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!

Sad and Glad

Today we experienced a bitter sweet day at your church.  One of our founding couples and dearest friends had their last Sunday with us at Nueva Vida and are in the process of moving to Monterrey, Mexico.  I'll have to admit that I cried during much of the day.  Ernesto and Estrella and their boys are a part of the Hornbrook family as well as a part of our church family.  We have known this couple before they were a couple.  We had the privilege of singing in their wedding.   We've watched their boys grow up since their first day of birth.  Today we had a despedida or going away for them.  We had 15 folks give testimonies and I cried through every single one of them.  We actually all cried together.  It was so exciting to hear the wonderful witness this family has had on so many folks.  We are going to miss them terribly. We are also rejoicing knowing that this couple is looking at this move as an opportunity to grow and serve God better.  This all has happened all so quickly.  It isn't what we'd plan as we are in the last year of our term here before we go back to Indiana for our year of furlough.  This is what God has planned and we know that His plans are always better than anything we can think up.

Sam is sharing his testimony.

Here is Silvestre sharing how much Ernesto and Estrella have impacted he and his family's lives.

Alfonso, Ernesto's brother, sharing his testimony.

Ernesto sharing how much he and his family are going to miss Nueva Vida.

Ernesto, Estrella, Ernesto Jr. and Greco cutting the cake in their honor.

Araceli, Fernanda and Estrella

Young people hanging before their last good-byes.

Catching Up

I can't believe how long it's been since I blogged last.  A lot has happened.  First, we had a wonderful time in Michigan, Indiana, Illinois and Iowa.  Most of our time was spent in Lafayette, Indiana but we did get to see some friends and family in the other states mentioned.  We really enjoyed the wedding we got to go to Livonia, Michigan.  Myranda and Justin did a fabulous job of honoring God in their ceremony.  I spent a lot of time going to doctors, physical therapy and the dentist.  Natalie is doing wonderfully!  She has graduated to the next phase in her physical therapy.  We are very thankful for the doctors there in Lafayette and Indianapolis. Natalie has been given the green light to start playing basketball again.   She is really excited.  Of course it will be in moderation until her body gets back into shape.  Natalie is scheduled to have her wisdom teeth removed on July 13th.  This was something we added in.  We chose to have the procedure done in the States rather than finding someone here in Mexico City to do it.  We haven't been too pleased with the medical system here lately.  We also learned that we need to address the over bite that Nicole has.  We plan to address this ASAP.  She isn't very excited about it as you can imagine.  Our children have wonderful teeth but they just don't grow in the right direction sometimes!

We also got to visit my grandma.  Grandma June is 84 and ready to meet our Savior.  Pray with us that she won't have too much pain in the process.  Her kidneys are failing.  She is sweet as ever.  It is never easy to say good-bye and this trip was especially hard.  I had to say good-bye to my grandma and it could be the last time I see her.  We also left two kids in Lafayette this time.  Of course Natalie is coming back in August but still it was more difficult.

Nathaniel is very busy with his job and the new ministries he will be in charge of at Faith while he is in Seminary.  Pray that he will do well in his responsibilities as well as in his classes.  He has chosen to live with two other Seminary guys for the next three years.  He has been extremely blessed living with my parents these past six years.

I'm going to post a few of the pics from our time in the States.  Thanks so much for your prayers.  We look forward to seeing you all next summer and following when we come up for our furlough year!

All dressed up for a wedding

Here is a robin's nest on my mother's wreath

Here are two of the three eggs that eventually were laid.

Here are the three little baby robins.

All girls breakfast at IHOP with the Worrell girls and grandmothers!

Meeting Ian Humphrey!!  Natalie and Ian hit it off real quick.

Cupcakes that Nicole decorated with Grandmother.

My brother's doggies!!  Megan and Maddison.

Kami, Nicole and Kalli

Having fun at Columbian Park!

Nathaniel and the Skate Park kids

Nathaniel and his first car.  2002 Dodge Neon

Update on Natalie

Thank you so much for your prayers for Natalie.  Some of you might not know that one of the main reasons we are in the States is to get medical help for Natalie.  Since our arrival we have had three doctor's visits and today Natalie got her epidural shot to try and help with the pain she has been experiencing for over a year.  We had seen three doctors in Mexico City but just haven't been happy with the outcome.  All three doctors had different diagnoses and different treatments.  None of which worked.  We learned today that if this shot doesn't do the trick then we will look at the joints in between the discs etc. and try and see if this is the source of pain.  We also learned that the recovery time and time needed for me to be in the States will more than likely be extended.  Natalie is going to require a great deal of physical therapy to build her core muscles so that her back will be strengthened and work better.  Then she will go through another set of physical therapy so that she can play sports again.   It is important for folks with back issues to stay active so the idea of Natalie returning to her playing form is not a far stretch.  She will have to do certain exercises her whole life to keep her back strong.

The news we received today was very informative.  We were surprised that the shot may not fix the problem.  We appreciate doctors being honest and upfront with all the information.  We never get this in Mexico City.  I had my long list of questions but the doctor covered most of my list before I even had to ask.  I guess I'm used to the treatment in Mexico.  Pray that we will learn all the lessons God wants us to learn at this time.  Pray for Natalie.  She is trying not to get excited nor discouraged.  She is one tough cookie. I was so impressed with how she handled her epidural shot today.  Natalie's shot was much more intense than my two epidurals put together.  I know because I got to watch the doctor today. (not too much fun)  I've often sat back in amazement of God's grace in Natalie's life.  Thanks so much for praying.