New Friends and New Places.

 I know its been about a week and a half since I blogged last, and a lot has happened since then.  Last Friday Ermenita had her "American Graduation".  It was the first time that the school has ever done one, so we went to support her.  Here are some pictures from her graduation:

Here we are anxiously awaiting for Ermenita's Ceremony

  And here is Ermenita getting her degree! Yay!

After the graduation, we had a movie night here at the school for our students and their families.  We watched Monsters Inc.  And to tie it into Halloween ,the ladies here made "witch finger" cookies (sugar cookies in the shape of a finger with green food coloring and an almond for the fingernail), a "witch's brew" punch (a fruit punch), and Emily made her famous caramel popcorn.  It was a lot of fun to watch it in English with the students and they really seemed to enjoy it.  It was good to meet some of the students that I have never met before like Samuele.  He is one of David's students and speaks English very well.  He works as a college professor in Firenze teaching History and Philosophy.  He is a very interesting guy who has lived and gone to school in a couple of different countries.  I tried to talk to him, and our other students, only in Italian and they were all very forgiving of my bad grammar and limited vocabulary.  Here are a couple of pictures from the movie night: 

Here are the Witch Finger cookies.

Everyone gathering for the movie

Here I am talking to Samuele

The day after our movie night we had the HUF students over for a devotional and some games.  We made tacos for them (and by we I mean that Laura, Jessica, Andrea, Angela, Emily, and Ermenita aka our awesome cooks made the food).  This was the first time I had a chance to meet them all and I discovered that three of the students were in the youth group I worked at in Little Rock.  We sang for a while and then Ryan, Eric, and I read a few verses about Mission work.  I read the accounts of the Great Commission from Matthew, Mark, and Acts and also Col. 3:23-24, where it says to work with all your heart for the Lord and not for man.  It was a verse that I read a couple of days before during my own study time. We tried to encourage them to serve God when they could and wherever they were, whether in a foreign mission field or somewhere in the US.  After our devo we played Pictionary in English and Italian.  We all had such a wonderful night.

This past weekend we all took a trip to Aprilia for a youth conference.  We left on Friday after lunch with Lindsay, an A.I. worker in Vencenza, and some of our Italian friends who were here in September: Luca, Marco, and Daniela.  The whole weekend was about evangelism.  it was all in Italian, so I had to really concentrate to hear the words and then try to understand them, but I was able to get the gist of the sessions by reading the Bible verses they referenced.  So at the end of the days I was exhausted.  But it was awesome to meet people our age, and a few years younger than us, from the churches all over Italy.  We sang all weekend long and Vittorio, the preacher there in Aprilia, spoke at the sessions, and ate wonderful food prepared by the wonderful ladies at the church there.  We did have some free time on Saturday so a bunch of us went to take coffee and hang out in the park.  And we also played a game of Charades with them!  I was very blessed and encouraged by this weekend and making new friends and has been one of the best experiences so far for me.  Here are some pictures form this weekend:

Me and my new friend Luca

Another new friend Marta

The MEN!!

Hangin' out at the coffee shop

 

During a session

Hanging out in our free time

Hangin' out with our Italian friends in our free time

And here are some silly pictures of the game of Charades that we played:

What a great weekend!  We left early from the retreat on Sunday (well after lunch) to come back to Florence for the HUF Halloween party.  It has been a busy couple of weeks, but God really is blessing me.  Please keep praying for us, praying that we will let God use us and that we will be transparent with each other and with the people we are ministering to.  And please pray for all the churches here in Italy.  Hopefully I will be more diligent about my posting and do it more regularly.  Thanks and God bless.  Ciao