Le Carnaval!

One exciting French school event that we have recently learned about is the annual carnaval. The title "carnival" may sound like a huge event, but really it is quite simple. It's just a time for the kids to dress up and throw confetti, and for the parents to come watch them parade around in their costumes and visit with one another. Both of our kids' recently had their carnivals: Micaiah's being at the end of February, and Miriam'sjust last Friday. The theme for Miriam's carnival was "les animaux" (animals, in case you couldn't figure that out). I asked her what animal she wanted to be, and she immediately said, "un cheval", sans hesitation. I tried to convince her that it might be a little easier for her mommy to come up with a costume for her if she would just be a cat, but she was pretty set on being a horse. So this mommy is very thankful for the Internet which gave me the idea of how to make a horse costume out of a box, something that we have in great supply around here these days following our recent move across the ocean.

With Micaiah's carnaval being in February just after our move and the same day as the Repas Agape, I'm afraid it snuck up on us rather suddenly, and we had to do some quick work of pulling together anything we could find. Grandma Bixby came to the rescue with some props she had stored away for various skits over the years.True to form, Michée (Micaiah's name in French) posed as a good 'ol American cowboy. Believe it or not, he wasn't the only American cowboy at the carnaval, but I think he might have been the only truly American, American cowboy. :)

One great benefit to both of these occasions is that they have provided yet another opportunity for us to make friends with the other families at the kids' schools. In fact, one mom that I just met last week has invited me over for tea, and wants to give me some baby clothes for Zacharie. I'll be visiting with her in her home tomorrow. Thank you for your continued prayers with these opportunities.

Miscellaneous news

Spring is on its way, as we were able to observe recently in watching a large flock of geese (in the course of about 30 minutes' time, we saw literally hundreds!) heading north over our home here in Pessac, France. Our official spring prayer letter is yet forthcoming, but I thought I'd take a few minutes now to post here some of our recent goings-on in order to let all of you, our supporters and prayer warriors, know that we are still alive and kicking!

First, getting settled into our new home in between the regular church and school routine has taken a lot of concentration. We have lived at 48 rue Auguste Renoir now for six weeks (we spent our first night in our new home on February 1), and are finally beginning to feel like it is our home. It has taken quite of lot of energy to get to this point. As with any move, there have been the normal things to do--unpacking of boxes, finding a place for everything, etc., but there have also been a lot of "extras" connected to the fact that we are setting up house in a foreign country for the first time. There were quite a few furniture items that we have had/are having to purchase and set up. In addition, homes in France don't normally come with things like appliances and light fixtures, so we have been doing a lot of shopping and installing of those essential items as well. One advantage that we saw when God provided this home was that the kitchen was already equipped with the basic appliances, though they were quite old. We were told that it would be our responsibility to replace the appliances with our own if/when the old ones were to quit working. Well, within the first few weeks it became apparent that all of the kitchen appliances except the refrigerator would need to be replaced. So in the past two weeks, we have replaced the oven (we found a very nice, slightly used one at an excellent price), the hood over the stove, and the dishwasher (found both of those items new, but on sale), and are just about beginning to shop for a new stove top, since the repairman has told us the current one is leaking gas. Our God has well supplied our needs, however, and we have been able to make all of these purchases with the funds that many of you helped to provide before we came to France last June. We are still in the process of hanging pictures, putting together some additional furniture items like bookshelves, and eventually hope to re-organize the leftover rubbermaid boxes in the garage, but all-in-all we are now functioning normally and contentedly in our cozy little French home. :) We have even been able to begin a bit of hosting.

At the left is a picture of Miriam with Sara, a little girl from her school, "having tea". We enjoyed a good time of visiting and relationship-building with Sara and her family (Abdul and Isabelle, Ali, Sara and Neal) at a meal in our home a week ago.

Having Tim's parents back at the helm at Eglise Baptiste de Pessac is providing us with some occasional opportunities to venture out into other churches in France, enabling us to get to know some other French ministries. Yesterday we took the tram into downtown Bordeaux where Tim was able preach at a sister church there. We had a brief, but encouraging time, visiting with Christian, the pastor of the small assembly who is pictured in the collage below with Zacharie, and the others' of Eglise Evangelique Baptiste. We are looking forward to traveling up to Rouen, France (near Normandy) to get to know another church there. The missionary pastor of the Rouen church, Kim Fox, has invited Tim to speak at their church retreat April 8-10. Some of you may know of this work through missionary Kristi Colas, who serves in the same ministry.

And, of course, French school is still a regular part of life for three of our five family members, though we all profited greatly from the extra time to work on the house stuff which we were afforded through a two-week winter break at the end of February. Now that Tim and the kids are back to the books, Tim is continuing to enjoy all that he is learning in his French literature and civilization classes, as well as the grammar help is gaining in his studies at the university. Also, we have been encouraged to see Micaiah and Miriam becoming more bold in their French speaking skills. To close, I'll post a little video clip of Micaiah reading some of his French homework to his grandparents.