Our Christmas....

We had a wonderful Christmas Sunday!  We decided to delay opening our gifts until the afternoon because we had to get everything ready for our Bible study in our home that morning.  (For our family, opening gifts is a special time and normally we take quite a while to open gifts one-by-one.  We love to see what each other received and to spend time thanking each other.)  So after we woke up, we got dressed, cleaned the house up and Kami put the finishing touches on our Sunday meal! 

This was our attendance on Christmas day!

Beth is holding up her plate to show us our great Sunday meal of ham, potatoes, and green beans.

Then it was present-opening time!  Of course the kids told us we had to all get in our pajamas to make it official!

At other people's homes, we got to try some of the traditional foods and treats people make for Christmas.   The picture above is a Christmas pudding made of white sweet potatoes, raisins and I am not sure what else.  It takes a long time to make and it is good.

This is another form of pudding made in a Seagrape leaf.  We also got to eat smoked salmon sushi and duck liver paste.  We enjoyed the liver paste which tasted like liverworst (if that's how you spell it!) 

We enjoyed our Christmas here on St. Barths and I was able to present a clear presentation of the Gospel on Christmas morning.  We continue to pray and hope that the Lord will reward our Christmas caroling efforts and that people will attend our Sunday morning Bible studies.  Yesterday, I went to the Fed Ex office to pick up an envelope with the girl's French birth certificates! (I'll post that in another post!)  On the way home, I picked up a hitch-hiker.  He is a Math teacher for the "college" and I was able to give him the plan of salvation and answer his many questions about the Bible.

Yesterday, we went in the late-afternoon to Grand Fond (our treasure beach!) and Joshua got to fly his stunt kite.  We enjoyed the time out and afterwards we surprised the kids by ordering Pizza!  There really was a two-fold purpose in the Pizza.  As you may recall, I have been able to witness to the owner of the pizza shop and gave her the whole plan of salvation.  We went there not only to order pizza, but to give her our brochure/invitation to our Sunday Bible study!  Please be in prayer for her, her name is Katrine.

Until next time.....

From our home to yours...

Joyeux Noël à tout le monde !

(Merry Christmas to everyone!)

The Temperatures are falling for Christmas!

It really is beginning to feel like Christmas...I know we have no chance of snow but the temperatures here are great!  This morning we started out at 76 degrees and as of right now at 12:30, it is only 82 degrees!  The wind is blowing and we have a great breeze through the house!  The kids have officially started their Christmas vacation and we have accomplished quite a bit in our Christmas Caroling campaign!

We have been super busy and we are finally able to stop and take a breath.  As many of you know, we went Christmas caroling around the island and passed out gift bags that contained home-made goodies and the Gospel. 

These are some of the home-made, personalized shopping bags that Kami made for certain folks that we know really well.  She did a great job and she is ready to take a break!

All of the kids and Kami made home-made cookies and fudge that we passed out as well.

Every one loved the Christmas Caroling here, it is definitely something Americans do.  As one lady told us with a smile, "We only see this done in American movies!"  It was a treat and we have even been invited to sing at one of the local schools in the future!  We trust that folks will get saved as they read the Gospel and will start coming to our Sunday morning Bible Studies.

Well, this picture shows what a busy, hectic couple of weeks that we have had.....ok, the real story is that Josh and I were left alone watching Callie.  We decided to "fix-up" Callies' hair to surprise mommy when she came back home......Surprise!!!

Christmas Caroling and Millions of dollars worth of yachts!

Our Christmas Caroling has been going great!  We have had so much fun and everyone we have sang for really seemed to love hearing our family sing Christmas songs for them!

Right before we left for Christmas Caroling last night, Kami took a quick picture of the kids.  She told Silas, "Go stand over there like Josh."  I think Silas took his job very seriously....He stood exactly like Josh!

Last night, we continued our Christmas caroling and passed out our gift bags that included the homemade gift, the invitation brochure to our Sunday Bible study, a Gospel Tract, and a copy of the books of John and Romans.  As we left one house, one man who has really ridiculed Christianity in the past told us, "One day soon, I am going to come to your church service."  Wow, what a great encouragement to us!

