Two Things are Certain…

Death & Taxes… so they say.

Well… we didn’t experience death this weak, but we did stare down French income tax filing.

First though, a look back to…

Mothers Day in France

What a nice Mothers Day we had.

Liz shared with the church, the message she shared from the book of Ruth, with the ladies of the Quebec District… the extent to which an improbable individual finds a life of incredible blessing and how that mirrors Christ’s love for his church… for us. She did a tremendous job!

We also enlisted the help of kids in the church to give to each of the moms present a little gift: a sweet potato seedling.

Just like moms… there’s very much a visible part of her love & care, but the truly nourishing part takes place “in secret”; in the case of our seedling… underground.
Moms themselves (not unlike us) experience our most important growth in secret as well… in that secret place with the Lord. That then nourishes the visible part.
The most nourishing part of the plant grows over time… the longer the plant grows, the more nourishing the resulting fruit.
Finally… these aren’t just any potatoes… they’re sweet potatoes…. just like our moms… they’re sweet!

Service was nourishing time for both kids and adults!

Sunday Afternoon…

After a lovely dinner, some gift / card opening and a nap, Liz & I headed out for a walk around downtown. It had been SUCH a LONG time since we’d be out for no other reason than to just be together (no errands to run, appointments to keep, etc). It was so refreshing.

We greeted some fellow walkers at one point then they caught up with us and began striking up conversation that lasted for a good 20-25minutes (letting us know for sure they weren’t local… Maritimers will do that… not your average French person). They were fairly new to the area from French Guyana (South America) and wound up picking some plums with us along the walking path.

Thank you Lord for a great conversation.
We’re praying to cross paths with them again.

Taxes

“Do them online.” they said.
“It’ll be much easier.” they said.

After several hours at the computer, it took me the rest of the evening in the garden and an hour or so of crocheting to get rid of the knot in my stomach.

I’ve said it before & I’ll say it again… going through the stress of filing income tax TWICE every year (once in France & once in Canada) just may be the death of me. Imagine trying to go through tax documents (which you don’t always clearly understand in your FIRST language)… in your SECOND language!

Get my point?

Adding to that stress, mom told me that the Canadian government was insisting we still owed several thousand dollars from a tax bill that was paid in 2018! There is a surprising level of ineptitude either among the increasingly short-staffed government employee body or the computer programs that (in theory) “talk” between departments.

Reminder: When you’re praying for folks on the mission field, we desperately need God to work in spiritual ways – in our churches and our family lives. However… we also deal with added layers of complication for everyday concerns, some of which would already be complicated at home. Those are still spiritual prayers…

Bible School Saturday

By the time you will have read this, I’ll have already taught a couple hours of Bible School classes this morning. Things continue to be not entirely normal here so for the 3rd month, we’ll be doing classes by video conference.

I’d appreciate your prayers there as well. It’s strange to not be with students in the traditional sense of the term but we continue to try to do what we can to keep the students moving forward in their training for the work of the Lord.