It's been awhile...

Christmas was here and gone but the message of "the free gift" is something we carry and share with us all year long.  We had a wonderful time visiting with family over the holidays.  My parents (Jerry and Rita Jamison) came for nine days and our son Nathaniel was with us for two weeks.  The time went by too fast but we made some wonderful memories.  The highlight was December 27th when we invited all the family to our house.  We had my in-laws (Sam and Ellen Hornbrook) Sam's brother (Jim and Ruth and family) Sam's nephew (Brian and his wife Merari) my parents and us.  We also invited our son's best friend and his girlfriend.  There was lots of eating, fellowshipping and laughing.

Not long after our family left we welcomed a group from Faith Christian School in Lafayette, Indiana.  They came and served at a Missionary school, held a youth activity, basketball clinics and got some site seeing in.  We were  busy.  It was a lot of fun.  In the middle of their visit we got word that my grandmother went home to be with the Lord.  That same day we learned that Sam's mom had suffered a brain hemorrhage.  Sam has been with his mom and dad in Veracruz since January 11th.  Today they are transporting my mother in-law back to Poza Rica where they live.  She is still in critical but stable condition.  She is unable to respond at this time.  She is breathing on her own which we are very grateful.

It's hard to think of my mother in-law being in such a fragile state.  She has always been very active and the most hospitable person I know.  She was getting ready to serve homemade icecream when her hemorrhage started.  She and my father in-law have had a "swinging door" policy in their home.  There has always been room at the table and if you needed a place to stay--the beds always had clean sheets waiting.  We'd appreciate your prayers for the Hornbrook family at this time.

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!