If you follow me on Instagram, you will have already seen today’s feature pic. It’s one I took Wednesday morning when I dropped Timo off at school. Although the days are getting longer, it’s still pretty dark first thing in the morning, but somehow that adds to the charm of walking through these pretty little streets of the city that we call –(at least for now)– “home”.

Let me tell you a little bit about our week…

Time Out!

One of the highlights was taking a time out with Liz last Friday afternoon.

It’s a rare thing for us to be able to enjoy time together away from the house but it was necessary. Liz didn’t know about it ahead of time… we just hit the road and drove.

It was Dominic’s last day of work at the WTC so we treated him to lunch at KFC before we continued to Poitiers. We hit Sostrene Greene… our new favorite store. It’s a DIY / home decor store… think micro-version of Hobby Lobby or Michael’s (+ they sell boxed water!). In the same shopping mall we saw a clothing store that was built under & incorporated the remains of an old church. (How cool is THAT!?)

Overall… the best part though, was just having time to walk hand-in-hand, think & talk without the “house-stuff” distracting us, or calling us to “something important”.

Heading out!

In a number of small villages surrounding Châtellerault – and in France in general – it’s not uncommon to come across some kind of little “enclosed cabinet” (think: refurbished phone booth for example) in which people can leave a book and take a book. It’s a cool way for folks to recycle what’s in their home libraries!

One gentleman at church indicated that the Lord had put in his heart to have us place New Testaments in some of those spots, with a church card in case they wanted to follow-up. We had the New Testaments and had just been waiting on cards to print. They arrived this week so we’ll be distributing them over the coming couple of weeks. God’s word never returns void… “Lord, let it fall on ready ground!”

Bible School Prep.

This week is going to be a busy one and next Saturday will be a Bible School day. It made sense then, to get a head start on things this week.

I find that between teaching in Angers on Monday & Tuesday and Poitiers on Wednesday is physically and mentally draining (given the 2h drive to Angers). On Thursdays, I find I just need to recoup and get my wits about me.

“Hello mid-life! … hold the crisis please!” 🙂

Dollars & Cents

Although the teaching work is just that… work, it is (a) something that I very much enjoy and (b) a financial blessing. For some reason, our partner donations were down significantly this month. I don’t know if it’s the “post-December slump” where church accountants are getting caught up on year-end stuff or just what’s behind it, but it surely impacted us.

If it weren’t for the teaching, we’d be up the proverbial creek without a paddle. 😉

It just goes to show that the Lord set something in motion last January (my first teaching contract, 4h/week) because He knew it would build to something more by this year (roughly 12h/week). It may not seem like  a lot of contact hours, but again, there are roughly 9h of driving in there as well.

When we trust in the Lord, we’re in good hands!

Livestreaming Church

This week we sat in on church from back home once again – we picked up the Wednesday night Bible Study from our home church in Saint John.

It may seem a bit strange to “attend” church this way, but what a blessing it is when you’re far away, constantly having to “lead”, with very few chances to “feed”.

Bro. Mark Robertson did a great job talking about God as our healer!

God bless you…

…and once again, thanks so much for connecting with us today. We covet your prayers at all times, because prayer cuts through all of the things that can rob us of strength on a daily basis. So knowing that you’re praying with us… makes us all the more strong!

May God get the praise…
for the good things in your life and the good things in ours.