It's good to be "home"......

We have been having a great time in Florida.  It was wonderful to be back in our home church last Sunday and last night for the Wednesday service.  Our Pastor was commenting on the different ministries that take place on Wednesday evenings at our church (nursery, King's Kids, Teens).  It occurred to me that we have a child in each of these ministries!.....does this mean we are getting old?

We had the opportunity to sing Sunday and last night I gave a testimony of our language school experience.  This coming Sunday, I will be preaching in place for our Pastor as he will be at Golden State Baptist College in California, preaching in their chapel service.  I am looking forward to preaching, however, it will be strange to preach all in English for the first time in over a year!

We have enjoyed being with family and the kids have enjoyed the attention of all the grandparents and even one of their great-grandmothers!  One of the benefits of having Kami's family and my family live in the same city and attend the same church, is that we don't have to travel to different places to see our family.

(Callie and two cousins competing for Grandpa's attention!)

(Joshua and I competing for Grandma's attention!)

(Grandma June meeting her youngest great-grand daughter...)

Elisabeth and Brenna have been learning to decorate and make cakes.  They have made several cakes already...(.if you haven't seen them, you can look through my older posts and see the pics)  One of the ladies at our church, Mrs. Lopez, started a cake decorating class for the young ladies that are home-schooled.  They meet at the church on Tuesday afternoons and our two girls are able to be a part of this class.  They are so excited!

(Mrs. Lopez and her class of girls)

(Brenna's work of art!)

(Beth's flower creation!)

It has also been very special seeing Miss Stephanie Horton.   She was part of our teen youth-department when I was the youth director before we surrendered to the mission field.  She just graduated from Golden State Baptist College as is home here awaiting her upcoming marriage to the young man she met in college.  It is always a treat to see one of the young people that you prayed for and worked with, still serving the Lord!  Miss Stephanie has always had a heart that sought after God and we always knew that she would make a wonderful "preacher's" wife.  The young man she is marrying is indeed a preacher and he is seeking the Lord's will of where to serve God after their marriage in January.   If any of you preachers are reading this and need a young, Godly, couple to work with your young people at your church, you will not go wrong considering this young couple. 

Until next time................

Finally Back Home!!!........in Florida!

I had posted in an earlier post that we were planning on wrapping up language school and heading back to Florida.  After talking with our Pastor, Don Strange, we came to the conclusion that we had a good foundation in French and that we needed to raise some more support.  I began to schedule some meetings in Florida and started filling in my calendar as we made plans to pack up our household and head back to Florida.  However, we decided to make it a surprise for Kami's family!

It wasn't easy preparing to go and keeping coming home a secret.  We technically left last Saturday (September 17th) and headed to Trois Rivieres to teach Sunday school and preach.  We loaded our U-Haul trailer and headed out for our week-long drive.  After the morning services on Sunday, I asked Kami if we had the passports, to which she replied, yes they are in the van.  I found them and counted 6 passports.  Great!  We were ready to go........except we forgot there are 7 in our family.  Poor little Callie Grace left her passport packed in our U-Haul trailer. 

Yes, we did....we had to unload almost half the trailer before we reached the box with her passport.  We then reloaded the trailer and then tried to head out on the road.....to which we realized that we had lost our car keys........ughhhhhh!   We found them after 15 minutes and finally hit the road.  

We traveled all week long and arrived yesterday (Friday) to my mom's house.  We unloaded our trailer and ate lunch.  Then we headed to Kami's dad's car-lot.  What a great surprise!  We then loaded our three older kids into his car as he went home.  He called Kami's mom to come out to the car when he pulled into the driveway, he said he had a surprise for her.  As she was looking in the trunk of the car for her surprise, the kids jumped out from the back seat.  She began to scream and we all enjoyed the surprise!

It is good to be back in the U.S. and back home in Florida.  The last time I was here was for my dad's funeral.  We are staying with my mom at her new home.  It is sad to not be at the house I grew up in, but excited for this next chapter in the life of our family and of my mom.

We are excited about being at our home church tomorrow and excited about the upcoming meetings that we have scheduled.  Keep praying for our family and the next stage in our life which brings us closer to our mission field!

Busy Last Few Days!

With the last few days being so busy, I am finally getting to post a quick family update....

I had a great time preaching last Wednesday at Eglise Baptiste de St-Augustin.  I was able to lead the singing in French...if you can call it "leading singing"!

This past Sunday, I was able to preach at Eglise Baptiste de La Foi in Trois Rivieres.  Bro. Hamby was still out of town so I had the opportunity to preach and teach Sunday school in his place.  (I do have to wonder why we lose our car keys every time we have a meeting there....no kidding.....this is the 4th time in a row that we have lost our keys!.......we do find them after a while of searching!)

Our family along with Madame Estelle and the Burdette's (another missionary family) went apple picking.  We had never been apple picking at an orchard before.  We went to Isle d'Orleans which is the big island in the middle of the St. Lawrence River.  We picked 13 lbs of apples in about 7 minutes!  It sure doesn't take long to fill a bag of apples.  We had a great time and Silas loved the little "zoo" of animals on display.  He "quacked" at the chickens and "neighed" at the goats.  Then he wanted to pet the turkeys but I don't think they really wanted to be petted.

