Firenze, Pistoia, Ferarra, and Vicenza

Last Sunday after church, we went out to eat at a restaurant here in Scandicci called Nuovo Mexico, New Mexico in English.  Funny enough though, it doesn't serve Mexican food, its a typical Italian restaurant but the owner just liked the name.  The food there is fantastic and one of my favorite places to eat around here.  After lunch a few of us (Eric, David, Angela, Andrea, and myself) went to Pistoia, which is a town about 30 mins. away from us, for a singing service.  They invited the churches in Prato and Firenze to come as well.  I met a few people that I met before and some others I hadn't, including some of the A.I.M workers from Prato.  A.I.M. is another missionary program based in Lubbock, TX.  Everyone I met was great and it was good to spend some time singing with my brothers and sisters in Christ. 

This past weekend a few of us (Emily, Andrea, Angela, David, and I) went to Vicenza for the weekend.  Lindsay Walle, one of the A.I. workers, is about to finish here time here in Italy and we went to say goodbye to her one last time.  There are two churches in Vincenza that use the same building, one of Ghanaians and one of mainly Italians and we just happen to be there on their unity Sunday and also the Agape Sunday as well.  I met a lot of wonderful people, Italians and Ghanaians, and everyone is going to miss Lindsay so please pray for the church there and for Lindsay as well.  On the way to and from Vicenza we stopped in Fararra to see a couple of friends, Lucca and Daniella.  They were both here for the Youth Convanio in August before I arrived and went with us to Aprillia in October.  They invited us to their grandmother's house for lunch, which was AMAZING.  Lucca told me that his grandmother was the best cook in Fararra and he was right.  They fed us lunch on Saturday and then we stopped to have tea and caffe with them on Sunday.

Lucca and me

Angela with Lucca's grandparents

Every time I go overseas I am always amazed with the churches that I attend.  When I was back in the States I would always hear from missionaries about churches in other parts of the world but it didn't come alive for me until I went to Greece 5 years ago and had my first cross-cultural church experience.  It happened again when I was in Croatia and Hungary 2 years ago, and then again when I first got here.  I relived those experiences again when we had church this past Sunday with the Italians and the Ghanaians.  Ever few songs the Ghanaians would sing in their language and I would sit or stand there and listen to them and it was just an awesome experience.  I couldn't help but think that this is what heaven will be like when we are all singing together, people from different countries and cultures all worshiping God at the same time.  I smile every time i think about it.

My classes are still going well.  Edoardo still amazes me with his intellect and comprehension of what we are reading.  He understands about 95% of the words we encounter but every now and then there is a word or phrase that he doesn't understand.  Felice is making progress every week and I am glad to see him because he is eager to learn.  I found out in our first lesson that he and his wife Rossa, our cook here at the school, go ballroom dancing twice a week.  It sounds like they are pretty good and hopefully I will be able to go and watch them soon.  I have a new student for the next two weeks: Giuseppe.  He is one of David's students that I taught a couple of weeks ago and he might become one of my students for the rest of the semester, but I will have to wait and see.  I had class with him today and he and David have been talking about the temptations of Jesus in Matt. 4, which we continued to talk about; he also asked questions about where the Garden of Eden was and when Adam died.  The grammar class is going well and we had more students last week, which was encouraging.  Last week Ryan, Eric, and I got together and came up with a curriculum for the conversation class at the church.  We are going to plan 16 lessons each, 8 from the Old Testament and 8 from the New Testament, and make them into a little book.  Eric did class last week with one of his lessons and it went really well. So we will keep this format for a while.

As I said in my last post, we are starting to do a weekly activity with our students.  The first Friday of the month is movie night and last Friday we watched Despicable Me.  I ended up watching twice last week trying to find hard vocab words and idioms that they might not know such as, "I am sitting on pins and needles... pinky promise... simmer down... chillax..."  and a few others.  After the movie I asked them a few simple questions about the movie as well.  Ermenita made some cookies, the ladies here made an awesome punch, and learned how to make popcorn on the stove.  They all seemed to enjoy it and the snacks that we made for them as well.  This Friday will be the cooking school and I will let y'all know how it goes.

As for other news, Ryan and Laura have moved out of the school into their new apartment in town.  They are keeping their students that they had last semester and will be working more with the church and evangelizing at the University of Florence, so please keep them in your prayers.  In other unrelated news I have lost about 40 pounds since I arrived in Italy mainly due to the change in diet, but I have been walking a lot too.

Well, that is all for now but please continue to pray for all of us over here.  Pray for all the churches here in Italy and their ministries.  Pray that we will be real and transparent with our students and that we will show them God's love and mercy.  Pray also that everything we do will bring glory and honor to God and not for ourselves.  Thanks for taking to time to read this and keeping up with me.  I really appreciate all the comments, and emails, and facbook messages that I receive.  They are a real blessing and encouragement to me.  Ciao for now and God bless.