We are going to post some more pictures of these amazing yachts on the left at a later time.  They are huge and worth many millions of dollars each!  When we finished our Christmas caroling last Thursday, we went downtown to Gustavia to look at all of lights, festivities and yachts.  There was such a festive atmosphere and we really enjoyed strolling around.  Many celebrities and famous people come here each year to vacation and spend Christmas.  It's kind of a joke with Kami's sister who tells us, "You guys would probably walk right past a famous celebrity, invite them to church and not have a clue as to who they are!"  As we drove around last night after caroling, Kami and I pointed to different people and said, "Do they look famous....I wonder if that person is famous!"  We both agreed, we are glad we cannot recognize any of these "celebrities" !

Our Christmas Campaign is just about ready!

I had mentioned in an earlier post that we have been working on a Christmas outreach program here on St. Barthelemy.  We ask that everyone please be in prayer that we will see some great results as we begin our Christmas Campaign on Wednesday!

A couple of weeks ago, we started working on two projects: The book on the left is a "new" songbook for our services.  We began using the songbook this past Sunday and they really add a nice touch to our services having a nice looking songbook in French.  In the future, we will eventually invest in an actual French hymnal, but for now, our homemade book will work great!  The brochure on the right is a French brochure that we put together and is an invitation to our Sunday morning Bible study.  It is titled, "Do you have any questions?"

This is the inside of the brochure that includes highlights of why someone should come to our Bible Study, our contact information, a picture of our family, what to expect if you were to come to our Bible study, and our home church's slogan of, "Where the Bible comes alive!"

This is the back section of the brochure where we placed the statement, "Yes, there are answers to your questions."  We will begin this Wednesday on our Christmas Campaign.  We are going to go Christmas Carolling around the island.  We will be singing two Christmas songs in French and then we will be giving out a "gift" from our family.  The gift will be a packet that includes a brochure (the one above), a French Gospel-tract (God's Simple Plan of Salvation), a homemade Christmas potholder (showed below), and a french copy of the Gospel of John and Romans.

These are the homemade Christmas potholders that Kami and the girls have made.  There are three different kinds and they turned out very nice.

On the potholder, we included the Bible verse Isaiah 9:5.

Also, for families that we know really well, Kami has made a special "Shopping Bag".  Here, at the stores, there are no plastic/paper bags available for shoppers.  You must bring your own re-usable shopping bags of which you can purchase from the grocery stores.  We bought several and Kami cut them apart.  Using the pieces from the plastic shopping bag, Kami made personalized, quilted shopping bags that have the plastic bag as a liner inside.  She put the initial of the first name of the lady of the home on the bags.

So far she has made two and has at least 8 more to go.  I was told that I am going to help her finish some of them today, so I guess I'd better go check in with her and get my "orders of the day!"

Getting our blog/website updated...slowly but surely!

Since we have finally received internet/phone service here at our home after 7 1/2 months, we are trying to update our family blog/website.  If you look to the right side of our blog, you will notice new pictures of our family, a slideshow of the girls' "Cake Ministry", and an updated "Praises and Requests" section.  We will now be able to post our updates on a regular basis!

Hope you enjoy!  Thank you for praying for our family!

Thank you to the 5th & 6th Grade class of Gospel Baptist Christian School!

I would like to personally thank each and every member of the 5th and 6th grade class of Gospel Baptist Christian School in Bonita Springs, Florida and their teacher Ms. Kristen Booher!

Thank you so much for the packet of personal letters from each of you that we just received! (Yes, it takes over a month for us to get mail, but we did receive them!)  We have enjoyed reading each letter and we are honored and grateful for your prayers for our family every single day you start your class.  I know that God will do great things here on St. Barthelemy because we serve a Great God who answers prayer and I know He has answered many of our needs through your constant prayers for us and the people here on this tiny, French island.

