This week, we celebrated something new, and continued celebrating something recently-new.

A quick post today to tell you about those things and share our week.

Let’s begin from last weekend…

Country Livin’

As you’ll recall, I spent last week out in over and above… the little hobby farm that the Lord allows me to look after periodically, when the owners are away (typically 1-2 weekends per year and perhaps a week or two for longer trips).

We were pretty much amazed to recall that the last time I’d been out was right before the first lock-down here (March 2020) when they were away for two weeks. Wow… time flies (but then… a lot of people say that 2020 was a blur, given that so little happened since we were all pretty much confined.)

There have been a couple of changes since my last trip out… their dog and cat both passed away, and were replaced… by a new dog and two new cats.

I’ve never been a die-hard cat fan, but these two gorgeous Maine Coon cats stole a piece of my heart (same goes for Soph as you can see – After Liz spending the night Friday, Soph came back after church, Sunday, and stayed the final night). They were cuddly to the point of annoyance if you wanted to do things like… eat in peace or use a laptop.

Because of these newbies…. things weren’t as relaxing as they usually are, but they say a change is as good as a rest so we’ll hang our hat on that old saying.

Celebrating the wins

As the post title mentions… we had a couple of reasons to celebrate this week. I’ll save the best for last:

• Italy’s Euro semi-final win: In case you weren’t aware, because of Liz, we all have Italian, as well as Canadian citizenship and as much as we’re not typically sports-fans, it was tough to not get caught up in the Euro Cup soccer finals. When Italy beat Spain to advance to the semi-final – as all self-respecting Italians – we celebrated the win… the boys in particular. 🙂
• Vaccination: Well… we finally got the ball rolling and are moving forward with Covid-vaccination. Liz, Sophie & Timo have all had their first shots and Dominic & I will have ours later this month. With all the talk of a possible Delta-variant, 4th wave here in France… it just seemed like a wise precaution to take.
• Our newest friend’s baptism: We’re all still riding high from last week’s baptism and Holy Ghost infilling – it was really a cause for celebration as God did a tremendous work.
  
  I drove up to Blois to meet with him this week (1.5hr drive) and he could not stop talking about what it meant to him and what God had done. Amoung other things… due to an ongoing medical condition, he usually wakes up daily in moderate but definite pain. While other symptoms remain, that particular one has disappeared ever since his baptism. God is great! (this was a field of calendula and other flowers, grown for seed production, on my way to his house).

Bit of a Mystery

One thing I’ll say is… God seems to be using our little church as a bit of a hub in western France. It would be nice to see more new people from our home town of Châtellerault, but it seems like – at least for now – the bulk of new folks are from further afield: We have one couple from 1.5hr north-west, in Angers, these new folks who are 1.5hrs to the north east, and several families who drive between 20-30 minutes to come to church.

We don’t quite understand God’s logic in that, but his ways are higher than ours and maybe… just maybe… he is putting in a hub & spoke type ministry for our church to impact a wider radius in the west. Time will tell… Lord let it be so!

Bee-Season

I’ll end with a short note on the bees:

This is a picture of a new colony I established three weeks ago, when it looked like one of my other colonies was going to swarm. Despite diminishing nectar availability, they seem to be doing well.

This is exactly what you want to see in a new colony… lots of bees on top of the frames – it’s a sign that they’re in need of more space – having filled the space they have. So they must be getting nectar & pollen somewhere or they woudn’t be growing like this.

Finally… a bit of good news in a strange beekeeping year.
(there are also several fields of buckwheat nearby…. so they’ll be foraging on that for a week or two).

Thanks…

…. for stopping by again today.
May you find something to celebrate this week… something that the Lord has done for you or someone you love.
God bless you today!

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.

James 1.17