Thanksgiving

We have so much to be thankful for.  Of course we have to begin with our salvation in Christ!  We are thankful for good health.  This past year both Natalie and Sam have had back issues but right now they both are doing well.  Natalie has learned to tolerate her back situation.  She still has pain but knows how to get through it.  Sam is finally getting over his back strain that happened in September.  He is working his way back up to running again for exercise. 

We are also thankful for the spiritual growth we've seen in our own lives and in our children's lives.  We are grateful for the trials that God has brought across our paths this past year.  We are hopefully growing more through these specially designed situations!

We are thankful for the privilege to serve the Lord here in Mexico City!  We are grateful for the spiritual and numerical growth we've experienced at Nueva Vida!  God is allowing some major trials to occur in some of our church families.  Most of us don't enjoy being put through the hard times but we have all been reminded that God is in control and His Grace is sufficient.

We did Thanksgiving a little differently this year.  We had planned on spending the holiday with Sam's parents in Poza Rica.  Unfortunately, my visa didn't get resolved until Friday and we weren't able to use our vehicle until my paperwork was in order.  So we did plan "B".  We invited our Bible Overview attendees over for a Thanksgiving meal on Friday.  We had the works!  It was fun to introduce our friends to some traditional dishes like sweet potatoes, greenbean casserole and cranberry sauce!  The turkey was moist which was a wonderful surprise!!  Please pray for our two Bible Overview studies.  There are several folks attending that still need to understand the true gift of salvation.

Party!

The ladies at church wanted to do something special. So, they planned a fun brunch and surprised me with gifts! We have a special group of ladies in our church that desire to grow in their love for God and their love for one another.

Cre-Cri (Creciendo en Cristo or Growing in Christ)

Some of you might remember the name of our Children's Program called, Cre-Cri.  It stands for Growing in Christ.  This is what we do when there is Bible Institute for the adults on Sunday mornings.  We have one service on Sundays where Sam teaches the adults and the kids have what most would call Sunday School.  But when we have Bible Institute we use the time with the kids to teach them Godly Character Qualities.  This past semester we've been working hard on Obedience--Submitting to your authority with a happy spirit.  I used the teens as my helpers.  Natalie taught the Bible story each week.  I had three other teen girls help with the definition and memory verses.  Plus we had the children learn the books of the Old Testament.  If they memorized them in order they got to pick a Beanie Baby from the Treasure Chest at the end of the semester.  We also used mini-Beanie Babies as a reward each week for good behavior.  It was such a joy to see the kids grow in the area of Obedience.  The kids also worked hard on the Obedience song from Patch the Pirate.  Last Sunday we got to show the church all that we learned.

Natalie turns 17!!

This past Saturday we celebrated Natalie's 17th birthday!!!  We had the youth over and had a wonderful time playing games, eating pizza and lots of laughter!

We are so thankful for Natalie's desire to please God!

Sam's 50th Birthday Celebration

On Sunday October 17th we had a very special surprise birthday celebration after church for Sam's 50th birthday!!  It was so fun to plan and actually pull off the surprise.  Sam got purposely detained at the bottom of our property for 13 minutes while the rest of the church did a mad scramble to decorate the church.  Here in Mexico they don't humiliate folks on their birthdays so they had to be educated on what we do in the States when someone turns 50.  The church dressed in black and wore sunglasses and were seated at tables when Sam was led into the room.  Victor did a wonderful job of starting out the "memorial service" in Sam's honor. Francisco, a man in our church who works in design, made a wonderful video presentation.  I did supply the pictures but this is about all I did.  The church, under the direction of Alberto, organized a wonderful, fun time of honoring Sam's faithfulness to God.  One other big surprise was the arrival of all the Hornbrooks that are here in Mexico were able to attend the special day!!

The mad scramble to get things decorated!

Victor getting ready to lead the "memorial service"!

Sam finally putting it all together!!

Hornbrook girls in "mourning".

Enjoying the video of Sam's life!

Sam's parents, Sam and Ellen were able to join us!

Jim and his family also were with us!

Sam enjoying a video message from our son, Nathaniel!

The Hornbrook Clan enjoying enchiladas!!

The teen table enjoying themselves!

Getting ready to enjoy our buffet of desserts!!

Even the puppy got in on the fun!

All of us Hornbrooks!

Nicole turns 10!

Claudia, (Nicole's cousin) and Jessi.  The three enjoyed their sleepover!

Hard to believe that my baby is ten!  It seems like yesterday she became apart of our family!  We are so thankful for her!  She keeps us young, at least young at heart!  Nicole is growing everyday in her understanding of God and His Word.  She is a hard worker in school and at basketball.  She loves to help me in the kitchen.  She loves all dogs and according to her there ain't an ugly dog in the world.  She doesn't like spiders yet she doesn't want anyone to kill them but to help them outside where they can enjoy life. She is concerned about all her friends coming to know Christ personally and has done well at witnessing to them.  We love you Nicole and are glad our nest won't be empty for at least 8 more years!

Mexico's Bicentennial Celebration

This week Mexico is celebrating 200 years of Independence.  I can remember when we celebrated this as a country in 1976.  I was sharing with my daughter Natalie that I was in a special play at school that had a bicentennial theme.  There is even a picture in the yearbook!  Oh to be in the 7th grade again!

This past Sunday we as a church celebrated Independence Day. (the actual date is September 16th)  Here in Mexico we celebrate normally on the eve of the date.  So, September 15th is when the country starts it's festivities.  This is also true at Christmas.  Mexico celebrates Christmas on Christmas Eve.  It is almost like they can't wait so they do it early.  My kids actually like this.

We are praising the Lord for what He is doing at Nueva Vida!  We are allowing the church folk to organize and carry out the activities this year.  This is in preparation for us leaving for our furlough next summer.  It is so exciting to see everyone come together.  We have a very gifted man in our church, Alberto.  He organized our Bicentennial celebration.  Everything went very smooth.  Sam, unfortunately, was unable to attend due to a strained back.  We had 120 folks come and enjoy the food, fellowship and festivities!

We had a dress up contest. 

We almost ran out of space!

Here are the salsas that the guys made!

Alfonso, preached and did an awesome job!!

Benjamin, a man in our church, did a clown act for the kids!

Alfonso led the church in the "grito".  This is the famous shout where we end in "Viva Mexico".

These are our deaf friends.  They love to come to special activities!

Special thanks to Axel, the young man on the left.  He took all these pictures!  He is a professional photographer in our church.  We are so blessed to have his family in our church.  His dad, sitting next to him, is our sound man and his mom organized all the food!