My Birthday Party

Preston planned me a birthday party! My birthday is Monday but we celebrated with our friends today. It was great to have everyone together. I thought you guys would like to see some pictures.

The Cake was good. It was vanilla and peaches


This is when everyone was singing the birthday songs. It was fun.

Well I am officially a Mexicana!! The tradition is that you take a bite of the cake. Everyone chants until you do it. It was definitely a first but really fun!!! It was one of those things you have always thought about doing but have never had the chance. Especially in public!!!


Some gifts




The Guests: Erika (member of church)(good friend)
Neri, Silvia and Silvia
Brigida (member of church)
John and Lupita (Lupita is my spanish teacher)


Preston, thanks for the great party!! More than that, thanks for being the greatest husband and soul mate to me! You know you mean the world to me and I love every second with you. Thanks for loving me with all your heart!

Praise and Glory to God

We had sent out some specific prayer requests and we wanted to update you that the Lord has heard your cries! The Lord as always has went above and beyond what we thought in our human minds.
The days Monday-Thursday are now completely filled up with conferences!! Not only are they filled but the hotels are excited. Some are having 2-3 conferences in one day so all their employees can attend and there are some even having a small conference for managers. We hope that you will now rejoice with us.

Please keep praying for the Lord's will in translating. We have asked a few people and we are waiting for a response.

I am working on getting all the times and dates and prayer requests together. I will be posting the dates here and I will be sending out an email as well.
We love you all and we are so thankful for all your love and support. It is great to see how much the Lord is working here and please know you are a major part of the work!!

Angie W. will you please send me an email: courtneygoings@gmail.com so I can get your email address. Thanks!
Love you all.

Preparing for October Trip

Sorry it has taken me so long to get with you guys. We have been preparing for the October trip. We were working with the hotel association to set up the tourism conference. At the last minute things were not working out with them and Preston has begun to call hotels personally and set up times in their hotels to do the conferences.

At first we were really down and confused about why this was going on. But we see the Lord's hand in this and we are really just trusting him and his will for this trip. But we need people backing us in prayer.

Please Pray For:
Preston as he has lots of meetings with hotel managers. Pray for the Lord to give him the words to say and for the managers to want to have a conference in their hotel
Pray for the people who will be attending the conferences. Pray they will see something different in us and the members from Second who are coming
Pray for Brad T. as he leads the conferences and pray for the other Second members who are coming to help meet and greet and serve the people.
Pray for the Lord's will in translating. We really would love to have a Mexican do it but we are praying for the Lord to bring us the right people and just whatever his will is.
Pray for Preston and I. Pray we would have peace and not worry about the details. Help us to trust in His plan!!

Thank you for praying for these things!
We love you guys!!

Rain from Hurricane Dean

Last night and into this morning it rained over 12 hours!! There were times of downpours and there were times where it let up. Sorry if you are sick of looking at rain pictures but we are just amazed by how much we got. This is the aftermath from Hurricane Dean.

This is right outside the patio door next to the pool

This is with our feet to show you how deep it was. The pool was running over and this was how deep it was around the sidewalks of the pool.

If you look really hard you can see the pool drain lid floating in the pool. That drain is on the sidewalk. So there was so much water that it was able to lift off that lid!
Here are two boats floating down the sidwalk

After the rain finally stopped
This is our yard
The hot tub filled to the top!
Another yard picture
This is under where the pool motor is
The pool, yard and hot tub
Now Preston begins cleaning the pool.
Good news though! There were NO floods in the house. The repairs they have done to the roof are working. It was fun watching all the rain come down and not having to worry about cleaning it out of our house!!

Food Collection

Right now Brigida is going through a lot. One of her daughters is leaving her husband and that means she has moved in with Brigida. This daughter has 4 kids. So Brigida is trying to take care of two children who live with her and now 4 grandkids. The daughter just recently lost her job as well. So as a church we decided to take up a food collection just to let Brigida know we were thinking about her and to show her how the body of believers takes care of one another.

We were shocked to see how great the turn out was. Take a look for yourself. We hope the church will continue with this generosity!

The floods of 2007

I am sure most of you have heard about the great floods that have occurred this summer. Well they are not finished! I still have yet to put up any pictures of the great floods so I will post our history with the Great Floods of 2007!

