So this happened this week… Sophie was helping out with Sunday School when it came time for altar call this past Sunday and the next thing I know, Dominic is making his way to the keyboard.

Wait… what!?  …. When did that happen?

I knew that he’d been messin’ around with the keyboard in Sophie’s room from time to time, but to go from there to hoppin’ in to finish off service, well that’s a whole new level of messin’!

Very proud to see them stretching their wings and growing in the work of the Lord!

Special Guests

So last week I put out a teaser and said that we’d be spending the weekend with company, without saying who. Well, we were blessed to have spent the weekend with Cylinda & Seanna Nickels, all the way from Cabot, AK.

Cylinda is office manager for MK Ministries (Missionary Kids), which ensures that children of UPCI missionaries are well looked after. She coordinates special gifts at Christmas, facilitates their participation in events when needed and sometimes is just a “hang-out” friend or a listening ear.

Back in November, she contacted me about coming, saying that the Lord had placed our kids on her heart of late, in prayer, and she just wanted to connect if a visit wouldn’t interfere too much with our schedule.

Schedule!? When it comes to the kids’ overall well-being… schedule goes out the window. We’re thankful for those that regularly hold our kids up in prayer!

She & her daughter arrived on Saturday morning from the USA for a 3-day visit and MK Ministries treated us to the following:

• Saturday: Starbucks at the Louvre, a boat tour of Paris on the Seine and gyros in Saint-Michel before the 3.5hr drive back to Châtellerault. (Incidentally, yesterday’s machete attack took place in the same shopping hall where we grabbed a Starbucks… we’re there frequently).
• Sunday: We had service at church, shared in cous-cous at home, visited Angles-sur-l’Anglin and played a few games before calling it a day.
• Monday: The boys had school so Sophie & I drove them back to Paris for their evening flight out to the UK. Along the way we stopped at Chambord castle and caught a few more glimpses of the Eiffel Tower. After returning the rental van, we reclaimed our car and made the 3.5hr drive back home again.

Whether visiting Paris or playing Suspend around the table… these were three incredible days. A huge Thank You to Cylinda & MK Ministries for their moral & prayer support on behalf of our kids!

Challenging Days

In as much as the beginning of the week saw us living on a “high” of sorts, so the middle of the week took our breath away. In what we though would be a routine visit to the garage, we found out that our car needed

• Four new tires
• A new alternator
• An exchange unit for the coolant fluid

…and all that came with a hefty price tag. Not to mention that last week we had to renew our annual emergency health coverage policy.

All totaled… the past two weeks have cost us
the equivalent of 3.5 months of regular support.

The COOL PART… God protected us during two round-trips to the Paris region, in two weeks, with this car and all without incident!  We thank God for his protection!

If any of you reading this are pastors of local churches and would be willing to make a one-time donation, over and above your regular support, to help cover these expenses, we would greatly appreciate it. Simply contact Global Missions with our account number 171805 (Long Family France).

Becoming Overcomers

I recently read a quote by author Terry Shuttlesworth, in a book that was given to me – Standards for Success from the Life of King David.

“How can you be an overcomer without something to overcome?”

Given the second half of the week…. that quote encouraged us… we want to be overcomers!

We were also encouraged by the fact that God is answering Sophie’s prayers for a good friend here.

There are no other teen girls in church locally but Timo’s best friend has a sister and she & Soph have been developing a friendship. Also, one of the girls from another church in north-eastern France is going to be coming down to spend a weekend later this month.

Prayer

There are four very definite prayer needs in our church right now:

1. Our most faithful member has been in hospital for over a month and had an important surgery yesterday. Pray for healing.
2. There is a key family in our church facing a major work decision. They too need clear direction and an open door from the Lord.
3. Our personal finances… We know we are in the will of God and expect to see God do great things.

It’s for these reasons, among others, that we set aside the month of January for prayer and fasting and that we have started a mid-week study on Spiritual Warfare, using Sis. Judy Doughty’s guide (Mattoon IL) on Spiritual Warfare Prayer – which we also have in French.

Sis. Doughty’s grandson Nixon & John Welsh spent several months in France last fall and brought us copies of this study. How neat to have such a direct connection to the source bless us and bless the work in France.

Thank you…

…for checking in again today. God bless you & keep you this week.
Let what you read, inform your prayers for us…

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If you haven’t read Monday’s Short-Term Missions Monday post… click below:
7 Mistakes of Short Term Missions
& share with someone you know who’s going on AYC this summer.

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Finally…

If you have two minutes… I need your help with a book project that I’m working on, specifically, I’m looking for input on TITLE and COVER design. Click PARIS below:

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