I just want you to know that we will be responding back to you by mail as well, but please be patient, it will take over a month for you to get our letters from here in the West Indies.  When we send a letter, it goes to the island of Guadeloupe and then is sent to Paris, France.  From there it is sent to the U.S. and will eventually reach you. 

We praise the Lord for each and every one of you!  Keep up the good work!

Is it Christmas yet?......

When Kami was in Florida to take care of getting her French VISA, we decided it best to go ahead and have her purchase our Christmas presents.  (Too expensive here!)  Both of our parents also filled a suitcase full of Christmas presents of which Kami brought back with her on her trip.  Needless to say, we have many wrapped presents under our Christmas tree, ready to be torn open and Christmas seems so far away!!!

It the spirit of the season, I thought I would share with you one of our traditions.  We learned this tradition from some dear friends in New York.  We have a Christmas stocking for Jesus in which are our Christmas gifts to Him from last year.  Last Christmas, we each privately wrote down on a piece of paper our Christmas gift we wanted to give to Christ.   (It could be to read your Bible through, or give Him your besetting sin or bad habit.  It could be to praise Him each and every day of the year, basically whatever you want to give Him.)  Needless to say, we each gave him a gift and no one knows what it is except for Christ.  This Christmas, we will take out our "gift" from last year and we will read them and share them as a family.  Then we will put in our new "gifts" for this coming year. 

This past Sunday, we are really trying to emphasize the Christ in the Christmas Season!  Joshua prepared a lesson in French on the Candy Cane story. 

The ladies loved the story and Joshua handed out candy canes to everyone.  It was fun to watch as each lady quickly opened them up and immediately started eating them!  It`s great to the ladies growing and they are even starting to answer questions as we review previous Bible studies from the weeks before!

We have quite a bit planned for a Christmas outreach, but we will post on that in the next update!

4.7 Earthquake and more!

Well, I have to admit, that an earthquake at 2:40 in the morning can really "shake" your nerves.  Kami and I were both startled awake this morning by what we now know was a 4.7 magnitude earthquake.  There was no damage except to our nerves!  When we checked on the kids, they were all still sound asleep!  I can honestly say that our kids 'can sleep through an earthquake'!

We had a great service yesterday.  It was good to have Kami and the kids back.  I have been doing a series on Prayer and really emphasizing the fact that a true prayer life is the evidence of being saved.  Our main/starting text has been James 5:16 "...the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much."  If God doesn't answer your real prayers, it may be that you aren't saved or there is sin in your life.  After three weeks, the ladies are beginning to answer questions and really participate.  Next week's lesson will be that of answering the question, "What things do I pray for?".   After we finish next week's lesson, we will begin a new series.

It is good to have our telephone and internet finally hooked up at our house.  We have been able to post on our websites/blogs, keep up with current news, and talk with family on an "anytime we want to" basis.  What a luxury after almost 8 months!

Thanksgiving was wonderful!  Although we had three sick young ones, we were all together as a family for one of our favorite holidays.  We managed to get a small turkey and feasted on all the trimmings.  Kami did a great job on her newest pie: a sweet potato/coconut milk pie with marshmallow meringue.  Mmmmm!  Josh said it is his second favorite pie...Kami's apple pie is first.

For Christmas, we are working on a number of Christmas carols in French.  We plan on going Christmas Caroling here on St. Barths.  This is not a tradition they do here, but one we will take advantage of!  The girls are making Christmas potholders with Bible verses to give out while caroling.  We will also include with the gift a French copy of the books of John and Romans, a tract, and an invitation to our Bible study on Sundays.  Please pray that this goes well and that we can see a man saved who will start coming to services. 

Thank you all for your prayers!  Until next time...

Finally!

Great news....Kami, Elisabeth, Silas and Callie finally arrived back home yesterday after more than a month of being in Florida.  As most of you know, Kami had to leave to be able to apply for her French VISA in Miami and Elisabeth had to have an orthodontic appointment.  It has been over a month!

