TOTW

This past week has been busy, but good. I picked up my parent's from Indy (they're back from 2 months in Africa). Debbie helped my brother John make little makalas (800 of them) for the Africa table at Grace College's Taste of the World during missions week. There were plenty of French missionaries around to help with the French table (if you're wondering why she wasn't over there making Boeuf Borgignon - is that how it's spelled?

We also had a display setup trying to lure another unsuspecting college student to the Château to help us out as an intern. Not sure if it worked or not, but we talked to several students, handed out a lot of flyers about the need for interns, and gave out a lot of good chocolate. Please continue to pray for some good contacts with people to help us out this next year, and also keep praying for the people who are already seriously considering it - that the application process would go smoothly for them.

Debbie found a home for Nadia! Thanks Brandee Martinsky for connecting us with Jane!

The prayer guide is just about done - which is the largest project we do here at GBIM, so I'm really happy about that, it's a big load off my back, as we're beginning to see the end of the project. BTW, it's a great way to pray for missions, so pick one up when it comes out... it's free of course.

Work has started on the re-stucco-ing of our house - it's too late to finish it this year, most of the work will take place in the spring, but still, it's nice to see it started.

Debbie and I also enjoyed a party with some friends---it was a pirate themed mystery murder dinner thing. Thought I'd include a picture of Debbie and I in our pirate outfits.

A Home for Nadia

This is our lovely and sweet cat, Nadia. Since our apartment is pet-free, she's been spending the summer happily living out-of-doors re-connecting with her wild side. Now that the weather is getting colder, however, she really needs a home where she can be an indoor, or indoor-outdoor cat again. Are there any locals our there who would be able to take her in from the cold? We don't want her to look like this all winter!



This would be a temporary situation, as we are planning on taking her with us to France. (We hope to leave sometime in January, but it could be later than that.)

She is both litter-box and great-outdoors trained.

Please let me know if you might be able to help in this way! Nadia will be so happy; as you can tell from the first picture, she loves her creature comforts and can't wait to have a cozy home to curl up in again! Thanks a million,

Debbie and Nadia

MK from Africa goes CRAZY!!!

Jordan Cone, a friend I grew up with (and now lives in the missionary residence), just showed me this video of him jumping off the world's highest land-based bungee jump. This was only 5 days after being married, and he was still on his honeymoon. Location: Switzerland. James Bond also jumped from this in the movie Goldeneye.

Harrison Jim

well, someone said my dad looked like Harrison Ford - I've done a quick photo comparison, and can see no similarities.

can't get much cooler than this

this is easily my favorite old missionary picture I've found (at least so far) - well, i should qualify that - there are some pretty FUNNY pictures that probably top this one (one's that I probably won't dare to post), but as far as sheer coolness of style, I believe the Griffith's have won. For those of you who don't know them, Dave & Sue live about an hour or so away from the Château - they're missionaries with GBIM. I do believe we'd have an easier time of support raising if I had a mustache like that.



And here's one of those funny pictures.... no I don't have makeup on... yes my dad has hair

Florida!

We're sitting in a beautiful apartment - thanks to Doug Brennan who let us stay in his time share this week. We had an un-eventful trip down to Florida on Friday and Saturday, spent the night here in Fort Myers Beach, then drove up to Sebring for the morning service there. Had a great time, really enjoyed the visit, made some new friends, and saw a few people we knew. The Gorniks were there, which was a fun surprise - they'll be there for a few weeks studying with Randy Smith's Bible Institute - which btw sounds very interesting! We were really encouraged by this church - the Sunday evening service we shared in went really well, and a lot of people were really interested in what's happening at the Château - asked a lot of good questions. It's really cool to be a part of a small fellowship like the Grace Brethren, where people feel connected to each other, and the ministries of GBIM. I think at least a dozen people from the Sebring church had been to the Château - so far, there's been someone from every GBC we've visited that has been to the Château.

Debbie and Tarrah Dubusak making crêpes 3 at a time which we shared with everyone after the evening service (it takes quite a while to make 120 crêpes)

We've enjoyed a bit of Florida cuisine - we had boiled peanuts - which from the picture below don't look so appetizing, but looks aren't everything - these were cajun flavored, and were pretty good!


We visited with Serena Nelson on monday (she took the day off work even!). We went down to the inverted pier in St. Petersburg (right next to Tampa where she lives). They had a sweet airport for small planes which was pretty much in the bay - you didn't want to overshoot the runway. We had Cuban sandwiches for lunch, and went on a dolphin tour boat ride - which was tons of fun. We only saw two dolphins, and they have a guarantee that you'll see dolphins - aparently, two isn't enough, because we got free passes to come back again sometime (Serena will be able to treat someone else to a trip sometime). I think we had as much fun looking at the crazy huge houses along the shore - there were some pretty fantastic designs there.

Debbie & Serena on the dolphin tour boat

Debbie loves pelicans!

That's a cute little baby fish that Debbie is mercilessly
feeding to the carnivorous pelicans

I also found a great sign - you probably all realize if you've been getting my emails for the past two years, that I like signs where people try to use pictures to communicate dangerous situations - for some reason they always make me laugh. This gate will beat your backside if you try to go through and you're not an auto.

Debbie's First Blog Ever!

Hey there! Congratulations on being here for this historical occasion, as I finally join my own generation in the world of blogging!

As many of you know, Jay and I are gearing up to move back to France, and part of that process is to sort and organize our cumulative 55 years of accumulated stuff!


This is what I started with! Overwhelming!

I thought I'd share some of the fun things that I've found. It's rather embarrassing, but I had a whole stack of Christmas cards from years ago! Here are two of my favorites:


I was Thailan's best locker partner ever!



This is a really sweet letter and reading it just takes me right back to seventh grade! Sigh. I really love how all of the exclamations points are made with x's instead of dots. very cute!

So, this box of old Christmas cards ended up in the trash, along with my worst art project ever, which I am secure enough to show here on my very first blog. I'll probably regret it!


This was a project where we had to illustrate a poem about a guy who was burning old love letters...this assignment just didn't work out very well for me, as you can see.

I'm feeling pretty good about my progress in sorting, and I have to tell you it feels SO good to get rid of so much stuff that we really didn't need!

GBIM Asado cookout