A little more about Kami's trip...

When Kami and Josh went to St. Martin for Kami's government appointment, they flew over on St. Barths Commuter.  Out of all the airlines (okay, there's only two) we like to fly on St. Barths Commuter.  They took the airplane in the morning and returned on the ferry in the evening.

These are the passengers walking out to the airplane.

This is inside the airplane...and yes, that's a young boy in the co-pilot's seat...and yes, there is no co-pilot for these flights.

One of the blessings of having to go to St. Martin, is being able to go shopping there.  The stores are much cheaper and you find many "American" products and well as much cheaper priced meats. 

Kami and Josh were able to go shopping after her appointment and they came back with breakfast cereals, oatmeal, pancake syrup, meats, drink mixes, toothpaste, soap, shampoo, all-in-all two suitcases filled with various items.

These are what we had for family fun night!  Homemade burgers with homemade potato chips!  The special thing about these burgers are that they are made with fresh ground beef from St. Martin. 

 

The ground beef here on St. Barths comes pre-packaged frozen in a bag and looks just like rabbit pellets.  We have learned, after time, to like it but it does have a 'different' taste to it.  So Kami picked up 4 packs of fresh ground beef while on St. Martin and those burgers were great!

 

Kami is supposed to go back to St. Martin for a Friday appointment that starts at 8AM.  This means that she will have to spend the night on St. Martin so we are trying to work out the details.  Someone will go with her for security reasons and we are trying to figure how things will work out with baby Micah.  So please continue to pray about this with us.

 

 

Kami's "rendez-vous" with the government...

In french, 'rendez-vous' simply means 'meeting'.  Today was Kami's "obligatory invitation" to attend this meeting...which Kami says, "Is an oxymoron..."

I never allow Kami to travel alone, especially on another island in a different country.  So, either I go with her or we send Josh with her.  When we looked for boat/ferry tickets to get to St. Martin, we realized that there is no early  morning boats that travel to St. Martin on Tuesdays... Yikes...

So, we had to purchase airplane tickets for her and Josh to travel to Grand Case (French side of St. Martin), rent a car, have her appointment, and then return on the boat from Phillipsburg (Dutch side). 

We had three main concerns : 1) Whether Tropical Storm Isaac would allow Kami and Josh to get back to St. Barths 2)How baby Micah would do without Momma 3)How Kami's French Language Test would turn out.

Well, Tropical Storm Isaac was in the hands of the Lord and He allowed Kami and Josh to travel this morning and back again before the storm comes in the early morning hours tomorrow!  (Kami and Josh are right now on the boat, so I write this in faith that the trip will be safe!)

Baby Micah has done great today!  Although his formula stinks...okay...wreaks of fish.  He has done great with his cereal and little drinks of formula.  For some reason, the ingredients on the formula lists 'fish oil' and the formula even tastes like fish...I tried it.

Kami's appointment went well.  We were able to send Kami with our cell phone so we could keep in contact.  She stated that at first, the social worker told her that she would probably need to take a 4 month language course but allowed Kami to take the government language test.  Kami passed it with a 100%!  Yeah!

The only bad news is that she is now required to attend one more all-day meeting in St. Martin on August 31, next Friday.  The only problem with this meeting is that in order to be on time to the meeting which starts at 8 A.M., she would need to spend the night on St. Martin, w/o baby Micah...yikes! 

Praise Reports...

Greetings from the tropical, hot & humid island of St. Barthelemy!  We do praise the Lord for the rain that we received two nights ago...although the humidity raised quite a bit and the mosquitos have made a huge comeback in such a short time!  Here is some noteworthy news :

-We had a visit from the Gendarmes (military police) last Friday evening.  They called and said that they wanted to see Kami and check our papers.  So they came around 6 P.M. and checked all of our passports, documents, marriage certificate, etc...  Then we answered all sorts of questions like, "What do you do here for work?...What do your children do for school?...How much money do you make?...Do you speak french in the home?..."  All sorts of wonderful questions.  They already had the answers to all of these questions but they said they just needed to verify everything.  Everything went well and they were very polite.

-Kami has an upcoming appointment next Tuesday on St. Martin where she was "invited" to attend her obligatory meeting with the social worker from the government.  (This is just the next step in the process of getting her French citizenship) Joshua will be going with her for safety reasons and if they have any extra time, they will do some grocery shopping as it is so much cheaper on St. Martin.

-Kami was also able to teach a small Bible study yesterday all in French with 2 of the ladies who come on Wednesdays for lunch.  We also use this time to allow them an opportunity to help in the ministry.  Maria is learning  a special to sing with our girls and they worked on our Christmas Outreach gifts to hand out when we go caroling.  They are also about start a new project, lap quilts for the elderly ladies who live at the hospital.  This will be another Christmas outreach project as well.

-We do have a great praise report.  My aunt Mariane, has come to several of our preaching services and the Lord has really been working on her heart over the past year.  She and her husband just took a trip to Florida to visit my mother.  While there, Mariane went to our home church with my mom.  After the service, my aunt accepted Christ as her Saviour!  We are so excited!  She called my after the service to tell me, "I got saved!"  As the Bible says, some plant and some water....God gets the glory! 

Until next time....

Fish, Chicken, and News...

Last week, we were given a sack full of fresh fish and what a blessing it was! 

We love fish...especially fresh, fried fish!  As you can see, Silas and Callie love to pull up chairs in front of the sink and play with the fish while I clean them!

There are no fast food chains here on our island and thus no Chick-Fil-A's.  However, we wanted to show our support for Chick-Fil-A for their stand against sodomy.  So we cooked-up our very own Chick-Fil-A  Chicken Tender & French Fry meals!  Mmmm!!!

Other note worthy news:

-- Joshua has done a great job of preaching for us through-out the summer on Wednesday evenings.  He is turning into a very good preacher and we have taken quite a bit of notes!  He is going to continue to do this even as we look to start school on August 7th.  (We had all of their school materials shipped here and we just received the box last week.)

-- We still have our regular 4 that still come to our Sunday Bible studies and we praise the Lord for that.  We have passed out more door-hangers and we are praying for a family to start attending our services.  We are also praying for the Lord to send us a young man who will get saved and surrender his life to preach the Gospel.  Please pray along with us about this.

-- Josh and I just changed out the brakes on our Suzuki.  The new brakes we originally put on only last 1 year!  These mountains here really do wear out the brakes.  Praise the Lord that we bought new brakes while we were back in Florida for Micah's birth and had them shipped here in one of our boxes we recently received!

-- Kami and Josh will be leaving on August 21st, to go to St. Martin.  We received a letter from the French government that they have scheduled a class and a meeting with a social worker for Kami.  This is the next step that is required in getting her fully legal to live here long-term.  We are hoping that there will not be any more "fees" that we will have to pay for.  Joshua will be going with Kami for safety reasons, it is always safer to travel in pairs and have a young man present when on St. Martin.

Please continue to pray with and for our family and the ministry here...until next time....