The past couple of weeks have been very busy, but we enjoyed our day of picking apples!  We loved the adventure and loved the fresh apples!

Happy Birthday à ma belle-mère!!!.....and other news!

Happy Birthday to my mother-in-law!!!  She turns 65 today!!!!.......okay.....she's not in her sixty's.  She's a great mother-in-law (although she's the only one I have had.....thus I could say she is the worst as well!)  Happy Birthday!!!  The picture is of the cake that Elisabeth and Brenna made for her birthday.  They wanted to make a cake of her favorite hobby....quilting!!! 

Other News......
I have had the opportunity to preach several times in the past week.  Last Wednesday, I preached at St. Augustin and was able to lead singing in French.  For those of you who know that I cannot sing, just wait until you hear me sing in French!!!  Joshua was also able to lead the singing for the last song of the service and he did a great job.

This past Sunday we drove to Trois Rivieres to teach Sunday School and preach in both the AM and PM services.  Pastor Jason Hamby is out of town and I will be replacing him this coming Sunday as well.  We were able to sing a family song together and we had a great fellowship with Mrs. Amanda Hamby and 2 of the Hamby boys.   We love the Hamby's and always have a wonderful fellowship with them.

I will be preaching tonight at St. Augustin again.  (Yes, I will take another swing at leading singing again.....although is it really leading singing if you don't know what to do with the hand motion thing???)

Happy Birthday Grammy!!!......Mom!!!!

Happy Birthday to my mom....a.k.a. "Grammy"!!!

Elisabeth and Brenna spent this afternoon making this chocolate cake (Grammy's favorite) decorated with yellow roses (Grammy's favorite again!).

Although her birthday is tomorrow, September 8th, we "skyped" her this evening and showed her this special birthday cake made just for her.  We also got to see her open her birthday gift that we had mailed to her as well.  (We love Skype!) We miss you Mom and we look forward to seeing you soon.  Not only will you spoil our children with too much ice cream, but you can help us keep up with our French as well!  Thanks for being a great mom and wonderful Grammy!!!

Kami's Sunday School lesson.......all in French

Kami had been preparing a Sunday school lesson in French.  Her hopes were to create a simple lesson on the Bible that she could use to teach the children of St. Barths and introduce them to God's Word.

She prepared not only a lesson but also a craft and a children's song in French about the Bible.

The kids had a great time and Kami loved getting back into working with children at church.  We both feel like we have so much to learn of the French language (and we do!) yet we know that we have a great foundation to be able to begin working with the people of St. Barths.  Only time, practice and lot's of mistakes will help to become fully fluent in French.  We trust that God will continue to teach us and mold us into what He wants us to be.

Our Picnic....

This past week we were able to take a picnic after one of our French classes.  We packed up some sandwiches, chips and drinks for a lunch picnic.

We headed to a park along the St. Lawrence River.  The sailboats were beautiful as they sailed along the river and I was "itching" to get on a boat and go fishing!

At the park, the kids enjoyed these water fountain things.  They just played and laughed and had a great time.

Silas would just laugh and giggle as the water would get lower and then shoot up into his face!

Thanks to my wife for the idea of a picnic on a beautiful day.  Apart from my allergies, it was a great day to be outside and enjoy the sun and outdoors!

We are going to miss Quebec and the wonderful parks and walking trails along the river and in the woods.  We have found that Quebec is one of the safest places that we have ever lived and we will miss our wonderful neighborhood.  Our language school time is coming to an end and we are trying to enjoy as much of Quebec as we can before we have to leave!

Please pray for our mail......

That might seem like a weird request, but there is a reason.  You see, we sent over 90 letters to Pastors and churches this morning.  These are churches that we have either been to or been in contact with.  The letter includes a letter from my Pastor letting these churches know that we are finishing language school and in need of several more churches to take us on for support before we can leave for the field.  We prayed over each letter and each Pastor who will be receiving these letters.  Please pray for this batch of mail that God would use it to see our support level increase.  We are so close to being able to leave for the field.

Today was also a hard day physically for several in our family.  My allergies to ragweed are in full "bloom" (pardon the pun).  In fact, I had to leave french class 15 minutes early with swollen eyes, constant sneezing, running nose and my asthma acting up.  (As I write this, my eyes are swelling shut.) Even with these unbearable symptoms, I had a wonderful class this morning.  I spent the morning giving a Bible study to Madame Claire (our professor) in French.  She had to help me with some Bible words in French and some of the names.  (for example: Stephen is Étienne)  The topics that I was able to discuss were divorce, a wife's role to her husband, and us being created in the image of God.  Not easy topics to cover when you are using very simple sentences in a foreign language.  Madame Claire was very gracious and said that she was able to understand everything that I explained to her. 

Then, this afternoon, three members of our family have the stomach flu and Brenna has broken out in her eczema rash all over her body and face.  I think I will put her in gloves to stop scratching!  We appreciate so much your prayers for our family.  It won't be long before we will be leaving Quebec and we can see that old Devil working against us.  But I am so thankful that greater is He that is in us, than he that is in the world!!!