Elodie Update - Thank you for praying!

Dear Friends and Family,

Thank you so much for the outpouring of prayer and encouragement you sent our way as we prepared for Elodie’s surgery today. We all felt and, most importantly, Elodie experienced supernatural peace in the past 24 hours. Surgery was successful and she is resting and recovering. The doctor said he expects her to notice a big difference in the coming weeks as her nose was significantly obstructed. We’re so grateful this was able to happen quickly and to be supported in prayer by a community like you. Thank you. Please continue to pray for Elodie’s recovery. She asked me to say thank you so very much for praying for her.

Every Blessing,

The Appels

Prayer Request for Elodie's Surgery

Hello dear Family and Friends, 

Greetings from Arkansas where we are staying with Joanna’s family. We’ve been visiting in the States for three weeks now and we’re so grateful for the incredible hospitality we’ve received. As always, it’s been an encouragement to share how God is working in France and to receive prayer and love from so many of you. We have a prayer request for you today.  

After seeing an ENT specialist in Little Rock on Tuesday this week, Elodie is going to have surgery to remove her adenoids tomorrow! This feels like an answer to prayer as Elodie has had increasing difficulty breathing this past year and the wait to see a pediatric ENT in France is very long (about 2 years!). Though this is a blessing, it is quite a stress to have her undergoing a medical procedure while we are away from home. 

Please pray with us for a successful surgery for Elodie tomorrow and for her to feel the Lord’s peace and presence. Please pray for our family as we are feeling exhausted from travel and have a heightened level of stress with this medical situation. 

Thank you all for praying with us! 

Every Blessing,

Tom and Joanna

Youth, D-Day and the USA!

Dear Family and Friends,

One week from the time of writing this, all seven of us will be on a plane together for the first time, winging our way to the US. We’re excited for Aaron’s first visit to his native land, and we are so looking forward to spending time in person with many of you!

As we prepare to come and share some of the ways God is at work in and through us here in Normandie, I’m struck with a profound sense of gratitude. Through ten years of ups and downs and so many lessons learned, He is faithful. We feel so thankful for you, the community the Lord has led to pray with us, to support this ministry financially, and simply to be our people. Friends here have been asking what we are most looking forward to in the US – is it a particular food or being in places deeply connected with memories? Of course, it’s our relationships. We are so excited to get to see many of you soon! Thanks for being with us.

Connect with us IN PERSON!

Sunday June 28th –

We will be giving a greeting at the Gate Community Church in Franklin, TN at the 10:30 service. There will be a reception to follow where we will share some stories, updates and prayer needs. This is open to all so we would love to see you there if you are in the area!

Sunday July 5th –

We will be sharing at Fairview Church in Lebanon, TN.

Saturday July 11th –

We will be in the Franklin area and have some time to visit with people for a coffee or a meal. Please reach out if you’d like to connect!

Sunday July 19th -

We will be at Pee Dee Baptist Church in Clinton, Arkansas.

We wish we could run all over the States and see each of you, but we’ve decided to keep our destinations limited as travel with our big family is tricky.

Youth Service at Bon Berger

Thank you for praying with us about the first Bon Berger youth led service. It went so well! Reuben and Silas led sung worship with another young man in our gongregation. Eli prepared and preached a powerful message from Acts chapter 2 about how our evangelism must be empowered by the Holy Spirit. The congregation was encouraged and we felt inspired about the way God might grow the church here in Caen.

D-Day Celebrations

I (Tom) was invited to fill in for a Catholic priest to lead a commemoration service on June 6th, the 82nd anniversary of D-Day. It was an incredible opportunity to preach the gospel to a large gathering of our neighbors, British folks and families of veterans who were over for the commemoration, and active military members. I really enjoyed the being a part of the program and my message and leading were well received.

In fact, after the service, I was asked to come and lead another commemoration the next day in the neighbouring village. This second service went well too, and Joanna and I were able to sing Amazing Grace as part of the program. We were able to meet a veteran from the war, he was 101(!) and he enjoyed interacting with Aaron. It was very special to fill in and participate in honouring the men who fought for the freedom of the villages we currently live in. All of this felt like walking in good works that God had specifically prepared for us to do. I felt at ease and the combination of being known in our village, being bilingual, and being an ordained minister all made me a good fit for this role. Praise the Lord for opportunities like this! We’ve already been booked for next year.

