March 21, 2005

Dear Friends at HBRPC and elsewhere,

Greetings from France!

We moved into a cute little house attached to a bigger one in which a widower lives, on Saturday, and we are very happy and content! The kitchen is about one eighth the size of the one at 253 Bramlett, but we can manage!

Today we put Theo and Sarah in a very small Christian school where the teacher knows very little English but was happy to have them. At lunch when Colleen and Evang and I checked on them they were happy and wanted to stay! Where Evangeline goes is still a question, but we’re hoping she can attend the same school that Colleen, Walt, and I are attending. Walt is in a longer, more intensive class, and Colleen and I start tomorrow.

On Sunday we went to a church (Reformed and Evangelical), which was begun in the 1500s and withstood persecution by the Catholics. Many from the congregation were not there because they were attending synod! But it was all in French and excellent music, and good for all of us!

Our address is:

La Belle Etoile
783, chemin du Pont-Rout
13090 Aix-en-Provence
France

Please keep us in your prayers. We feel very blessed to have found a house—it did take us a week while we stayed at a small Christian retreat center where they were very kind to us.

Thank you for praying hard for us in the last month. God tested us on the lesson of waiting, and of course, He proved faithful.
Love,

Val for the Shepards