Updates

Bandit with Jim and Ruth's youngest, Josiah. Aren't they both cute?

Thank you so much for your prayers for Nicole. She is doing very well with her fractured arm. We are half way through the treatments! There have been a couple of days where Nicole has over done it and her arm is sore but other than that nothing to report!

My father-in-law Sam Sr. is doing well also. Sam Sr. and Ellen H. are traveling around the midwest visiting churches and family! We think that Dad H. looks a lot better than he did before the stents. It's no wonder! He was running in 1st gear and I think he is in 4th or 5th now!

Our puppy, Bandit, is doing very well! He is so cute! Natalie and Nicole are enjoying spending time with Bandit during their daily school breaks.

Busy, busy....

Hornbrooks and Whitchers at the "Floating Gardens"


Natural life at the gardens


Nicole and I with Peggy Whitcher



We have been pretty busy this past week. Over the weekend we had our first outing with the youth. We took them bowling! Many of the kids had never bowled before. That's pretty hard to believe. Bowling in a group makes it a very affordable activity. The kids got to bowl two games, their shoes were included, for $4.50!! Very reasonable. They then went to Burger King and got a meal pac that cost $2.50! Sam then treated the kids with icecream!!! Natalie had a b-ball game before the bowling activity. So we were running, running! Natalie's team won their game and Natalie had 11 points! Not bad since she hadn't played a game since June.

On Sunday we had a great day here at Nueva Vida! 54 folks were in attendance!!!!!! We have added a new family and we had another visiting family on Sunday!!!!!! Pray for Ramon and Wendy and their two kids. Wendy has come to church a couple of times but her husband hasn't shown any interest. Ramon commented on Sunday that he had decided that Nueva Vida is where he should be on Sundays and plans to attend regularly!!! Praise the Lord!!!!!

After everyone left here on Sunday we zipped over to another sister church's anniversary celebration. We got caught in very bad traffic along the way. Two of the most famous soccer teams in Mexico were playing each other Sunday late afternoon and we were right in the middle of it. We arrived in time to eat and visit a little with the folk before we turned around and came home. To give you an idea of the traffic. It took us an hour and a half to go 32 miles. Normally it takes an hour.

Monday we spent the day with former missionaries, Dan and Peggy Whitcher. Dan is now the director of church planting in the States for BMM. We spent many Mondays playing Skipbo with this couple when they were on the field. It was fun to take a boat ride at Xochimilco with them. It was pretty chilly but we were able to relax and enjoy all the greenery.

This week we have been finishing up details for our Christmas Program. This year I wrote the drama. We've had a hard time finding drama/musicals for our size of congregation. Last year Sam wrote up a drama based on the story of the candy cane. This year we've developed a story line on the shepherds. We plan to have a new boomwhacker choir as well as have the youth also sing a special. We will have a children's bell choir and voice choir. We are still debating but will probably have an adult choir as well!

Please pray for our little church as we prepare for our Christmas Special!

More Pics from our Trip

You can click on any of these pictures to enlarge them!


The Fox's have such a nice backdrop for pictures!!


Allison, Maci and Natalie posing at Happy Hollow Park.


Nicole with her buddettes, Kami and Kalli Worrell! We miss you girls!


Isn't that Monster Cookie the cutest??!! Thanks Jenni for making Nicole's birthday so special!!!


Nicole enjoying driving her first Corvette!


Natalie and Nicole getting ready to take a spin in the Worrell's go-cart!


Nicole has her broken arm here but we took the sling off so she could pose with the beautiful colors of Fall!!


My girls just love all of God's animals!!!!!!!

Family and Fun!

We had so much fun with my brother J.D. while we were up. We celebrated Christmas with him which was something very special!!! He even had a tree decorated for us!!



The covered bridges throughout the midwest are just unbelieveably beautiful!!



We had a great time at Conner Prairie Farm with my brother J.D.


We had a wonderful time up North! We got to visit many family and friends! We didn't get to visit everyone we wanted nor did we get to do everything we had dreamed. But overall the visit was very encouraging and refreshing! We feel recharged. We came back and hit the track with a sprint! We've barely had time to sit. This really is what our lives are like and what many of your lives are like back in the USA. We are going to have all Eternity to sit and share all that God has done in our lives while we were on Earth serving Him! What a wonderful time it will be giving Glory to God 24/7!

Nueva Vida did well in our absence. One new family started attending while we were gone! Praise God! Yesterday we had a full house and still two of our regular families didn't come. Space is becoming more of an issue. But Mexicans aren't like Americans--we don't have to spread out when we come to church! Our personal space is a lot smaller down here! Anyway, we are thinking that when we average 50 we will begin to think about renting and relocating.

I'm posting some pics from our time up North. Can you believe I didn't get a picture of our son nor my parents. What was I thinking? Good thing they are coming for Christmas! I will for sure take some pics then so that I can post them. I'm now remembering that we also didn't get any pictures with the Stilwell Families. Now that's a big bummer because it could be years before we see each other again..unless we go to Peru and visit them!!

Thank you so much for your prayers for our safety as we traveled. Also thanks for the prayers for Nicole. She is having to grow in patience as she can't do many things that she would like. Only 4 more weeks to go in the sling and then hopefully her arm will be healed.

Back here in red and green chile country!!

Just a quickie to let you all know that we made it back to Mexico City last night!! The trip went really well. Our new van really traveled nicely. We had her packed to the rim!! We brought back veteran missionary Lois Jackson. She has been a single missionary here in Mexico for close to 45 years! We took her to San Antonio, TX on our way up and picked her up on the way back down. She will stay with us for a few days as she needs Sam to take her to the main insurance office here in the City to resolve some issues from an accident she had the first week of June. Yes, things are much different here. Poor Aunt Lois (yes, we refer to all the missionaries as aunts and uncles) has been without a vehicle since the accident. Anyway, we are all doing well. Our doggies were so glad to see us and our girls were counting down the hours 'til they would see the puppy, Bandit. I will try and get some pics posted from our trip after we get through the rest of the weekend! Thanks for all your prayers and we sure enjoyed seeing many of you while we were up north!!

Broken Arm

Our vacation up to Indiana has been a wonderful time! We've gotten to see family and friends! There have been some disappointments. Two of Nicole's little friends have been sick with the flu most of our time up here and the girls haven't gotten to get together like we had hoped. It has been an opportunity for us all to remember who really is in charge! Sam and I really enjoyed our time at the NANC conference in St. Louis, MO. We hardly ever get to spend time alone with our son. Nathaniel also went to the conference. He planned ahead and did his school work so that he could attend. We were informed at the conference that Nicole had fallen off the monkey bars and broke her arm. We chose to come home last night and care for her. She has been such a trooper. She can tolerate a lot of pain. The break is high up on her forearm and casting the arm wouldn't help. So we have to keep her arm in a sling for 4 to 6 weeks. She is restricted in her activity. Bummer. Pray that Nicole would learn all the lessons that God has for her and that I too would learn what I need to. This is our first broken bone with our children. Pretty unbelieveable. Both Sam and I spent plenty of time in the ER growing up.

Sam Sr.

Ellen, my mother-in-law, called and informed us that Sam Sr. had two stents put in this morning. One artery was 100% blocked and the other was 80% blocked. Dad is doing well and has good color after his three and a half hour procedure. Thank you so much for your prayers! We are hoping to meet up with my inlaws in Dayton, Ohio this weekend and bring them to Lafayette, Indiana for a visit.