Prayer Points

This week is a full one. The school year is wrapping up, and there is much to do to prepare for nearly 7 weeks away from home. Please pray for:

• A strong finish to the school year for the kids.

• Health and safety as we travel to the USA and in Tennessee, Arkansas and South Carolina

• Aaron’s first 9-hour flight, that he would not be too unhappy and that we would be able to get some rest.

• Our presentations and meetings in the states to go well and that we can rejoice together in what God has done and what he continues to do here in France.

We appreciate your prayers! Thank you for partnering with us.

Every Blessing,

The Appels 

Updates and Answered Prayers

Dear Family and Friends,

Greetings from hot and sunny Normandie! Temperature records are being broken for the month of May all over Western Europe right now and Caen is no exception. It’s been in the 90s each day which is HOT without AC. We’re thankful for our home which maintains a bearable temperature so long as we are strategic with keeping our shutters closed. We’re also looking forward to a summer with air conditioning during our upcoming visit in the US (more on this later!).

Gratitude

We must begin this update by sharing our overwhelming sense of gratitude. We are seeing so many prayers answered right now. We’re thankful to God for His kindness and provision and thankful to you for your partnership in the gospel and for praying with us. Here are a just a few points of thanksgiving:

• Aaron is sleeping through the night! We are starting to feel much more alive – thanks for praying with us about this.

• We have new GEM teammates moving to Caen to join us soon! This is another big answer to our prayers. The Druense family (Mark, Heidi and their three children) are hoping to join us in Caen in August. This will not only mean increased capacity for ministry in our city, but it will also be great to have other GEM missionaries living near us. Please pray for them in the upcoming transition and for us as we form a team and begin working together.

• Reuben’s health continues to be strong. It’s been nearly a year now with minimal migraine issues. We’re so thankful for the difference we’ve seen this year. Last school year Reuben was only able to go to about 2 months of classes. Praise the Lord that he has been able to continue his academic trajectory and is doing so well this year!

• Evidence of deep relationships locally. We’ve been reminded frequently in the past few months of how deeply the Lord has rooted our relationships with neighbors here in France. It’s been encouraging to see the fruit of many years invested in one place.  

• Evidence of deep relationship internationally. We had a wonderful visit seeing friends and sharing at Christ Church Chorleywood in the UK last month. Thank you for prayer with us around travel, everything went relatively smoothly for our first experience of traveling off the continent as a family of 7. We to connect with you and person and tell you face to face how your prayers and support deeply impact our family and mission.

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Annual Update Video

Here is a short video update from us that we made to communicate with our sending church in Tennessee but we thought you might like to have a look as well! It is a good picture of what we are currently doing and our life here in France. AND it has our heartfelt expression of thanks for your partnership with us. (If you are reading this on your email, click here to have a look on our website!)

Youth Service this Sunday

This Sunday, our boys will be leading the church service along with a couple of other youth at Bon Berger. Eli has been preparing a sermon complete with custom designed maps. Reuben and Silas are preparing to lead sung worship for the first time at a church service without any adults in their band. I share this partially – or perhaps mostly – because I’m feeling very proud of my sons and I’m grateful for their relationships with God. But also, to ask for your prayers for this weekend and over them more generally. They face some big challenges growing up in a foreign culture. 

BIG USA Trip Coming Soon!

In less than a month we’re planning to be in the US! The last time we had a long visit like this as a family was 4 years ago, so we are very excited to see many of you. Traveling as a family of 7, including our not-quite-one-year-old is daunting, so we won’t be able to visit every place we’d like to on this trip. We will mainly be spending time in middle Tennessee, visiting family, friends, and supporting churches.

We’re planning to be at our sending church, the Gate Community Church in Franklin, Tennessee on Sunday, June 28. The Gate is kindly hosting a reception for us following the service that day and we’d love to see you there. We’ll share some stories and pictures, but mostly just want to catch up with you! We can’t wait!

Thanks

We’ve been so grateful this year for the reminders of how well cared for and supported we are by people like you. It’s humbling and wonderful to know the prayers of so many are with us as we seek to follow the Lord here on mission.

Sending you love,

The Appels

Mission Week Report

The team from Fairview Church in Lebanon TN with our family and our pastors Séna and Jane

Hello Family and Friends,

     We’ve been particularly touched in the past couple of emails by your kind and prayerful responses – thank you!