First flood of 2007 was the youth trip. During a large rain the water decided to come pouring out of a toilet around 6am.
Here the boys built a dam running from the toilet to the patio door.
This is Cody standing on towels in the toilet trying to stop the water while Clayton works inside the tank.
After the first flood we had another during the night. It mainly flooded our room and pretty much everything I had just finished cleaning from the youth flood. Sorry we have no pictures from this flood.

The next flood was when the water tank on our roof decided to quit working. The floating ball that stops the tank from filling up was not working and water was filling up our entire roof and once the roof gets full guess where it all comes....in the house. So Preston, Angela and I were on the roof throwing buckets of water over the roof trying to stop it from coming in the house.
Again we don't have any pictures but we do have a picture of us after the mess. Angela please don't kill me for posting this picture. You know I hate it too!! Notice how wet we are from not only water but also sweat!!
Now we have started into the raining season when there is at least one small rain everyday. When we get rain the water sits on the roof and it doesn't drain properly. This causes leaks throughout the house. This is normal life during the raining season. Buckets and towels everywhere!
Now moving on to the flood of last night!!! The clouds started rolling in around 4 pm and the rain storm started at 5. The floodgates opened and poured out rain for around 30 minutes. Our roof filled up with water so fast that water began coming from under the door on the roof and gushing down the stairs. In less then 10 minutes we had 2-3 inches of water on the second floor. We couldn't keep up with the water so it began to flow to the first floor again. Once we had the water under control and the rain stopped I was able to take some pictures!
Upstairs (2nd floor)


The first floor


I tried to get pictures of how much our street was flooded


The hot tub was empty when the rain started

As you can see the pool is to the very top. It was even starting to overflow!
We know the floods aren't over but we continue to learn how to better combat them. For those of you who have survived a great flood, wear your shirts proudly! Those who have not survived a great flood can only dream of what it must be like!!!

June Trip Update

Wow, I can't believe how fast the summer flew by! I have been meaning to give you guys an update on what has happened since the June trip.

Thank you so much for all your prayers. It has been neat to see the fruit still happening from that trip!

First remember this sweet couple.....Ivan and Gina.
They received a flier and attended church for the first time the Thursday when you were still here. Well ever since that day they have been attending church every time we have the doors open. They don't have much religious background but they are really searching.
* Praise the Lord they have both just started going through the 7 week salvation study. Please be lifting these two up and pray for the Lord to have victory in their lives
* Please pray for Ivan and Gina as they are both searching for jobs. They are going through lots of difficulties right now and they are trying to learn on trusting God through it all.
* Pray for salvation

Silvia

When we were able to pray over Silvia and Erica we were able to lift up their spirits and bless them so much. Silvia's brother Marti is actually doing better. Silvia's father went to a big city to talk with a psychologist about Marti. They suggested they put him in a mental hospital. But the family feels that is a little too strong. So the father has begun telling Marti he needs to go see a doctor and he needs to get help. Marti still does not want the help but since then he has started to leave the house and he is now talking more to his father.
Silvia also has another praise. Three weeks ago her mom called her and asked her to come have dinner with the family. She was surprised to find out the dinner was also with her dad!! She said this is the first time since her parents separated that they were all together. She said her dad was very happy to have the family together. Unfortunately Marti was the only person from their family not there.
* Please continue to pray for this family and for the health of Marti
* Praise we can see the hand of God beginning to heal this family
* Pray for Silvia as she is trying to share her faith with friends and co-workers

Erica

The Lord has really been working in the lives of Erica's family as well. Courtney was able to talk with Erica's sister Yuri about coming to study the Bible. For around 3 weeks now Yuri has been attending church! Also *praise Yuri has started the 7 week salvation study!!!
Yuri
*Pray for salvation
We were also able to meet Erica's parents the other day. She said they really liked meeting us and after they left our house their attitudes really changed and Erica's dad gave her a big hug for no reason. She told us she thinks they felt the presence of the Lord in our house and they can feel the difference it makes.
* Please keep praying for the family of Erica
* Praise for bringing her sister Yuri to the study
* Praise we really feel like the Lord is moving in her family
* Pray for Erica as she ministers and witnesses to her family

Sorry this was so long but I figured you guys would want to know all the cool stuff that has been going on! Again it is neat to see how the Lord has heard our prayers in June and we are starting to already see some of those being answered!! Thank you for praying for these people. I know they are grateful and so are Preston and I. We love you all.