One month ago we posted. That's terrible. It's easy to get distracted by the urgent of the day and forget about our friends and family who like to keep up on where we're going from here.
We've been back in the US since the middle of May to Emily's KU graduation, moving Jason and Elyse in Lawrence, flying to California to see James and Rebekah the month of July and to work on raising more support with our churches out there while taking care of our home in Santa Cruz, California. A return to Lawrence, KS was made to help move Emily and Joe to Manhattan while Joe begins his Master's program with his study in Evolutionary Biology, Genetics and Entymology combined. This is not the Big Apple Manhattan but the Little Apple in Kansas. Joe will be focused on the mating changes of a certain cricket. You'll have to ask him all about it. Emily is glad they don't have to keep them in their house but will use the research lab at K-State for testing. Emily is focused on getting her art studio up and running and enjoying their new little church a block away.
Jason and Elyse are having fun with their new life a couple of blocks from their old house. Elyse has a new job in an Aveda Beauty Salon where she gets additional training and heading to New York soon for some of that. Big, 5 year Charlotte, started all day kindergarten and was writing her complete name the first week. Harmony, 2 years old, decided to potty train again and having "Jabber Cool". Translated that means Jasper School. Jasper, Jason and Elyse's friend, is helping watch Harmony in the mornings until Jason gets home. Jason is setting up his new art studio at their new house as he continues his work at the Lawrence Art Center.
James and Rebekah are working on various movie projects and TV shows. James latest is with a new Food Network show called "Sugar Dome". It's about incredible edible art that will be on this fall. He was an assistant to the Assistant Director and Rebekah got her first crack at Art Coordinator to a recent movie of which the name escapes me.
I think we have to add BARRmoving to our latest jobs. Please don't ask us to move you though. After moving two of our children we are tired. It's been incredible what we've been able to accomplish while back here as we keep moving forward in our mission to get back to France for a much longer period.
Our new art friends we met in Magny-les-Hameaux, France are encouraging us to teach art classes in English when we return. We are trying to work out those details right now and would appreciate your thoughts for this kind of thing to happen. Thank you for your concerted involvement in our lives. Russell has been in contact with our new French friends since being stateside. Who would have thought we would be continuing the dialog with people we only recently met at a community gallery event before leaving France?
Our main focus this week is updating our prayer and financial supporters network of information (over 350 families and 8 churches). We plan on calling each of you who have financially given to this work to personally thank you and "catch up" on your lives.
Our taxes finally got completed the month of August. That was a huge chore!!! What a relief to finally get all of our banking updated for the last year and a half. We continually find other reports and things that are missing (from the stolen computers) that we need to be able to get our work done. We have a HUGE thank you to Olathe Bible for giving us funds to replace Russell's computer and also to Cheryl Blum (a friend/graphic designer buddy, from the Chicago area for my computer replacement.)
We don't know the exact date of our leaving over the pond. We may have to raise an additional $1400. per month. That is still being decided by World Team. We also have lump sums to raise and we are waiting on totals from World Team. We want to get art equipment which could run about $4400. for a used kiln and 3 potter's wheels, etc. We are personally going to raise the art equipment fee with the help of Facebook and anyone else who would like to contribute.
We will be buying a vehicle in France this time. We are going to set aside 10,000. American dollars for that which is around 8,000.00 euros. Currently, we have 10,000.00 or so in our World Team account. There will be more language study and I haven't heard yet how much more we will be allotted for that since we had 4 months of language study while there last time. We are planning on shipping our goods this next time and I don't know how much that will cost. If we can leave no later than March our tickets to return will be around $1400. total.
Many of you have been a part of our team for a few years now and we thank you from the bottom of our hearts. There is excitement about what God is going to do for the future and our hope is that you will want to continue on this exciting journey with us. We couldn't have done what we have without you.
Many Blessings!
Carol (along with Russell)
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