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!

Busy, Busy, Busy

This is a picture of our dog Sasha.  Sometimes I wish I could just plop and snooze.  These have been very busy days for us these past couple of weeks.  We are getting ready to jump start our Institute at Nueva Vida for our Fall classes.  This semester we are offering Christian Education.  Sam is wanting all of our present and future teachers to take this exciting class.  We have 25 folks signed up!!  This is so encouraging as we train and disciple new people to serve in the ministry.  While the Institute class for adults meets we have a special designed class for the kids called Cre Cri (Creciendo en Cristo) or Growing in Christ.  We are going to start out the year studying Obedience.  This year we will be utilizing the young people as helpers and they too will be training to serve.  We are going to be focusing on Bible Stories that show us both obedience and disobedience.  We will have a music time to teach the kids the musical scale as well as counting.  This is prep for the future.  We hope to have a real bell choir in the future so we have to start learning now!!

Thank you so much for your prayers for Natalie and her back.  She is doing so much better.  She is faithful to her specialized exercise program that she will have to do for the rest of her life.  She has no limitations but is learning how long and hard she can do things.  She is jogging three to four times a week.  I'm walking while she runs and we are pushing close to 8 miles a week.  She is also doing volleyball drills that the coach at Faith Christian is giving her.  We are so thrilled that Natalie can do all this after a year of hardly being able to exercise.  We are praising God for the doctors He brought our way to help Natalie!  The Back Clinic in Indy went above and beyond their call of duty.  The Rehab in Lafayette at Unity Hospital was so refreshing and extremely helpful in giving us back our Natalie!  God used so many people along the way.

We have also begun the school year.  Natalie is in the 11th grade and Nicole is in 4th.  We are working hard this year in preparation to going to Faith Christian next year while we are in Lafayette for our furlough.  Both girls miss having classmates but we are trying to work hard at getting them together with kids their age.  We are thankful for a great youth group and children's class at Nueva Vida.

This year we are focusing on training folks for different ministries and we are discipling the newer believers.  We have four pregnant ladies in our church!!  This is so exciting!  Right now we have a six month old in the nursery and in November we will have two more new arrivals and then two more after the first of the year!  Our church attendance continues to grow and we have visitors nearly every Sunday.  God continues to grow His church in His time.  We are honored to be apart of His Work here in Mexico City!

PPS  Our son Nathaniel is doing well. He is staying busy with his studies at Faith Bible Seminary and with his ministries at Faith Baptist Church.  He is right now he is in charge of the Skate Park and the Hispanic Class.  He is loving what he is doing!  Thanks for your prayers!