceille in Limoux

We have had a good visit with Lynn and Brenda.  We had a good visit with the church in Barcelona (Andrew and I).  We enjoyed the services and meal afterwards and then headed back with Lynn and Brenda.  They arrived without their  checked bags which were left in Turkey. They got one of them by Wednesday but the other one will have to follow them to their next destination.  Angie got her bag on Tuesday.  We got the kids in school in Monday.  Andrew was the only one who gave problems.  Micah did fuss a little, but found a couple of kids he knew in his class.  Andrew however had to be pried, crying from his momma.  He did fine after lunch and the rest of this week.  It has been a fun filled time of doing homework, filling out paperwork and such.  Lilia as usual, is taking care of all her stuff, she brings me a paper every now and then and says "Sign here".  We got Lilia and Caleb enrolled in swimming again.  We are looking for Andrew a soccer team. Micah and Andrew are also in basketball. I had my first coaching session Wednesday night.  It went well.  We had a good group of kids, already twice as many as last year.  I hope that they stick with it.  I worked with the group ages 5 to 9.  There were 9 in this group.  Thankfully we got some new balls and a new goal as well.  We drove the Raburns to the airport in Carcassonne this morning where they are heading to Scotland.  We enjoyed their visit, didn't go see a lot of stuff, but had some fun visiting together.   As you see in the pictures, Angie took them to see a church, built in the 1100's, Notre Dame de Marceille.  Looking forward to this weekend and to the market in the morning.  God bless, JASON

Retreat in Turkey

Angie caught this hummingbird in our front yard.

Angie and I at the mineral formations in Hierapolis. (Micah
wondered why the snow didn't melt)

Arianna and I walk through the cascading water.

The boys enjoy one of the pools.

They don't seem to be admiring the view.

Angie at the ruins of Laodecia.

Well, we did not stay back in France for long, not long enough to get over jet lag.  After some frantic unpacking and packing, we left for the airport in Marseille at 2:30 Sunday morning.  We we made it to the airport and two planes later was in Ismir, were we met some good friends from Kenya, and boarded a bus for the city near there to spend the night.  We enjoyed seeing all of our missionary friends there.  In the morning we all caught a bus for a 3 hour ride to Pamakkale (Hierapolis). The retreat was excellent, great preaching, fellowship, and teaching.  I enjoyed sharing with the men in one session.  The kids had a great time in VBS, swimming, and playing with their friends.  The food was good, and we finally got caught up after jet lag.  We did take a touristy tour of ancient Hierapolis, with its hot (more like warm) baths and formations.  It was very beautiful as we scaled the mountain of running water, kids playing all the way.  After sad goobyes we again headed back to France.  A couple of flights and long lines found us in Brussells with a 7 hour layover, where I mentioned to Angie that we had never lost a bag with all our travels and that we were probably over due.  Later arriving in Marseille, we solved that statistical problem, when Angie's bag did not arrive. Hopefully they will get it back to us soon.  We are one again unpacking and preparing for the first day of school on Monday and the Raburns visiting with us.  I will pick them up in Barcelona tomorrow, and attend services there.  God bless, JASON 



They must have a lot of kids.

Kids sing on the their VBS songs.

Back in France

Saying goodbyes at the Dallas airport.

Saturday we had a get together at my Grandmothers house.
All but 5 members of the family made it.

Our time in the States finished well.  The last two weeks we visited family and friends and 3 churches.  I really enjoyed catching several services at the church where I grew up and where my father was preaching a revival.  I also was able to attend the opening day ceremony at TBI, the seminary I attended.  We spent our last Sunday with our sending church, I preached the morning message.  It has been great to reconnect with them.  We spent Monday and Tuesday morning, either packing or shopping. Tuesday before we left we celebrated Arianna's 2nd birthday.  We then headed out to the airport for our flight to Dallas.  The flight went well, although the kids did not sleep much.  Arianna did well, except for a moment when she threw up what seemed like the three days worth of food on me.  We both had extra clothes so no big problem.  We were blessed to have purchased our tickets through British Airways, which give pastors and missionaries and extra bag.  So  we carried 20 bags with no extra fees.  We had a 5 hour layover in London.  Micah and Caleb slept most of that time.  It was a short 2 hour flight to Toulouse where our friends met us at the airport.  We made the journey back home without any problems.  The house was spotless and the Pastor's wife in Carcassonne, had prepared a meal for us.  We got everything inside, ate, and slept off and on until noon.  I did some shopping and running around and then we spent the rest of the day unpacking.  Today we will try to get the kids school supplies.  We will be leaving Sunday for the International Missionary Retreat, put on by our good friends, Lynn and Brenda Raburn (www.lynnraburn.com).  It will be in Turkey this year.  Have a good day and get some good sleep for us.  God bless, JASON

Arianna enjoyed getting to know Angie's parents better.

