Repas Agape, 2010

The Eglise Baptiste de Pessac held its 18th annual Repas Agape on February 19, 2010. This event is a special outreach banquet for students. This year, as in 2006 when we visited, I (Tim) was able to preach. With the Winter Olympics in progress, we chose as our theme "Je cours vers le but... le prix céleste" ("I run towards the goal ... the heavenly prize") from Philippians 3:14.

One of the families in the church loaned us their Wii with the winter olympic games and each country (table) chose a representative to race down the mountain on skis for the gold. Not wanting it to get too competitive, each table represented a country that was real, but barely known. Though it was a smaller crowd than in the past, we had a good percentage of visitors, including one young lady for the same township as the church, and one young man from as far away as Vietnam.

Special Music weekend

On the third weekend in January, Kristi (in France, Jeanne) Colas, American missionary in Rouen, France, came for a visit. The Lord has gifted her in the area of church music and her desire was to help the young people (and others) in the Bordeaux area improve their talents for the Lord's glory. Kristi gave free individual music lessons to all who signed up (including Micaiah and Miriam!) and led a four-hour piano accompaniment seminar/workshop on Saturday.

On Sunday, in addition to playing for our services, she helped host a special afternoon sacred concert for the three sister churches in the Bordeaux region. It was a wonderful opportunity for the young people who had participated in the events of the weekend to use their talents on sacred pieces that would not be appreciated in the secular context.

We enjoyed our time of fellowship with Kristi and her enthusiasm for evangelism. We should see her again in April when we travel as a family up to take part in the church retreat of the Baptist Church of Rouen.

Miriam turns 5!!

Five years ago today, God blessed with a beautiful girl: Miriam Ruth Bixby. We love her dearly and find it hard to believe she is five years old.

Here she is a few days ago with the cake her mommy made for her to take to her birthday celebration at school. She now has a two-week winter vacation from school which she is excited about.

May God raise up the next generation to be lovers of God and proclaimers of truth.

Reunited

We are grateful to have Tim's parents back on this side of the ocean, and they were grateful to meet their newest grandchild. We have now moved into our new home. (Read: we are now sleeping and functioning in the new house, if not yet totally unpacked. :) We hope to post more of our news and some pictures of our new environment here in the not-too-distant future.