Gospel Concert

Just had an amazing weekend!!! Our church, to celebrate 20 years of existence, invited a Gospel choir from Paris for a concert. We organized the concert, housed and fed the singers, and got to be the ushers and ticket takers (free concert but we still had tickets). The choir sang beautifully to a full house. And not only did they sing gospel, but they shared the gospel as well. Very nicely intermingled with the history of slavery.
This is a picture of the workers, not the choir. A good portion of our church in Feignies.

Laura turns 13 !!!!

One of the fun things about big families is celebrating birthdays! Not only do we have plenty of birthdays to celebrate, but we have lots of family to celebrate with! Laura wanted her brothers to plan the games for her birthday party. They got off to a reluctant and last minute start, but they pulled it off, and Laura thinks they are the best brothers ever!

Peter's turn

Peter has been officially accepted to Operation Mobilization to join their ship ministry for two years!!! He needs to raise his support, and if all goes well, he will head to Germany in January for a two-week training session, and then join up with the Logos Hope, probably in Hong Kong.

Nice way to start the day

We live along the Sambre river, and BLF, where Philip works, is along the same river.
Philip tries to take his bike to work as often as possible. Or maybe I should say, as often as it isn't raining, which it quite often is here. We have had fantastic weather the past few days, and here is what he saw on his way to work this morning. What a way to start the day!

Fifty Years Young

Two years ago, Philip turned 50 and we celebrated with a BIG surprise party planned and hosted by dear friends. (I just realized that I never got pictures of that event on the blog. Too much happened in 2010, to be sitting at the computer! I will try to fix that and put up a few photos...a bit after the fact.) 

Anyway, I knew that my turn was coming to turn 50, but I also knew that there wasn't really any way of surprising me. I, would of course, be very suspicious, because these friends are well known for their surprise birthday bashes. And since they live 3 hours away, any trip to their house near my birthday would immediately alert me to the coming event. I was surprise-proof. Or so I thought.

Somehow right under my nose, Philip and the kiddos, Daniel and Pierrette from afar, and a few other friends and family planned a party near home in our church building. They chose a date more than a month before my real birthdate, either to throw me off, or to make me feel older faster.

The night before, the conspirators arrived at the church to get things ready. (I don't have very many pictures of that part of the "pre"party)

The kids were at the church all morning "preparing skits and songs for worship" with the "youth group," but they were actually grating carrots and setting the tables and then waiting to spring on me.

The pleasure of surprising Mom shows on those faces very clearly. (I am behind the door in shock)

A unique gift: who would have thought that the letters in the names of my closest loved ones would add up to 50?

Jérémie wrote and sang a special song for me.

My sisters and Dad and Judy got up early to be part of the surprise.

A Black Forest cake big enough for 70 guests.

The head conspirators. They look very guilty, don't they? They sang some songs for me too, but no pictures...

Salon du Livre Paris (Book Fair)

March was a busy month for us with BLF presenting books for the first time at the Paris Book Fair. Four days, 200,000 people. It seemed like they all stopped by our stand at least twice !!! (Some of them really did.) Our booth, tiny compared to the big secular publishers', was very popular mainly because we had the Manga artists from Japan autographing their books, the Manga Bible. 

The artists drew crowds

And TV and radio stations

 Philip taking orders

 And translating (into English, not Japanese)

Stéphane came from Switzerland

 And even Mélanie helped out for a day.

Time to tear down and clean up

And while the artists were busy drawing away, the kids and I were "busy" babysitting in Japanese. The kids definitely think we should adopt ! Luka, the son of the one of the artists, went with us to Paris, but then wanted to go back to "France." France for him meant life on the farm with lots of "brothers, sisters, dogs, cats and pony." Forget Paris !

Blackout

Last week, we had a very unexpected snow storm. The weather has been mild and the daffodils are close to blooming. But snow it did, all day. The children were very disappointed to see slush accumulate instead of snow. This might have been a blessing, because where the snow did stick, it downed power lines, and enjoyed creating chaos, in any way it could.
Those downed power lines, although an hour from our house, were OUR power lines. So, along with 140,000 other homes, we spent 6 hours without power. This, of course, is fun for awhile. Candles are pretty and plentiful at our house. And since we heat mainly with wood stoves, we weren't cold. (Other people were not so fortunate.) But I must admit, the idea of no electricity for days, doesn't sound so fun. What happens to all the food in the freezer? What to do with the clothes that are washed but not dried? No internet? No cell phones?  (How did we get so dependent on those pesky things?) So when the power came back on, I admit some of us cheered!

Music by candlelight. Our piano is so old that it even has candle holders, just for this sort of emergency.

Débora, our niece, wanted to make Pavlova... Luckily the meringue was waiting and ready, but whipped cream by hand? I'll admit it was a bit buttery, but the dessert still disappeared quickly. And Nathan's headlight helped for the decorating.

Weekend "Chocolat"

Jérémie's chocolate making days go back a few years. He used to fill raspberries with good things and dip them in dark chocolate. But recently he has gotten serious about chocolate making.
Saturday he enlisted helpers and went crazy. The chocolates were as good as they look. Try not to drool on your keyboard.

First the workers put chocolate around the sides of the molds and let it harden.

 Then they fill them with yummy things and cover with more chocolate.

Once the chocolates are cool and hardened, they take them out of the molds.

Then they decorate. This is very important. In French we say that we eat with our eyes. (Sorry, but it sounds better in French)

Did I mention that I love chocolate?!!!