Convivio

First off, I don't want you all to get spoiled and think that I'm going to be updating two or three times a week from here on out. It's just so happened that June and July have been busy months, which calls for letting you know what's going on. In short, enjoy these updates because they may become less frequent in the future. : )
That said, I want to tell you about the church convivio (basically a church cookout) that we had this past Saturday. For those of you who have been following the happenings down here for some time, you know that we like to throw a big party every now and again to provide opportunities for our members to get to know each other better and all to invite their friends and family. One thing we've learned through the years is that Mexicans love a good party and many will come, even though they wouldn't normally come to one of our cell groups or meet with us on Sunday mornings. So, it was that time of year again. We rented a cabaña at one of the local parks and have been pushing this in our cells and Sunday celebration for about a month now. We were praying for between 80-100 people (and NO RAIN!!). The Lord was good, as he always is, and answered both of those requests! It sprinkled for maybe five minutes (something almost unheard of in rainy season) and the rest of the afternoon was sunny, cool and perfect. We believe the total attendance was somewhere close to 95 or 100, but it's kind of hard to know when you're at a park and the kids are running all over the place playing, being chased by their parents. Makes it hard to get an exact figure. Anyway, we had a great time. Sam, along with all his helpers, cooked fajita meat and the ladies of the congregation made the biggest bowl of guacamole that I've ever seen. All of our cell groups pitched in by bringing something to go along with the food and everyone had a great time talking and playing and getting to know one another. We had quite a few new faces and even a few old ones that we hadn't seen in a while (Steven, Juan Manuel was there, believe it or not!). Overall, the afternoon was a huge success and we are praying we will see growth in all of our cell groups this week as a result of the time we spent together. Please join us in those prayers. Enjoy the pictures!

Getting ready to play some games

Herlinda and Mari try to lower the ball to their knees and then back up again without using their hands. Norberto and Elsa look on.

Aldo, Larisa, Ruth, Martín, and Juan Manuel enjoying coffee after lunch

We also took the time to celebrate all the birthdays in July. From L to R, it's Lorena, Gerardo, Sam, José Luís, and me (Sara).

Sofía took the traditional mordita (bite) out of the cake for all of us. She didn't even have to smile for this picture because the icing was smiling for her. : )

Happy Birthday, Sofía!!!

Sofía González turned four years old today. She is getting so big!! She had her party at McDonalds and thoroughly enjoyed herself. Here are some pictures (mainly for the enjoyment of her family who couldn't be with her today). Enjoy!

Sofía and Ronald greeting guests (don't you love that some things are the same the world over, like Ronald McDonald?) : )

Summer and Olivia enjoying the party

Victoria, Sofía and Olivia (Olivia isn't enjoying the party quite as much any more for some reason!)

Fellowship time (translation: time for adults to talk while the kids play and scream and make all kinds of noise!)

Sofía hitting her piñata. So much can change in a year! For her third birthday, Sofía refused to be in the same room while the hitting was going on. Instead, she sat inside with me paciently waiting for the candy. This year, however, she was the first one, ready to hit that thing as hard as possible for a four year old!

The moment everyone was waiting for. Let the sugar rain down!

Sofía blowing out her candles

Sofía and all her friends (and her daddy, too!)

The haul. She did good this year! (Of course, she's in that stage where she refuses to smile for pictures, especially ones taken by me. Although she is an absolute cutie, she is also quite a toot! I blame her father for that.) : )

More pictures

Here are some more pictures from Sunday. Enjoy! - Sara

Adriana and José Luís praying over Daniel and Irandi. They both attend the Tuesday cell group, which Adriana and José Luís lead.
















Summer and I praying over Larisa (you can blame Sam for not getting all of Summer!)
















Sam and Rosa praying over Ofelia
















Enjoying good food and fellowship afterwards
















Watching the end of the World Cup final

Exciting News!

We had four baptisms today!! Can you believe it? I'm still giddy from the whole experience. Along with that, we had a new couple join our family. Praise the Lord!
The first to be baptized was Larisita (in yellow, just to the left of Sam in the picture), the youngest daughter of Larisa. She's been wanting to get baptized for a while, but we wanted to make sure she wanted to do it for her and not just because her mom and sister were baptized. Summer studied with her and was able to see in her a heart ready and willing to be placed in God's hands. She's been anxiously looking forward to this day and was so glad it finally arrived!
Ofelia (second from the left) was the next to decide that the time had come for her to give herself over to the Lord. She is Rosa's sister-in-law and has been coming regularly for some time now. Her son, Marco, was baptized at our church retreat last December. She has gone through some hard times with her family in the year or so that we've known her, but has been able to see how the Lord is working through those situations and through her life to glorfiy his name. It was so wonderful to finally see her make this important decision.
We'd been planning Larisa's and Ofelia's baptisms for a few weeks now, since we don't have a baptistry of our own. We've also been praying that more would step forward and take this opportunity to follow Jesus. Well, the Lord answered our prayers! This week while Sam was visiting with a new family in our church, two of them decided that they were ready to accept the invitation. The first was Irandi (far left). You may notice that she is a little bit pregnant. : ) She started attending cell and church with her mother-in-law, Reina, who'll you'll meet in a minute. The Lord has touched her heart on more than one occasion and she didn't even wait to be asked if she wanted to be baptized. She was absolutely positive about her decision. And then her brother-in-law, Daniel (in the middle) decided he wanted to make the same commitment. So, our plan of two baptisms doubled to four! You can't really ask for anything better than that, now can you?
Well, it did get better. Daniel's parents (and Irandi's in-laws), Pepe and Reina (in picture #2), have been Christians for quite some time and have been looking for a family to worship with. In the month since they first arrived, they've attended cell regularly (Pepe can't always make it because he's a taxi driver, but Reina is there every week) and we've seen in them a desire to be a part of this family. So, today we officially welcomed them into the Río de Vida church. They are a direct answer to prayers you have prayed for new families who are ready to dive head first into what the Lord is doing through this church in Morelia. It was a very special day for them today, seeing their son and daughter-in-law dedicated their lives to God. Please pray that the rest of the family joins them in that decision in the near future.
After we celebrated these new lives and this new family, we all sat down to eat and, of course, watch the final game of the World Cup. Go, Italy!! It was an afternoon filled with blessing, communion, laughter and tears. That's about as good as it gets, don't you agree?