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!