Recent News From Italy

Well, I guess I haven't been doing a great job with keepin' y'all updated with everything that's going on here.  The week after the last post I was down with a migraine, and this past week I have been playing catch-up with school work and work here, but here is what has been happening...


Eric and Jessica went to visit the church in Taranto, which is in South Italy and Ryan and Laura went to visit the church in Rome.  They all had a great time meeting the people in those churches.  While they were gone, David took Andrea, Angela, and I to an old church not too far from Scandicci.  It was very beautiful.  Here are some of the pictures of that outing to the church:

After we went to see that church, we went to the Harding villa because we were throwing a surprise party for one of the members, Luigi, of the church here in Florence.  He is in the process of taking tests to be a conductor, I think.  Well he passed his first test and we decided to celebrate.  While there he played his clarinet for us and his wife played the piano.  They are both amazing musicians.  I took some video at the concert, but for some reason it wouldn't load onto the blog.  Sorry about that.  Maybe I can figure how do fix it and add it later.

Last Saturday we all went out to eat with Mario, a member of the church here, and we ate at his favorite seafood restaurant.   The food was amazing and, like every Italian lunch, it was HUGE.  We had squid, octopus, prawns, shrimp, some kind of fish that was very good, vegetables, bread, gelato, and caffe.  It was awesome to spend time with Mario and to talk with him.  After lunch, Ermenita took me to the Saturday market here in Scandicci to do some Christmas shopping.  The market is kinda like a flea market but they have clothes, mainly for women, and all kinds of delicious food.  It was my first time there and it was a very interesting experience.

Last Sunday we had a concert at the church as well.  It was a quartet based here in Florence.  They were very good as well.  We used this as a way to invite our students to church and meet the members of the congregation.  We also sent invitations to the American universities here in Florence, including the HUF students, as well but a few from Peperdine and the Harding students showed up from that crow.  We had a really good turn out from our students and members of our church, close to 100 people.  I got to meet some of Ryan's, Laura's, Jessica's, and Eric's students that I see when they come for their classes but never get to talk to.  It was good to talk with them and get to know them a little (plus I got to practice my Italian with them and for they practiced their English with me).  After the concert, we had a chili supper and then had singing, in both Italian and English, at the church.  It sounded so beautiful.

This weekend was pretty relaxing and I didn't do a whole lot.  Emily took Ryan, Laura, Eric, and Jessica to Vincenza this weekend to visit the church there and they left Saturday morning and got back Sunday night so they house was pretty quiet with 5 people gone.  We did, however, do a massive clean of the building on Friday because we are starting to have a lot of guest come through this month.  I finally got to dry my clothes, but had to take them to a laundry mat down the street because the dryer here is broken and it has rained everyday for the past two weeks so nothing on the clothes lines will dry.  It was nice to have a quiet weekend because this coming week will be very busy.  I start teaching English this week and have three students so far.  I will tell y'all more about them at a later time after I get to know them.  We are also cooking a HUGE Thanksgiving meal for some of our students which will be on Saturday.  I think we have about 60 people in all coming for this meal, so we will be start cooking at least 3 days in advance.  Language school is still rough because I have to concentrate on everything word and try to figure out what they are saying.  I am getting the hang of it and I can understand a lot more than I can speak.  I can listen and figure out what they are saying, eventually, but when I try to speak it is very rough and takes me forever to say what I would like to say.

Please keep us in your prayers.  Pray that God will continue to use us for his glory and that we will allow ourselves to be used by God.  Pray also for the churches here in Italy and that we all will work for God rather than for man.  God bless.  Ciao

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