We’re thankful for the missions team that has just been with us from Fairview Church in Lebanon, TN. It was a successful and encouraging week of outreach in our city and exchange between this team and our church plant.

We asked if you would pray specifically for the outreach we had planned in the Grâce de Dieu neighborhood. We are keenly aware of some tension here in France due to the current conflict in the Middle East. In this climate, we were questioning our plan to have an outreach at an open-air market in this neighborhood where many immigrants from the middle east live – especially with a visiting team of Americans! After asking for prayer, we decided to go ahead with the outreach. A small team from our church went to pray and worship at the site of the market on the Saturday night before. We were joined by some of the ladies who live in this neighborhood and who have recently joined our church. One woman named Marie was out walking her dog, heard us singing and came to talk with us. She was interested in what we were doing and said she might come visit a church service. It was an encouraging reminder that God is always before us and helped me personally feel less anxious about the outreach on Tuesday.

The team from Fairview helped us put together blessing bags with homemade cookies, an invitation to our church, and some handwritten words of blessing from the scripture. We arrived at the market and there was an immediate indication of welcome as one of the local candidates for the municipal counsel was also there canvasing. It turned out that he knew of our music with the Nashville/Caen Twinning association and was thrilled to have us playing at the market. This was an answer to prayer as we were told by the mayor’s office that we had the right to go play music, but that we might be shut down by the police if the local authorities didn’t want us there.

We set up, began playing music and the team plus some of our church members began passing out blessing bags and talking with people at the market. It went so well! We had an amazing reception as many were interested in our church and nearly everyone was very happy with the cookies. The team had made blessing bags with the intention of handing out some at this outreach and then some more at another outreach at the university the next day. We ran out of bags and had to make more before the next outreach! We were so encouraged.

I was particularly touched by one way that God showed us how He is able to do more than we imagine. We’d been praying for and hoping for a good reception from people at the market – that was the strategy and it worked. The market is in a square surrounded by apartment buildings. What we didn’t expect was the way that many people in their apartments heard the music and came down to interact with us. Let me share one incredible story of the interaction we had with a man we’ll call Joseph:

Joseph is not from the Grâce de Dieu, but he happened to be 30 minutes early for an appointment and while sitting in the waiting room, he heard us playing music and came out to listen. Joseph is an English teacher, and he made the point of coming up to talk with us between songs to say how much he enjoyed the music – it turned out he had heard us play a couple of years ago at the fête de la musique in another part of town. He stood beside our pastor Séna and talked about God.

Joseph shared that once back in 2017 he had a class of adult students to whom he had posed the question “what makes people happy?” Everyone in the class said family or friends or travel except one student who said – “that’s not right because many people who have family and friends are deeply unhappy”. This student went on to share that he found true happiness in relationship with Jesus. At first Joseph thought this was a joke – a funny way to mock Christians – but as the student explained more about his faith Joseph was struck by his sincerity. He told Séna that this experience stayed with him and he agreed to come and visit our church and connect with Séna to learn more.

On Thursday night at Bon Berger, we had a time of prayer and worship and sharing together how we’d seen God at work through the week. Séna shared Joseph’s story and when he had finished one of our church members put his hand up and said – “I need to add something to this story, I was that student who shared my faith that day!” We were all blown away by how God works and the privilege it is to get to see Him knitting things together to draw people into His love. This Sunday, Joseph did not make an appearance at our church service, but we trust God is a work in his life. Will you join us in praying for Joseph and all the other people who connected with us last week? We’re grateful for the way God is moving them towards Himself and we long for them to experience true freedom in Jesus.

The congregation at Bon Berger were so encouraged by the Fairview team and I know the team was also formed by their experience here. I’m grateful for the huge help we received from GEM teams, who are a part of our mission agency. Matt and Père worked hard to help organize and lead the week and really made it possible for us to do such a big push with our big family and full lives.

Speaking of our family …

Since Aaron’s arrival in August, we’ve been busy. Not only with the inherent change in family life but also in ministry work. Along with our regular work serving the local church, hosting small groups, outreach in the community, and the often one-on-one relational work we do; we’ve had some extra outreach events like this mission week, the art expo last month, Christmas shows and gatherings, and Thanksgiving! It’s been a full season, and we’ve loved joining in the opportunities God is providing especially, it seems, for outreach these past 6 months. That said, we are feeling tired and would appreciate prayers for rest, and renewal of energy. A particular point of prayer is that Aaron would sleep better in the night as this continues to be a big challenge.