We met them on the island of St. Martin to help them take the ferry back to St. Barths.  When their flight was over an hour late, I panicked because I knew we were probably going to miss our Ferry boat to St. Barths due to the construction and traffic from the Airport to the Ferry boat across the island.  When we jumped into the taxi, I told the driver, "There's another $20 if you can get us to the Ferry dock before 5 PM."  I just want to say that speeding taxi-drivers can be a scary thing!  However, we made it at 5PM!  I ran in and got us checked in right as they were going to close the office.  Praise the Lord!

Another praise is that after 7 1/2 months, we finally have phone and internet service at our home!  I got a call this morning from our phone company's technician and they hooked up our internet service this morning!   What a blessing!  This means that if you would like to call us here in the West Indies, we have our Vonage set up so you can just call our Florida cell-phone number to contact us!  (239) 898-3436.  

Yea! Another Update!

Just to let everyone know, we still do not have internet service nor telephone at our house.  Thus it has been difficult to keep up with regular posts and updates.  We did receive our telephone line on November third, but it doesn't work so we have an appointment on November 16th to hopefully get it fixed!

Here are a couple of updates for now:

- Kami is presently in Florida with Elisabeth, Silas and Callie.  She needed to leave St. Barths by the end of October so that she would not be illegal here.  She has been in Florida since October 22nd.  There has been a lot of paperwork to take care of.  She has been able to renew her American passport which needed to be done before she could apply for her French VISA.  This past Wednesday, Kami went to the French Consulate in Miami and applied for her French VISA that will allow her to stay here for 1 year.  During this time, we will finish registering the rest of the children and obtain their French passports.   After we have done this, we will apply for Kami to become a French citizen. 

-As many of you know, Satan has worked very hard against us in getting all of the paperwork completed to have French passports for our family.   Satan has blinded the eyes of the people here in St. Barths to the truth and filled this island with false religions.  He is working very hard to hinder us in presenting the truth here on St. Barths.  But God is good and has allowed us to overcome all of Satan's hinderances and obstacles that he has put in our way thus far.  Our latest obstacle has been that the Chief of the French Consulate in Chicago has accused us of adopting Elisabeth and Brenna and that their birth certificates are not valid.  (Only Satan could have put this in his head!)  Thus he has required that we provide a lot of documents to their office to prove that the birth certificates are authentic and that our girls were not adopted.  He told us that if he is not satisfied with our documents, he would send our entire "dossier" to a judge in France to rule on the authenticity of the birth certificates.  We have had to gather and will be sending several documents such as:  Kami's medical records confirming her pregnancies for both girls, military medical records, official letters from the Department of Health documenting our situation and authenticity of the girls' birth certificates, letters from myself explaining the birth certificates, and we are even sending the pictures of Kami's ultrasounds as an added bonus! (Although I think the ultrasound pics look like were going to have little aliens!)  Praise the Lord, we should have all of the necessary documents by the end of this week to be mailed to Chicago including a personal letter written by the State Registrar of Missouri's Department of Health on our behalf.  To be honest, I didn't think we could get any of the documents that we needed to provide but that is a testimony to our great and mighty God, Jesus Christ!

-We also praise the Lord, because with the same Birth Certificates that the Chief of the Consulate in Chicago accuses is not real, he said that they can be used in France to allow our children to live with us until they are the age of 18.  (So doesn't that mean the birth certificates must be real?)  So we have plenty of time to get the girls paperwork straightened out and completed before they turn 18.  Thus, for the time being, we should have a totally legal family here on St. Barths as soon as Kami gets her VISA.

-Did I mention that we serve a mighty and great God!

I know....I know....."Finally an update!"

Sorry about the delay.  It is still not easy to put updates on our blog/website.  As you may have guessed, we still do not have home phone service nor internet at our house.   Last Thursday, the phone company told us we would have our phone service the next day, September 29th!........then nothing.  So I went in and now they don't even have a date or time of when we should have our phone/internet service!

