Mar-April 2007

March and April

PISTOIA, ITALIA NEWSLETTER

The Lord Almighty sustains us with his continual blessings and encouragements. The work in Pistoia is progressing by his blessing and we give thanks for the prayers and support which you all offer on behalf of Christ's kingdom.

Since our last update we have confirmed the arrival of a campaign group which will spend a week with us in the middle of June. We again request your prayers for God's blessings upon this effort. We pray that the local church will jump behind the effort and be actively involved. We recently studied from Luke 10 the event when Jesus sent out a group of 70 to prepare the way for his coming. Before he sent them out he warned them of dangers, calling these dangers wolves, while these disciples were to be as sheep. Defenseless. Vulnerable. Trusting their shepherd for protection. Near the center of our discussion was the way it was necessary for those disciples to go out in order to participate in the joy of the results of the work. We want to experience the joy of God working through us and for this we pray that the church be highly involved with the efforts during the campaign week.

During March and April we began distributing information in mailboxes and on doors of houses. The fliers say, “All roads lead to Rome, but only one leads to God.” We will continue distributing those fliers when the campaign is here, but we have also again begun advertising English classes using the Bible as a source of discussion. Permission still needs to be obtained from one of the larger schools to distribute the information among the students. Our hope is that some of them will take the opportunity to study during the summer so that they retain what they may have learned in during the school year.

This year's campaign will only be the second that we have had in Pistoia. The last was two years ago and was about twice as big as this group. For our small congregation the number will be more manageable. We have a number of activities that we are hoping to complete. As always we will have puppet shows in the park (most likely performed by the AIM students from Prato). We will pass out cold water at a local park one day, and on another pass out air fresheners for cars at stoplights. These are the two more costly activities but we are praying for a good impact. On the water bottles and the air fresheners we will place a sticker with the churches name, address and a catchy verse and phrase. The leading suggestion is: “Let Jesus refresh your life.” Beyond these two activities we will keep busy with picking up the trash at a couple of parks.

Of late, the church in Prato has been preparing for more apprentice missionaires(AIMers) to come. I have gone to help a couple of times with taking apart, moving, and reconstructing furniture. The AIMers have been a real blessing to the church in Prato and Pistoia. Members of the church are encouraged by their enthusiasm and others are impressed that young people would give a year and a half of their lives to serve God very specifically.

Here in Italy, two holidays passed within a week of each other and that brought the total up to three holidays in the matter of a month. It wouldn't be so disruptive if the last two had not fallen in the middle of the week. The holidays were enjoyed very much. For two of them, we were able to spend almost full days with Carmelo and Dina. It was a nice encouragement for us and hopefully for them as well. One of the days we spent up in the mountains behind Pistoia and enjoyed the cool air.

Speaking of Carmelo, we have recently been studying things that will help him with his devotional life. As a taxi driver, he has periods of time when he has no clients and so he has time to read, or study, or meditate, or pray. He commented just the other day about how he has already observed that when he takes the time to read from the Bible on breaks he is more relaxed while driving. We enjoy seeing how he is maturing as a new Christian, how he is more comfortable reading the Scripture on Sundays and how he has improved with public prayer. We thank God for opportunities like these when Spiritual growth is easily seen.

On the homefront, things are going well. Elaina has started displaying the teeth that she has kept hidden for a while. For almost 5 months the doctor said he thought her gums were swollen because the teeth were about to come through. Some of them have finally shown themselves. Her smile is a bit crooked but it is a beautiful smile nonetheless.

Noah's Italian is constantly improving and he is making friends well at school. I have a feeling he will really miss it this summer but we will still be able to make play dates with his friends at the park where we normally do our puppet shows.

We recently finished getting all our plants in the ground for the garden. We had a garden last year as well, but since we were in the US for 2 months we only planted things that could pretty much be neglected and still grow. This year we will remain in Italy and have time to tend to the gardening so we planted tomatoes, peppers, beans, squash and some herbs. Noah has enjoyed helping plant the seeds and Elaina sits in the sun and watches. It is one of our family activities for the moment.

As I finish the letter, Heather's mom is on her way to Italy for a brief two week stay. We are looking forward to spending time with her and at the same time it reminds us of all our family and friends back in the US. We are tremendously thankful for you all and miss you. We thank God for sustaining us through the contributions that many of you make financially and that all of you make in your prayers.