Prayer for upcoming Trips/Provision

We are planning to travel to the UK in April and to the US for several weeks this summer. On the UK trip we are spending some time at Christ Church Chorleywood and then having a break and vacation with my (Tom’s) parents who are flying over to see us. Our last big US trip as a family was three summers ago and we’re so excited to see family and friends and introduce you all to Aaron! We will be visiting several churches, along with spending time with our sending church, The Gate Community Church. We’re so looking forward to seeing many of you in the coming months. Please can you pray for all the planning that goes into these trips and that they will be a time of refreshment for us. One specific prayer request – can you pray with us about finding a vehicle to drive for the time we are in the States. Our plan at the moment is simply to rent a minivan, but if there is a vehicle we could borrow, that would help with our trip costs. We appreciate your prayers with us for provision like this and for the finances we need to get all 7 of us back to the States for a visit.

Thank you all so much for your prayers with us and your partnership in the gospel. We’re so grateful to be able to see and join in with how God is working here in France, and I hope these emails communicate some sense of this gratitude. We could not do this work without you, and we’re so thankful for the way God knits people together across distance and across years both for our personal formation in Christ, and to join in His kingdom work.

Thankful for you,

The Appels

Pray for a Week of Mission

Dear Friends and Family,

Thank you so much for your encouraging responses to our update about the art expo in February.  We so appreciate you being with us in this work.  In case you missed that newsletter : Art Expo Newsletter

This month we have another big outreach planned and would greatly value your prayers with us.  We have a team of 10 people coming to Caen, mostly from Fairview Church in Lebanon, TN to serve with us from this Saturday for one week!  Our church plant, Bon Berger is excited about the opportunity to have some extra help with evangelism and being a blessing in our community.  We have planned several days of prayer and outreach including events that feature live music, face painting, balloon animals, and blessing bags filled with fresh baked cookies and invites to church(shown below)!

The neighborhood we have planned to focus in is called “Grâce de Dieu” (Grace of God) and is a place where we are already seeing God at work.  There are several women who have joined our church from this neighborhood in the past year, one of whom was baptized over the summer and another who is hoping to be baptized soon.  Teams from our church have been praying there regularly.

Grâce de Dieu neighborhood has a lot of recently settled refuges and immigrants.  On Saturday we are planning to go and pray and worship in the square that is the heart of this neighborhood.  On Tuesday, we are planning to go and put on a big outreach event to run in tandem with the local market.  We need prayer cover over all of it, but we especially want to ask for prayer for wisdom about potential tension in the neighborhood given the current conflict in the Middle East.  Our method of evangelism is not at all confrontational, but simply having a group of Americans gently confessing our faith in this neighborhood could stir up difficulty.  There are other places and groups of people we have been praying for in the city (such as university students), and we can pivot our outreaches as needed.  Yet this neighborhood has felt increasingly important in our prayer times as a church.

Please pray with us for clarity and safety as we go into this week. We know and believe that God is already at work, please pray for the people we will encounter and our conversations and prayers with them.

Please pray for the team coming that they would have safe and smooth travels (they are traveling as we send this!), and that the Lord would impact their hearts during their time here.

Pray for our family, for protection and health during a busy week of hosting.

Thank you for praying with us!

Every Blessing,

The Appels

Praise and Thanks: Transformation Through Art

Dear Friends,

We are really excited to share with you about the Transformation Art Expo and all that God did this past week! We’ve dreamed of having a community art space in a city center for a long time; in fact a big part of what we have hoped for and worked towards as missionaries in France is to create spaces where not-yet believers can encounter God’s love and presence through the arts, music and neighboring. This art expo was truly a taste of this vision and God showed up! After a year and a half of planning, painting, and preparing, we got to transform a beautiful art gallery in central Caen into one of these welcoming spaces where people walking in darkness can encounter His great light.

 A Summary

The whole week went so very well! Thank you so much for joining us in prayer for this outreach. First, we had a day of hanging up all the paintings. We were thrilled with how wonderfully all the works of art fit together. The gallery became a beautiful, colorful and inviting space. After a careful day of set-up, we invited about 20 people to come pray and worship with us in the gallery. What a joy to raise our voices in praise in this beautiful space right in the heart of our city. This set the tone for the week, and a remarkable number of visitors commented in our visitor’s book that the gallery felt peaceful, warm, set-apart, like another world.