Each week for the past month in our Sunday morning Bible Studies, Joshua has been highlighting a different foreign country.  He makes a powerpoint presentation and teaches us about that country.  He has been doing this all in French.   At the end of his presentation, he has highlighted several missionary families from that country as well.  Our goal has been to show two things: 1) God loves everyone & 2) Even though these countries are full of "religion", God still sends missionaries to these countries to show them the truth.

Also, each week, Kami has prepared a lunch with dishes from the respective foreign country that we have learned about.  This particular week was a curry chicken dish with "roti" from India.  The meals have been great and everyone seems to enjoy the "foreign" food.  For "India Week" we had a total of 12 in services!

This is Callie's latest "boo-boo".  She got her finger smashed in the bathroom door.  She has had several accidents lately.  The latest of them being when she fell off of a chair she was climbing onto and fell on her face which left a nice little bruise on her forehead.

Our friends in Canada would be so proud of us.  When we left Canada, we brought several packets of "Poutine" seasoning with us.  So 2 weeks ago, we had Poutine night!  Although we didn't have the "squeeky" cheese, we substituted chedder.  It was great!  We love Poutine!

Doesn't it just look like it would clog your arteries?

Continue to keep praying for our family, the ministry, and our passports.  I will post more about this situation later.  Right now only Silas and I have French passports.  We still are needing 5 more.  Thank you all for your prayers and support!

Thank you for praying!

Thank you for praying for Kami.  She is doing better and made it through yesterday with the migraines only returning in the afternoon but not as severe as they have been.  We are hoping that they will not return at all and that she will be able to get back to "normal' life.

Prayer Request for Kami

As many of you know, Kami is expecting a baby due this coming April.  For the past week, she has been having very severe migraines due to the pregnancy.  This is the first pregnancy in which she has had migraines.  They are so severe that any light causes her much pain and yesterday she spent much of the day crying due to the pain.  The midwife said that the migraines should hopefully begin to decrease around 13 weeks of pregnancy.  Kami is only in her 10th to 11th week.  Please pray along with us that the Lord will take away the migraines and that she can get back to a "normal" life.....if there is a "normal" life for a missionary wife!

Finally an update!

I am finally getting a chance to post an update on a few things from over the past couple of weeks.  The first major thing is that we still do not have phone nor internet service.  Thus it is not always easy to post updates on our blog website.  Hopefully soon we will be able to get our home phone and internet service set up.

So Here Goes The Update!

-Kami made it back from her trip to Florida.  She accomplished quite a bit while in Florida.  Brenna was able to get (very much needed) glasses.  Now she can see more than 5 feet without squinting!  Elisabeth was able to have her appointment with the orthodontist and had her MARA appliance removed.  The dentist added some more brackets and she will need to return in October for a much needed adjustment at that time.  Kami had a doctor's appointment and she was able to see the heartbeat of our new baby via ultrasound.  Both Momma and baby are well. 

-Upon Kami's return, she had a bit of trouble.  The airline made her purchase return tickets for her and each of the girls or they would not let her board the plane.  It does hurt having to purchase $1,000 worth of tickets right on the spot just so she and the girls could get back here.  However, the tickets are not a big waste as she purchased them for October 22 in which she, Elisabeth, and Callie will be returning to accomplish getting Kami's VISA and Beth's next orthodontist appointment.  Once they were on the plane, it was delayed for 2 hours and then they changed planes altogether.  It was a long day but they finally made it back "home"!

-We have managed two tropical storms here in the past two weeks.  All is well but the storms passed through on Sundays.  Although we were able to still have our services for our family, we could not pick up the ladies that normally come.  When there is a code red for the approaching storm, you are not allowed out of your home and thus we are stuck inside until the code "red" is lifted.  So hopefully we will be back on track for this coming Sunday.

-Our final shipment of 12 boxes of our household things was shipped and will be arriving this week.  We praise the Lord for being able to finally get all of our things that we wanted and needed.  In this shipment is all of the kids' schooling for this year.  They are each excited about this coming school year (which mom and dad are a bit shocked about!).   The thing they said they are most excited about is being able to accomplish school in one place each day without traveling every day or having to do their school in the van!

