It's official! Natalie is the same height as me, 5'8 and a half!

I'm sure that Natalie will pass me up. It's only amount of time before I will physically be looking up to her. Natalie is quite the trooper. She has been working through pain in her knees for nearly a year and a half. We finally decided to do something different. I bought two thigh sleeves that Nike sells. These fit extremely tight. They are holding her muscles together so that they don't put pressure on her undeveloped bones around her knee. Natalie was diagnosed with Osgood Schlaters disease while we were home on furlough. We were told that Natalie would struggle with pain until she is done growing. I don't think that is going to happen for awhile! I grew another inch after I got into college. I started out very quickly growing six inches in one year and then I tappered off. Natalie took off like me but has continued to grow slowly. She has grown nearly two inches since September!! NO WONDER she has had pain!!

Field Trip to Mexico City Zoo!!

Good Friends!!

Nicole and her friend Carito

Nicole is having fun today at Carito's house. She got invited for a playdate with four of her former school friends. You should have seen Nicole jumping up and down when she learned about her playdate. We are praying that someday we see some of these school friends come to know Christ. This is Nicole's prayer. Would you prayer with her??!!

Reaching Out

Natalie

Our daughters are doing so well at reaching out to those God brings across their paths. Just yesterday our Natalie helped share the gospel to her deaf friend Ana Elsa. It was such a neat experience to see Ana Elsa light up when she understood the gospel for the first time. Pray that she would take the next step of receiving the "free gift". Ana Elsa so cutely asked us if God could hear her prayers even though she can't talk and can only sign. We assured her that our All Powerful God could see her signs!

Fourth Anniversary for Nueva Vida!!

Misbehaving!!


Behaving!!


Nueva Vida Gals!


Our newest couples to Nueva Vida!

We are so grateful to God for the growth we are seeing at Nueva Vida! We just completed our fourth year as a new church plant!! Our attendance is running between 40 to 50 and we've even had 60! Here are a few pics from our special day!!

Kid's City

Yesterday we took our girls to Ciudad de los Niños or Kid's City. It is the coolest place for kids. It is a miniaturized city where kids can do what adults do. For example, Nicole bagged groceries at Wal-Mart. She made perfume at Liverpool. She also made a sucker at the candy factory. There are a ton of things to do. The city has a telephone company, television and radio studio, restaurants, fast food, DHL, etc. We of course didn't get to do everything but there was so little kids there that our girls got to do anything they wanted without waiting in a line!! I forgot to mention the most important thing which is getting your drivers license and driving!! It was a fun packed day!!

Opportunities

We are staying busy these days. Today we had another sign language class. I mainly attend the class to be kind to our teacher. I'm so slow. Natalie on the other hand is amazing. She needs to see a sign only once and she can remember it. Wow! She must have gotten all this language ability from her daddy's side of the family.

Natalie also is doing a great job of staying in contact with all the friends she made at Gilwell (the Mexican school they attended). Today our girls stopped by the school when it was letting out. Natalie learned some very interesting news. The school continues to lose teachers. Once again they are without an English teacher. The last one only stayed two weeks. The Spanish teacher has also left. I'm not quite sure how to phrase this next part. We sure would love a property like this school has. The school is going down hill pretty fast. Of course the most important thing is that the school, the owner, the families-- they are for all we know all lost, without Christ. Pray for continued opportunities for us to share the good news to the school folk and would you also pray for our property issue?

(By the way, this is a pic of Karen Pao and Natalie. Karen Pao is a christian friend that Natalie met at Gilwell. Natalie has been able to encourage KP in her christian walk.)

21

I can't believe that our oldest is turning 21 today. It seems like yesterday that we just brought him home from the hospital. For those of you that don't know-- Nathaniel (Nate) is studying Creative Writing at Purdue. He plans to go on to Seminary after he gets his undergrad work done. We are very proud of our son and his desire to grow in Christlikeness. He is very servant minded and is using his gifts to serve the Lord in our home church.

5 cents

Nicole, "Ouch, I just hit my nickel on the wall". I had to explain to Nicole that it was her knuckle not her nickel. She then asked me, "what's a nickel". You know you are a missionary kid when you don't know the names of all the US coins.