The next night was our “vernissage” or opening. We had about 70 people turn up, and the night was a success. Joanna and her team made sure everyone felt welcome. We were so happy that many of our believing friends invited not-yet-believing neighbors as their guests and allowed the exposition to spark conversation about God. This was a big part of our vision for this event, and it happened! Tom and I sang a couple of songs and had gospel conversations with guests as a result. Throughout the rest of the week, we had a further 179 people come to visit the expo. We had coffee and conversation with many of the guests. We were able to pray with people who came in hurting. We invited not-yet believing people to come to church. Again and again, we could see God drawing people closer to Himself.

A Story

Tom and I were sitting with Aaron, chatting with a friendly older lady about painting when a young man in his twenties came in and started looking around the gallery. He seemed a little nervous at first but took his time with each of the paintings and to read the words and stories about Transformation hung around the gallery. He seemed about to exit when he stopped, looked at us and said :

“I’ve lived in this neighborhood for three years. I’ve walked by this gallery countless times but today is the first time I’ve come in. I found the paintings and the text about transformation, particularly the “Divine Exchange” deeply moving. I’m in a process of getting to know God and this expo has touched me and stirred up my thoughts about God. Thank you.”

He didn’t want to stay and talk further, but it was such an encouraging reminder that God is at work here in Caen – how amazing that this young man was drawn in at this point in his faith journey during our transformation expo! The work we are privileged to do, like putting on an art expo which proclaims the gospel, is part of His far greater work of transforming hearts and drawing people into relationship with Him.

Our Thanks

It was a very busy week and the lead up to this event has been full as well. We could not do this sort of work alone! We ‘re so thankful for the support of our church community here at Bon Berger and we were particularly grateful for the help of one of our fellow GEM missionaries, Bennett, who traveled up from Lyon for most of the week to serve with us.

This whole event was funded through Greater Europe Mission’s EBI Grant program. The funding took the financial stress off of the artists and us as missionaries to cover the costs associated with running the expo.

I’m grateful for the three other artists, Caroline Le Gal, Tiphaine Anne, and Heather Wright (Bruyère) who participated in working and producing art for the expo, for help with the set up and manning the gallery over the course of the week.

We are also so thankful to our family. Putting on a big outreach with a 6-month-old is daunting, and Aaron did so well. He was in the gallery almost as much as I was! His presence brought a joy and lightness to the feeling of the expo. He became an integral part of the whole thing! Our older kids have been helpful and supportive as we have been very busy this past month preparing. So many logistical things went smoothly along with the overwhelming sense of God’s peace and presence in the space.

Thank YOU so much for your prayers and partnership in the gospel.

Prayers Needed: Upcoming Art Expo!

Dear Friends,

After months of work and preparation we are so excited that the Transformation art exposition begins in 9 days! Joanna has gathered and led a team of three other artists to create works for this week-long show that will take place in the center of Caen at the Galerie des Croisiers.

The week will kick off with a pre-show night of prayer and worship at the gallery after all the paintings have been installed. There will be folks coming from multiple churches to join us as we pray for our city.

The opening or “vernissage” is Friday night, February 6th and we’re praying that many people will come and engage with the artwork which points towards the transformative love of God in Christ. There will be some food and drink and live music from us as Hometown TN and from our friend Heather on her harp. Invites have gone out and there are flyers up for the show around town, there is a bit of a buzz building!

Below are some photos of the gallery and a few samples of the artwork that will be on display. It is going to be full of color! Joanna also built a webpage for the expo with information about each of the artists which you can visit here: Transformation Art Expo (it is in French, so have your translate settings on!) Also you can follow along on Instagram during the expo, Joanna will be posting to her art profile: @joannaappelart

Putting on an art expo with live music and a worship night in the middle of city is something we’re thrilled to be doing. We love art and music and gathering people together, but it’s more than that. We’ll be gathering as a united group of believers to pray and worship right in the heart of Caen. The whole show, from start to finish is designed to bear witness to God’s love for us. For a while now, we’ve been envisioning a space in the city where we can proclaim the gospel in art and music and where it is easy for Jesus-followers and not-yet believers to gather and speak about life and faith. This exposition is a big step towards that dream.

So, we need your prayers! Please join us in praying for this exciting event:

• For unity and breakthrough in the sung worship and prayer night.

