French Language

Did you know that French is spoken daily in 54 countries (Source: The Ethnologue, 2004) mainly in Europe, West Africa and Canada and including the Middle East, Asia, North Africa, Pacific Islands and the Caribbean Area. Wow!

Update: We are looking into a language school in Albertville, France. http://www.cef-france.org/index.html It is less expensive and it is a well known, good school! We are praying that January will be the month that we can start our language school. The school goes from January till December of 2008. Please pray that our funds come in, pray that the visa (Sept. 5th) appointments are completed, and that there is housing available.

Hurdles. Whas up God?

Sometimes life seems too chaotic to handle. We continue to try in our own strength and own finite strategies to make things work until we get to that point of saying "Uncle," "I give up."

We had a chaotic day yeterday and went to bed feeling defeated. We then woke up hoping for a better outlook when again we ran into distractions and hurdles that we couldn't get over in our efforts. So, we prayed and asked God to bind the enemy in Jesus Name.

Do you know what happens when you sincerely pray and ask God to intervene. After we prayed the hurdles that were in our way were destroyed and removed with in minutes. Thank you Jesus.

Ok......God made this? He is so cool!

Twin Falls, Idaho July 19th 2007

Learning to trust God (Philipians 3:12-14)

We had such a wonderful time visiting everybody in the Midwest and along the way. We are back in the Pacific Northwest for a short time. Our financial support is moving forward but we are only about 25% funded to move to France. September 4th or January 7th are the dates when French school starts in Massy, France for Susan and I. The earliest available appointments we have for all five of our visas is on September 5th in San Francisco and the housing in Massy is full for the September 4th date. So.....Here we are in Oregon, trusting God, believing that France is where He wants us and that it is time to go. So we press on! We continue to raise support and gather up people like you to join our team of prayer and financial support in order for us to go. Thank You for those of you who have stepped up to pray for us and provide for the Father's work to be done. Please also pray for our girls schooling situation and wisdom to know how to start their education for the new school year. God is good....All the time....God is good.

Peace, Matt

Set of wings

Wisconsin

God is good...all the time...God is good

Because of the delays in our tour, we got to spend the 4th with family. There is a really nice park between Salem & Portland that we hung out and ate lots of good food and played lawn ball. It was very relaxing.
Since then we have traveled through 7 states and put close to 2k miles on our van. We stopped finally in Kansas City and saw Jim & Amy with their handsome new son: Hudson Creed and we had lunch with Lauren and her fiancee Jason. So fun!
Now we are in Illinois seeing our friends Ryan and Michelle. It is so neat to have this opportunity to see dear friends & family. This picture is at the park in Oregon with our sweet niece Isabella. Emily is very nurturing. More to come......God is good....all the time...God is good!

Oregon

We are in Oregon. Our home state! We had planned to be in Wisconsin by now, but some car troubles (and God probably had his hand in it =) have delayed that leg of our trip. The car needed a new battery and we have run into a few glitches in getting our car registered here.

We plan to leave for the Midwest on July 5th and arrive in Wisconsin by the 11th! We are excited about seeing more friends!

We have had such a good time seeing friends we have not seen for so long. We have seen friends & family in LA, San Jose, Santa Rosa, Woodland, Redding and now here in Salem.

Please pray for our communication with everyone. It has been one brick wall after another. Problems with the internet, computers, email providers, etc. We have wanted to keep in better touch and every step we take we hit a wall. Thanks for your prayers in this little annoyance.

Check out our flicker images- we uploaded many photos from our roadtrip thus far.

Da Cousins

Having fun with the
cousins in San Pedro!
We were able to stop
for a couple of days
and hang out.
It was a lot of fun.

We're Off

We are on our way. Susan is here with some good friends in Phoenix. We made it out of Tucson finally. We headed to Lagea's house in LA and spent a couple days with them. Great time!

Things that make you go . . . hhmmm . . . aauugghh!

It is like the neverending story around here. We have been packing for weeks and it seems as though it will never be done. We were supposed to begin our roadtrip this morning but we are still here. We think we will be able to leave tomorrow, but what was supposed to be a 6 hour round trip run to Phoenix for Matt has turned into a 10 hour trip. So we will see if we can complete the task by tomorrow morning. Our family loves roadtrips so we are all chomping at the bit to get on the road! Please pray that it will be possible tomorrow!

Last week I reported that the house had sold. It is back on the market. Last week when the inspectors showed up, we had a crazy morning. Anna had a virus which caused her to be sick all over the carpet, etc. And then Emily fainted. Weird. After a few doctors appointments and a visit to a cardiologist for Em everyone has a clean bill of health . . . except the house. The people backed out of the sell. Please pray for this house to sell.