Warmest greetings from Nice! I hope that you are doing well.

The French Radio has finally stopped referring to "la Crise" at every opportunity so we are sensing that hope might be afoot! Hope in the economic world. Although our hope never really was in that anyway, was it? I (Mike) have asked myself that question frequently.

We have been in Nice for three months now, and things are beginning to settle down. B has just begun the French equivalent of Kindergarten, and he seems excited. We are very thankful about his attitude, since the approach toward schooling here is quite foreign to our thinking. Praise God for the adaptability of children. Another item that we are quite thankful for is our 1990 Peugeot that we bought last month. Despite its recently discovered ailments, we are soooo thankful for its air conditioning system. This is one Seattlite who is almost ready to plan our next team meeting inside our car! :-) Historically, we've been told, as well as have experienced that the automobile and the missionary do not get along very well. Our prayer....may it not be so with this one. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7g4F6FMJkiw

For the last week of July we received our third team of the summer and since our arrival in June. They were from several different places in the states including Seattle, and their common denominator is a man called Art Collins from the Seattle area, whose desire is that they would be the first of many teams organized by him to help us. It was a wonderfully busy week. We plugged the team in at the local church we are working with, did questionnaires along the waterfront and prayed over (literally OVER) the city. The secret mission (within the mission) of receiving these teams is that their eyes would see the spiritual openness (hunger for Christ) and be inspired to consider mission within the French-speaking world. I, Mike, got quite a bicycle workout because the team's arrival was back in the pre-car days, and we live 4 miles straight up a hill from the city center. Bike ride down; 8 minutes of yippeeeeee, bike ride back 45 minutes of ughh. If needed, repeat!

I was greatly encouraged by the local pastor's willingness to help us in our follow-up activity with any individuals interested by our questionnaires. He, Christian, offered to run an Alpha course at his church for anyone interested. Of the hundreds of questionnaires filled out, there was an overwhelming initial interest in meeting further to learn about who Jesus was/is. The follow up contact letter which we sent out to everyone who expressed an interest was met with little response. At least the young American team of Christians saw the hunger, and the conversations that I had were practically indescribable. How can you describe the look in someone's eyes during the uncomfortable pause when they're asked to give their opinion about what Jesus meant when he said, "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." People were stopped in their tracks, and they liked it! I was thanked several times for doing the questionnaire by the people filling it out (who were not believers): "thank you for taking your time to ask people these questions..."

My mom (Mike's) recently went to Porto, Portugal for her yearly, international conference of Clarinetists. So with our car, we thought to ourselves, "wow, the city of Nice has really SHUT DOWN for August with the exception of tourist operations......if you can't beat 'em, join 'em!" So we drove the 20 hours needed (each direction) to get from Nice to Porto! Quite a trip! B really needed some grandma time as well. It was a great week. If I had to make a generalization about the Portuguese......they are......wonderful! We were also intrigued by the fact that, in the place where we stayed, we were the only Americans and everyone else was French! So we didn't even have a lapse in our language continuity.

More recently we have been taking some time to get to know a couple who has wanted to join us in our YWAM Nice project. I am sure that we have already made mention of them: I and J are at a Crossroads, and so we have been praying with them that God's will be done for their next step.

Please pray for open doors. Our neighbor/landlord, who also attends our new local church, recently reminded me of the passage where Paul asks the Colossian church in chapter four to " pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ" (ESV). He was saying that it always blew his mind that even Paul, amazing apostle that he was, asked people to pray for him for an open door. As I thought about this, I wondered at it a bit: Paul...the eloquent philosopher that we see spontaneously produce something so wonderful on Mars Hill that two mega churches have named themselves after it! :-) Paul needed revelation and so do we, particularly for open doors into ministry opportunities.

Persisting in hope,

Mike and Tara