Giving Thanks

          I started teaching last week and have three students.  I don't know a whole lot about them yet since two of my students were not able to make it for class the first week.  So this past week was the first time to teach two of them, and I have a beginner, an intermediate, and an advanced student that I meet with for one hours, once per week.  I'll post more about them after I get to know them a little better.  I am still in language school but the others here have finished.  we have a two week break in December to travel and to rest before we start back to work again.  I will do some traveling, day trips mostly, but I hopefully will spend a few days in Rome. 
          Well, last Saturday we had a Thanksgiving dinner for our students.  We started cooking for the dinner on Thursday and cooked for three days.  On Saturday we did a last minute cleaning in the classroom, where we had the dinner, and the outside.  We bought flowers several weeks ago but we were never able to put them in the window boxes because it has because it has been raining almost everyday for three weeks.  So Saturday Laura and Angela put the flowers in the pots while Eric and I took them up the stairs to put them on the windows.  Around 11 am Eric, Ryan, and I started cleaning out the garage.  It took us four hours, but we cleaned it out and rearranged everything.
           The students and their families started showing up around 7:30 and we had about 70 people in all.  we asked them to bring a "non perishable food item", kinda like what people in the States do to donate for a soup kitchen or church,  for the pantry at the Florence church (food that we can give to needy people who come and ask for food).  They went above and beyond my expectations with donating food.  Some people brought two or three bags of food!  Their generosity was incredible!  We had some appetizers for them and before dinner, Andrea read them a story about Thanksgiving that Jessica put together.  The story was about the first Thanksgiving and how it became a national holiday and also what it means to us as Christians to be thankful to God for all has done for us and still is doing for us today.  I know that I am thankful for my family who have helped me and supported me to come to Italy, for my friends who are always there for me and praying for me while I am in Italy, for the awesome teammates here in Florence (Angela, Jessica, Ryan, Eric, Laura, Andrea, Emily, Ermenita, David, and Debbie) and the support and friendship that I receive from them everyday, and for the people in the church here in Florence who have been so welcoming to me and making me feel at home.  There are so many that were not named here but I thank God for you in my prayers.
             I got to meet some new people, family of some of the students, as well as some people I had already met, Like Samuele and Francesco.  We ate good, traditional thanksgiving food (by the way, thanks Debbie and all the ladies here who cooked) such as turkey, green bean casserole, ham with a cranberry glaze, corn casserole, rolls, sweet potato casserole, dressing, and of course gravy.  For dessert we had pumpkin pie and pecan pie with homemade whip cream.  The Italians loved all the food and had a good time and we did as well.  The last person left around midnight and we finished cleaning around 1 am.  It was a very busy day.

             On Sunday, there was an American couple at church that was backpacking around the world for a while.  They are from Oklahoma and about our age as well.  they were surprised to find so many English speaking people at the church there in Florence.  That night they met us at a movie theatre to see the new Harry Potter movie.  It was very interesting to watch it in English with Italian subtitles. 
             I thank you again for reading my blog and keeping up with the work we are doing here.  I ask that you please continue to pray for us and the work that we are doing.  And pray that God will continue to use us and that we will let ourselves be used.  Thanks again and God bless.  Ciao