Boys Week Only.....

Kami and the girls left for Florida to take care of some necessary doctor's appointments.  Kami's doctor appointment and ultrasound, Beth's orthodontist appointment to remove her MARA appliance, and Brenna's appointment with the optometrist to get her some desperately needed glasses.  They will be returning this coming Saturday evening.  Please be in prayer that the latest Tropical Depression does not interfere with their returning flight and boat trip.  The Hurricane Center reported that the depression has a 100% chance of turning into a hurricane.  However......they don't know the power of my God!

So, for this week, us guys are living off of frozen pizzas, frozen burgers, and cereal!  Oh...and brownies and cookies!

...children are an heritage of the LORD...Psalm 127:3

Kami took the kids last night to take some pictures of them.  I love the "close-ness" of our children and the way that the older three cherish their younger brother and sister.  God has blessed us with wonderful children and has chosen to bless us with another one as well.  Yes, that is correct, Kami is expecting number 6!  We are surprised and a bit overwhelmed at the moment, but we praise the Lord for his bountiful blessings!

God truly is good!

Understanding our situation.....

Hopefully, I will make our situation easier to understand....to be honest, we are still learning all of the "in's & out's" of all of the government processes that we must undertake to be able to live and stay on St. Barthelemy longterm.

Most missionaries must apply for VISA's to be able to stay in the foreign country they are working in.  For many, this VISA must be re-applied for every two years or so.  At any time, their VISA's can be revoked or denied and some missionaries have to leave the field.

Our situation is different.  I happen to be a dual citizen of the country that the Lord has called us to.  As a citizen, I can obtain a French Passport to stay here.  (I cannot obtain a VISA since I am a Citizen of France.)  A passport allows us to stay here as long as we want to and my citizenship cannot be revoked.   Being French, my children have a French blood-line and can obtain dual citizenship as well and then receive French passports.  Kami on the other hand does not have a French bloodline (only Hillbilly!) and she has to go through the process of applying to become a French citizen via her marriage to me.  So here is the process for each of us that must be accomplished to get everyone a French Passport to make us all legal here on St. Barthelemy:

Me:  I needed to obtain my French birth certificate to prove that I am French.  This was the 4-year process due to the fact that there needed to be a change on the certificate.  Now that I have it, I am applying for my passport tomorrow morning (Thursday) and it takes 3 weeks to get my French passport.

Kami: She cannot receive a French passport until our marriage is registered with the French government (which is being processed right now).  Then she must wait for each of our children to be registered in my French Family Book (Livret de Famille).  This book proves the French bloodline of a family much like the book of Matthew lists the family lineage of Christ which proves his Kingly bloodline.  Once our children are in the book, then Kami can take the family book and apply for her French citizenship which takes just over a year to accomplish.  So, in the meantime, she is going to apply for a VISA which will allow her to live here for 1 year while we work on the process of getting her French citizenship.  Once she is French, she can obtain her French passport.

The Children:  We must register each child into the Livret de Famille at their respective French Consulate here in the United States according to which state they were born in.  For example, Joshua must be registered at the French Consulate at Atlanta, Elisabeth & Brenna at Chicago, Silas at Miami, and Callie at Quebec City in Canada.  For each child, the process takes sending my Livret de Famille and their U.S. Birth Certificate to their respective French Consulate to be registered into the Family Book.  This process takes up to a month.  So we are looking at 4-5 months to get each child registered.  Then after each child is registered into the Family Book, I will order a French Birth Certificate for each child.  Once I have their French Birth Certificates (takes 10 days to receive), we can apply for their French Passports which takes 3 weeks to receive. 

So basically, we need to have Kami's VISA, my passport, and the kids passports accomplished by the end of October to have everyone legal here on St.Barths.  If not, we will have to leave St. Barthelemy or we could get in trouble with the law.   For now, we are considered "an American tourist" status and thus the reason why we taking things slower in the ministry right now.  But praise the Lord that the process in underway!