Arianna now two years old. 

A slower week.

Still spending a lot of time on the road.

Arianna fell asleep standing up.

Andrew and I mow my grandmothers yard.



My Dad with two of his granddaughters. . .
. . Arianna and Naomi.

After revival services we enjoyed a weekend in Mississippi at my Aunt's church.  We had a good time and I even played some basketball before leaving. We took it easy the next week.  Took care of some shopping and visiting with some old friends and some family get toghethers.  We just had another good weekend in College Station, Texas.  Tommorrow we are going to the beach with my sister and her kids.  Our kids never remember swimming in the gulf of Mexico. All they remeber is the cold water of the Medditeranean. I'm looking forward to re-inroducing them to warm water (water temp. is around mid 80's F).  We have just over a week before we head back to France.  God bless, JASON

New York City

Here we are at the Alamo.

At the Statue of Liberty, you can tell that
 Caleb was not feeling well.

The New World Trade Center is almost complete.

Time Square.



The Boys wash their feet in one of our hotels.

We had good travels these last couple of weeks.  The first Sunday after church camp, we had an apointment in San Antonio.  It was our first time to visit with the church there and we had a good time meeting the people.  After services we stopped by and saw the Alamo, which was a first for all of us.  It was nice to see such a piece of Texas history.  I met a french couple while I was there and had a good talk with them.  We returned to Henderson that night and then left the next morning for New York.  We stopped to pick up a rental van, and when we arrived, they did not have on available.  All they had was a 7 passenger SUV, which did not have enough room.  Thankfully God worked things out, and with just a short 30 minute wait, a van was avaiable for us.  We had a good drive to New York.  We took it easy this part of the trip, we spread the 25 hour drive over three days.  We stopped early and found hotels, where the kids could swim and watch the Olympics.  We arrived at New York City Wednesday evening.  We found the hotel no problem and got settled in.  We even enjoyed some authentic NYC pizza. The morning we woke up and hopped on the subway to see some sites.  We saw the new World Trade Center building, the 9-11-01 Memorial Site, we took the ferry over the see the Statue of Liberty.  After seeing the Statue of Liberty we were pretty tired out.  We headed back to the hotel and had some supper.  I went to pick up supper with Lilia and Caleb, we grabbed some chicken and side dishes and then stopped by a small store on the corner to get some paper plates.  Lilia and Caleb were waiting by the door with the food as  I went in and bought the plates.  The told me later that two guys walked out and one said to the other "Do you know Jason Clark?" To which the other guy responded, "Yes I went to high school with him."  I thought that that was wierd.  Just a coincidence or was one of my high school classmates living in NY?  After supper I took Caleb and Lilia to see Times Square all lit up.  They next day we headed to see some friends staying near Boston.  On the way we drove by Central Park.  The drive up to Massacheusetts was long and there was a lot of traffic.  We arrived in time to have supper with our friends the Columbines. We went to language school with them and had to separate to our different fields of labor, so we really enjoyed the visit even though it was short.  That next morning we drove over the Mercer, Pennsylvania for our Sunday appointent.  We had a great time in Mercer Pennsylvania.  We enjoyed the time with the church and visiting with the pastor and his family.  We had long 19 hour drive back home, but we did take a moment for a Doctors appointment.  The kids had been sick on and off during this trip, in particular Caleb, who had a cough that had lingered for a while.  We found out that he had Bronchitis, and got some antibiotics for him.  We had an uneventful drive home, it ended up being about 24 hours straight, but Angie and I took turns and got through it without problems.  We made it back in time for the revival services that I am preaching at Walnut Street, our sending church.  We are having a great time.  God bless, JASON



This Nissan Quest was our vehicule for the trip.