• For neighbors and friends to respond to our invites and to the invites extended by other believing friends and come to the exposition.

• That there would be transformation. That God would change hearts and draw people closer to Him as they engage with the artwork.

• For health and covering prayer for our family and the others involved in helping us put on this event.

• For all the logistics and set up involved.

• For the relationships with other artists in our city.

Thank you so much for praying with us!

Every Blessing,

The Appels

A Thanksgiving Update

Dear Friends and Family,

Happy Thanksgiving week! Each year since arriving in France in 2017, we have loved sharing this holiday with our French neighbors. We extend our invitations prayerfully receiving a mix of Christian and not-yet believing friends and have several first-timers each year. All told we’ve welcomed at least 275 people to our Thanksgiving table in these 8 years! Everyone who comes seems to enjoy the chance to slow down, share good food and company, and be grateful. We share our gratitude for the welcome we’ve received here in France and our belief that every good and perfect gift comes from above. In story and song, we share the love we have received from God and the living relationship we have with Him through Jesus.

This week we will welcome about 30 friends for a Thanksgiving celebration, and we are excited about how God is already working in each of these relationships. Please pray with us as this tends to be a moment of significance in friendship and in people’s journey towards God. We also tend to experience spiritual attack. Several times, we’ve had serious injuries in the week before Thanksgiving and would greatly value your prayers!

As we prepare for Thanksgiving, we find ourselves thinking about you, our friends and family across the world. Not only in this moment, but in all the work we are privileged to do here in Normandie, we are so thankful to feel united with you. Thank you for caring for us and staying connected with us despite the distance. Thank you for praying with us in the ups and downs of cross-cultural ministry. Thank you for supporting us and this ministry generously and for your partnership in the gospel here in France. We are so very grateful for you.

Love,

The Appels

PS - Read on for Prayer Points and Updates from the last month!

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Updates and Other Prayer Points:

UK Trip

We had an amazing time in the UK both at Christ Church in Chorleywood and at St. Paul’s Hammersmith in London for the Onelife young leader’s conference. The team at Christ Church welcomed us so well and it was a particular joy for Tom to preach at the 6pm service, something he did regularly as the youth minister at Christ Church 15-20 years ago! Despite some battles with health, we all enjoyed the Onelife conference. There is an amazing culture of prayer, faith and deep times of sung worship in this group and we love joining in. Each of the boys met with the Lord in meaningful ways and were encouraged in their faith and leadership. At Onelife, I get a wonderful sense of the way God works over time. Joanna and I had the privilege of leading worship and being part of the first couple of young leader’s conferences. Now our teenage children are blessed by the fruit of what God began those many years ago. It would almost make a person feel old, but thankfully there is an adorable little fella here to help keep us young!  

A Celebration of Life

Last week, we had the honor of playing music for the funeral of the mom of one of Joanna’s close friends. Joanna played an important pastoral role for her friend in this difficult time of grief. It hammered home for us how deeply the Lord has knit us into the fabric of our community here. After the service, we were overwhelmed by the response of the family and other mourners. Our style of music is very different from the traditional music for a catholic funeral, and they all deeply appreciated it. One lady told us that it was exactly as the deceased would have wanted, full of joy and hope.

Music in December

We have several opportunities for outreach through music this coming month. There will be an Advent worship and prayer evening and a Christmas service at Bon Berger at which we hope to welcome visitors. We have also been invited to play music for the Christmas market at Elodie’s school. This will be our third year of playing this “Marche de Noël” and it tends to open doors for conversation and friendship with other parents at the school. Please pray for good connections as we go out and play music and that people who listen would be drawn closer to God.

Transformation Art Expo in February

Joanna continues her work creating and collaborating with three other artists in Caen as they prepare for the exposition she is leading in February.  This will take place at a gallery in central Caen and will be designed as an outreach around the theme of transformation.  Please continue to pray for Joanna as both the organization and creative process take time, a resource which is slightly more scarce these days! 

Prayer for Passports

Two weeks ago, we travelled into the American Embassy in Paris early to get renewed passports for the big kids and a brand new passport and birth certificate for Aaron (see attempted passport photo above). Thankfully everything went smoothly at our appointments, but now we are in a waiting period. The twins have a school trip at the beginning of January and we are running into some paperwork issues due to not having their new passport! Please pray for the speedy delivery of their passports and no snags or hold-ups with the post.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!!