The Joy of watching your Grandchildren discover the Joy of Giving!

Christmas with the family was wonderful but we will never forget when Micaiah gave his Dad the gift that he had for him. He had heard his Dad say a few weeks before that he wished he had some gloves for the cold mornings. From that moment on, he knew what he wanted to get him. He was sooo excited to give them to his Dad. Priceless moment.

Some more pictures!

The Voyage of Christmas!

Today we had the third and final performance of the Christmas Cantata "The Voyage of Christmas." It has been a long but fruitful "voyage" for us as we, along with others, have worked on translating, printing, practicing, getting costumes, etc.

We were really excited this evening as the room was filled. Many of them were visitors. Our neighbors were here as well as the owners of our house and many friends of church members. Thank you so much for praying for this outreach.

Merry Christmas to all of you!

Christmas Cantata

Since August we have been working hard on the Christmas Cantata-- translating, printing, practicing, etc. We are doing "The Journey of Christmas" by Glenn and Jan Christianson. Our two sister churches are deeply involved, too. Saturday will be our last big practice and the first performance will be at the downtown church on Sunday. The next weekend there will be two more performances-- the church on the Right Bank Saturday and then Sunday, Dec. 19th here at our church. Please pray for this outreach. We know that the owner of our house will be here with his wife and hopefully some other neighbors.

Thanksgiving at 162bis!

Last Friday we had our annual Thanksgiving meal with friends and family. It is the first time in many years that we can add "and family!" What a wonderful day we spent as 23 people shared a delicious meal together (traditional turkey, of course!) and a time of singing and sharing the blessing of the last year. The Lord has been so good to us and we are grateful for His faithfulness year after year. We trust that all of you had a wonderful Thanksgiving, too.

Three Church Retreat- 2010

Over the November 1st holiday weekend, we had our annual "Three Church Retreat" in the château near Tonneins. There were 90 people this year and there was an excellent spirit. The speaker was a retired French teacher. His messages on the book of James were very encouraging and convicting!
Bob did two workshops while there. The first one was a choir and the group sang for one of the services. The second one which he presented two times, was on "Simplifying your Spiritual Life." He based a lot of it on the book by that title by Donald Whitley. We had just finished reading it together.

This post is late since I have been battling a virus since coming back from the retreat, but we wanted to let you know that we were blessed by it again this year. We had 30 people go. One young Hungarian couple went who are non-believers. The young man comes from a Pastor's family and knows the Gospel clearly. Please pray for them.

English Service

For many years, we have had an English service once a month. We often have visitors-- students who just want to hear something in their mother tongue or students who just want to learn more English. This past Sunday one of our visitors definitely caught our eye-- he was 6ft.10in. tall! Now our son Tim is tall, Dan Seely is even taller but they were both looking up!
Actually, the young man is an American who plays on a professional basketball team here in Bordeaux. He was one that "just wanted to hear something in his mother tongue" but we are praying that we have many more opportunities to share the gospel with him.