More pictures of the wedding! Too much fun!! (read entry below first)

Beautiful Wedding!!!

We continue to be in awe of what and how God works!! Adrian and Karina have only been saved for a short time. Just a couple of weeks ago they were baptized! Now they are newly weds!!! The wedding yesterday couldn't have turned out more beautifully! We had 40 family and friends attend the wedding. If we had any more it would have been very difficult to squeeze them in. We had kids sitting on the stairs as it was! The church came together and really made the day special. We were able to surprise the wedding couple with details that put it the ceremony "over the top". We had church folk here at the house until 7:00 last night. It was a wonderful day of serving and fellowshipping. I'm posting some pics in this post. I'm having fun being creative with a few of them. The real photographer couldn't make it. I was the fill in. I had to learn the hard way about my flash, shadows on profiles, etc. Next time I'll remember to not use flash on those. Thanks so much for all your prayers. Please continue to pray for this family as they start the "blending" process!

A Wedding!!!!!!!!

Not only do we host a church plant in our home every Sunday but through the years,we have hosted other events like VBS, Summer English Classes for kids, cooking classes, etc. In the VBS and English activities we have had up to 50-60 kids in our home. We've also hosted many groups from our Supporting Churches in the States. The most recent one being the Varsity Basketball Team from Faith Christian in Lafayette, Indiana. We've held baby and bridal showers also. We've even had a Christmas Dinner and Program in our home and we had 64 for that event.(don't ask where we put them) Well, this Saturday will be a first, we are having a WEDDING!!! That's right! It isn't going to be a big elaborate event. It is more for the church family and the family of the wedding couple. We are pretty excited! Adrian and Karina were just baptized a couple of weeks ago. They are committed to growing in Christ through their marriage. They will be a blended family as Adrian's first wife past away with cancer a few years back. He has a daughter Samantha, 13. Karina also has a four year old daughter, Emeline. Pray for us this weekend. Also pray for this soon to be newly formed family and the newly weds. I hope to send you pictures next week of the wedding. I am posting pics of our house/church/hotel/etc. so that you can see what it looks like and know how to pray for us. Our home isn't that large but God gave us a home that has a perfect first floor plan that allows us to have room for lots of people. Yes, we have gotten rid of some of our furniture to make room for our church. We kind of like all the space in the front room! It's great for roller blading, basketball drills, car races, etc.!
PS Adrian is in our baptism pics. He is the man in orange in the water and Karina is the gal in gray shirt in the water!

Are you wrinkly?

Kid's say some of the silliest, oddest, yet truthful things. Today our seven year old Nicole was told to make her bed. This is a normal activity for her. Yet today she filled me in on a "tip". She told me, "Mom, making a bed is easy. All I have to do is make sure that the bedspread looks nice. I can leave the sheets all wrinkly underneath". At first I didn't say anything and then I thought, I just can't let me daughter only worry about what is seen. The underneath does matter. I was having horrible thoughts of what could happen if a child grew up only thinking about what people see. This is what the world teaches our kids. It was a great opportunity to talk about what is inside our heart even though on the outside we are smiling and seem to be happy. I also had to exam some of the "wrinkly" things in my own life. I learn so much from my kids. Or should I say, I'm learning along with my kids.

What a Day!!

Thanks for all your prayers concerning our baptisms on Sunday! We had an attendance of 84!!! We all went to a recreational park about 45 minutes from our house. We listened to all 7 candidate's testimonies and we were moved how God brought them to Himself. We had three adults and four children that took that next step of obedience!! We had many guests that heard a clear message of the gospel. After the baptisms we enjoyed a wonderful day of fellowship. The kids enjoyed the pool while others played catch with a football and even more played soccer! We all feasted on tacos right off the grill !!! Yum, yum!!! I spent most of the day playing Life Guard at the kid's pool. Continue to pray for our church as we begin to search for a place to either rent or buy. We are busting at the seams! It's a great place to be!!

Mother's Day!!!

I know it's early but we celebrated Mother's Day yesterday here at Nueva Vida! We did it early because next week we are having our church service at a recreational park so that we can have baptisms. Back to yesterday. We had 71 in attendance!! Unbelieveable!!!! God is so good!! It is unbelieveable for a couple of reasons. One is that we had that many people in our house and we still have room for a few more!! Secondly, we are just overwhelmed at how God is bringing folks in to Nueva Vida!! We knew we were ready for a big Sunday as our attendance has been increasing but we still hadn't had everyone come on the same Sunday. Yesterday was the big one and we also had 8 visitors!! I'm sending some pics with this blog as well. We had a Mother's Day Banquet after the service. The men in the church did the cooking and waited on the tables. They did a fantastic job!! The children (all 27 of them!!) went upstairs and watched a DVD about Jim Elliot. It was in a cartoon format and it is very good for those of you out there looking for good christian DVDs. There are several out there by Voice of the Martyrs. We also had dads watching the children. Everything went along as planned. Almost too well. I assumed that there were going to be interruptions with that many people in the house. I trust that all you mothers out there have a wonderful Mother's Day this weekend!!