The Lady Bug Cake

Elisabeth and Brenna worked hard on another cake.  This time, the birthday cake was for a young girl turning 5, named Thalia.  "Happy Birthday Thalia!"  Elisabeth and Brenna wanted to make a fun ladybug cake and got some pictures off of the internet.  They worked hard and put together a beautiful cake.

Over the past couple of months, we have had some Biblical studies on "Gifts" and using your talents for the Lord.  Both Elisabeth and Brenna are learning a great "talent" in baking cakes and are having fun using their "talents" for the Lord in the ministry here.  Thalia and her family were very happy to receive the birthday cake and it was so much fun to deliver it to them!

Family Fun Night......Brought many treasures!

This past Friday, we had our Family Fun Night.  We had so much fun in the game that Kami planned for us to do.  Basically, the game was a combination of the ABC game and a scavenger hunt.   We were each given a bag and drove to Grand Fond which is a rocky beach that isn't good for swimming but great for treasure hunting as things get washed up onto shore.  Here's how the game works: We must all find objects on the shore corresponding to all of the letters of the alphabet.  We then compare our "treasures" together.  If two people found the same item for the corresponding letter of the alphabet, you only get 1 point instead of two.  The person with the most points wins an extra piece of pie!

(Here we dumped our "treasures" onto the table to compare our findings!)

(Brenna holds up two of her finds: a Comb and Sandal [letters C & S]...pretty gross comb!)

(For the letter P, Beth holds up her pipe)

(For his letter S, Josh has a skull in the plastic bag, we wouldn't let him take it out of the bag!)

(For my M, I found a Motorcycle headlight)

I ending up winning for the evening, but I gave my extra piece of pie to Elisabeth as a reward for her having finished reading through her Bible in 60 days.  It was a fun game and we ended the evening by great fellowship together and some more family games!  We love being together!

Congratulations to Elisabeth!

Congratulations to Elisabeth!   She finished reading through her Bible in 60 days!  Yes, that's right....60 days!  What a wonderful accomplishment.  She set her mind to read her Bible through and had quite a bit of reading to do each day, yet she managed to do this and was also the first of the children to finish school! 

(Here Beth (on right) and Brenna finished a birthday cake for one of the ladies here on St. Barths)

(The cake was delicious and it looked beautiful!)

Congratulations Beth!  You are such a wonderful daughter!

Our Sunday Morning.....

 

Sunday Morning Bible Study has started off to a great start.  We knew that the work here on St. Barths was going to be slow, especially as we are still working on our French passport situation to be finished.  Here is a little insight to our Sunday morning activities:

(Kami's Bus Route-High day of 5 if you include Silas in the back!)

(We normally start off with some singing and this past Sunday was our first Sunday with our piano!  We also have had a special or two from our family.  This coming Sunday, Brenna is going to play a special on her violin.  Then we have our Bible study time.)

(Kami prepares a meal for everyone after our Bible Study.  The spaghetti was amazing!)

(We enjoy a meal together and also enjoy the fellowship and stories.)

(As for right now, our kitchen table is a bit small so the kids usually sit in the living room and enjoy their meal)

(After the service and meal, Joshua performed his juggling tricks for everyone and we even did a little Gospel magic show for everyone.  Then Kami takes everyone home in the afternoon.) 

(This past Sunday Night, we had guest preacher Dr. David Gibbs to preach to us!  Ok, it was a DVD but he did a great job and his message was directed right at our family!  As for right now, we are having a Sunday evening and Wednesday night service with just our family.  We will eventually start services on Sun PM and Wed PM later on as people get saved and begin to grow.)

The three ladies who have been coming love the Sunday morning Bible study time and one even said it is the highlight of her week that she looks forward to.  We praise the Lord for this and trust that many people will get saved and God will establish a true church that preaches the truth here on St. Barthelemy.