Inside the Cathedral
It's amazing what babies can sleep through! Man, was that a lot of stairs! But the view was worth everyone of them! Liege is gorgeous!
Josiah and Aubrie on the bus ride back to the train station. It had been a wonderful day of exploring in this new area of the world! We must have walked at least 10 miles throughout the day.
We are so blessed to be here on this side of the world. We are learning this new beautiful language, and learning more each day about the culture here. Brian and Heather still know much more than the children, but Josiah has taken on a French trait when he speaks. It's really cute to hear Josiah doing it, ok he has no idea that he is even doing it, but it's adorable. One of these days we know they are going to blow right past us, with the greatest French accents. It's going to be wonderful! For now, however, it is fun for us to be the teachers of our little eager French students.
We have found a little French speaking protestant church that serves a HUGE area of Belgium. We really enjoy going, and yesterday they had a potluck lunch. It was very different than one in the states. They don't rush anything, even a potluck. After the main course, of whatever everyone brought, there was a long delay in setting out the desserts, to give lots of time for fellowship. This is something that is so enjoyable here. Meals aren't rushed, and conversation are lingered over. Going to this church is wonderful for broadening our French vocabulary, and our ability to hold a spiritual conversation. Of course, we are NOT learning words such as "Christian, cross, Christ, believe, repent, sin, resurrection, and passover" in our French class.
Another huge blessing, we have been invited over to a REAL Belgian home for lunch next Sunday (dimanchi prochain) by a family from the church. Be praying for our French brains, ears, and mouths to be working really well.
We had an opportunity to gain much more insight into Belgians and their history this last Monday. They had a holiday, boy, do we love the way the Belgians take seriously their holidays. Our language coach and team leader came up with a great idea that we should take a trip to Liege, the 3rd largest city in Belgium. While there we had the opportunity to go inside a church (St Paul's Cathedral) that was built in the 12 century. It was Gorgeous and SOOO old!!! Later, we climbed up over 350 stairs that overlook the city of Liege, at the top there once was an army fort to protect the city, now it has been turned into a modern hospital. At the top, we met a neat young couple, soon to be engaged, and chatted with them extensively. The young man gave Brian his email address, and he has already been in contact with him. Be praying for this relationship. We chatted about all facets of Belgian life and religion (he is an agnostic), and their views on Americans, American politics, and their upcoming engagement/wedding. It was really eye opening. We'll post some pictures of our day in Liege soon. We learned this week you can travel by car across this entire country over it's longest points in 2.5 hours. AMAZING! Heather's from Texas, which takes 12 hours to drive across.
Thank you so much for your prayers for our family. We are still stuggling to stay healthy. Makinna had a BAD rash all over her last week, and now both girls have runny noses. Brian and Heather have yucky throats. Keep our relationships with all our new friends here in the forefront of your minds. We only have one and a half months left of school for the children, before the 2 month summer break. Pray that the relationships that have been forming with fellow parents would deepen, and lead to opportunities to hang out together over the break, and most importantly to share the gospel with them. A sweet Romanian lady in our French class *Nita is lonely here away from her family and friends. We are reaching out to her, and have made a good connection. She loves kids, a great thing in our case. Alas, our current French class ends this Friday, although we'll be continue with the next course, she will not. We won't be seeing her everyday. So pray that our relationship continues with *Nita and we are able to meet her husband and share Christ with them. That is the same for the single male atheist in our class Brian has had great interactions with him about the gospel. Pray that those would continue although he isn't continuing his French next month.
We love and appreciate you all. We look forward to each and every update, letter, email, and phone call you send our way, so keep them coming. We are looking forward to celebrating Makinna's 2nd & Brian's 3_? birthdays at the beginning of June the 6th and 9th respectively. We want to make their first birthdays overseas special. We are looking into the practices of Belgians to celebrate birthdays, and we are going to try to incoporate some of those into our own celebration.
We have found a little French speaking protestant church that serves a HUGE area of Belgium. We really enjoy going, and yesterday they had a potluck lunch. It was very different than one in the states. They don't rush anything, even a potluck. After the main course, of whatever everyone brought, there was a long delay in setting out the desserts, to give lots of time for fellowship. This is something that is so enjoyable here. Meals aren't rushed, and conversation are lingered over. Going to this church is wonderful for broadening our French vocabulary, and our ability to hold a spiritual conversation. Of course, we are NOT learning words such as "Christian, cross, Christ, believe, repent, sin, resurrection, and passover" in our French class.
Another huge blessing, we have been invited over to a REAL Belgian home for lunch next Sunday (dimanchi prochain) by a family from the church. Be praying for our French brains, ears, and mouths to be working really well.
We had an opportunity to gain much more insight into Belgians and their history this last Monday. They had a holiday, boy, do we love the way the Belgians take seriously their holidays. Our language coach and team leader came up with a great idea that we should take a trip to Liege, the 3rd largest city in Belgium. While there we had the opportunity to go inside a church (St Paul's Cathedral) that was built in the 12 century. It was Gorgeous and SOOO old!!! Later, we climbed up over 350 stairs that overlook the city of Liege, at the top there once was an army fort to protect the city, now it has been turned into a modern hospital. At the top, we met a neat young couple, soon to be engaged, and chatted with them extensively. The young man gave Brian his email address, and he has already been in contact with him. Be praying for this relationship. We chatted about all facets of Belgian life and religion (he is an agnostic), and their views on Americans, American politics, and their upcoming engagement/wedding. It was really eye opening. We'll post some pictures of our day in Liege soon. We learned this week you can travel by car across this entire country over it's longest points in 2.5 hours. AMAZING! Heather's from Texas, which takes 12 hours to drive across.
Thank you so much for your prayers for our family. We are still stuggling to stay healthy. Makinna had a BAD rash all over her last week, and now both girls have runny noses. Brian and Heather have yucky throats. Keep our relationships with all our new friends here in the forefront of your minds. We only have one and a half months left of school for the children, before the 2 month summer break. Pray that the relationships that have been forming with fellow parents would deepen, and lead to opportunities to hang out together over the break, and most importantly to share the gospel with them. A sweet Romanian lady in our French class *Nita is lonely here away from her family and friends. We are reaching out to her, and have made a good connection. She loves kids, a great thing in our case. Alas, our current French class ends this Friday, although we'll be continue with the next course, she will not. We won't be seeing her everyday. So pray that our relationship continues with *Nita and we are able to meet her husband and share Christ with them. That is the same for the single male atheist in our class Brian has had great interactions with him about the gospel. Pray that those would continue although he isn't continuing his French next month.
We love and appreciate you all. We look forward to each and every update, letter, email, and phone call you send our way, so keep them coming. We are looking forward to celebrating Makinna's 2nd & Brian's 3_? birthdays at the beginning of June the 6th and 9th respectively. We want to make their first birthdays overseas special. We are looking into the practices of Belgians to celebrate birthdays, and we are going to try to incoporate some of those into our own celebration.
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