Our newsletter written for December 2007:
Author Archive for Matt
Well, we’ve left our apartment, and all our personal possessions are distributed among 10 bags. The Fergnianis are putting us up for a few days as we settle out with the landlord and utilities company. Heading home Wednesday! What couple of years…
Well, it’s almost that time: The time for us to come home. We have one more newsletter to send out to recount our last few months here in Vicenza.
We get back to Huntsville on December 19th, where we’ll spend the next few months at temp jobs while we wait to hear where Lauren has been accepted for grad school. Then it’s off on a new adventure!
One thing we need to wrap up before we get back is funding! To make a long story short: All support needs to be recieved by Huntsville Christian by the 19th, so we kindly ask all our supporters to make sure that their final checks get in by that date. Thanks so much for all your help! God has blessed us tremendously through you, and we couldn’t have done any of this without you.
Well, since it’s been a few days, I probably should temper my last post’s nostalgic sentiment with info on what’s coming up for our final three months here. The first item of good news is that we successfully renewed our immigration papers and health insurance, so we can stay legally! Though what I am not looking forward to is canceling our phone service. ugh.
We have a few trips lined up to go visit places and people we haven’t managed to see. The biggest one is church in Catania, who are really wonderful and it’s a shame we haven’t been down to visit them there yet. They come to many of the conventions and youth camp, etc. which is how we know them.
Lauren’s family is coming to visit in a few weeks, which is exciting. It’s always fun to share what we are doing and play tour guides to wherever we are at the moment. Unfortunately for them (and us as we have less of an excuse to go now), they are leaving right before the largest chocolate festival in Italy–maybe Europe–which take place in Perugia. For shame.
Our biggest challenge coming up is planning for a youth retreat this December. We have done two previously, and God has been benevolent enough to let each be good times despite ourselves…(actually they were very nice!) We definitely need all of the guidance we can get to wrap up our time with the youth in that retreat, and to say goodbye while keeping the focus where it needs to be. More details about that later though…
And now we’re gone for a few days to Paris, a trip that has been at least a year and a half in the making. 40 euro plane tickets are great.
It’s strange and weird to think of going, of moving on, and in many ways it has overshadowed a lot of life at the moment. We’re just about to hit two years here, our original commitment. (Especially apparent as our permission to stay papers expire in 4 days!) I hesitate as I write these words as I find it hard to express what it feels like, this facing of what is inevitable, like we’ve been drifting down a wonderful river for a while, but things are speeding up, the current is getting rougher, and there’s an soft rushing sound that is oh very faint right now, but gets louder and louder every day.
We planned on staying two years, but are here in Vicenza until this December to make it a whole year. Two years seems like plenty of time, of course, when you are at the beginning. Yet, when you try to live a life, make friends, let them come to see Christ in you, those years go by so quickly! Next time we come, we’re moving for good I think!
The team is slowly unravelling: Going back to where we came from, picking up lives left on hold, seeking the next chapter/phase/adventure, returning to the familiar, wondering what to do next, facing another unknown. Even the program itself is in a way ending, or going through a metamorphosis I could say. All good changes, necessary for the sake of being able to continue, and more effective in using its workers, but sad in a way. Teaching English is out, sending out workers throughout Italy is in.
Maybe I shouldn’t write what I am about to as it could never replace a proper goodbye, but I guess we’ll have to make do, since life has other plans:
Here’s to you, team members, friends. It’s been a good time, and I think that in all the ups and downs we can say it was worth it, that God has worked through us, though not necessarily in the way we naively assumed he would at the beginning. He is much more cunning and subtle and wiser than any of us could have imagined!
God, you caught each one of us by surprise! We were so confident, a bit prideful of what we were going to accomplish, but you have shown us your true power, your true love for those who seek you, and have invited us be witnesses to that effect. I only wish this longing for those we have missed for so long and those we are about to leave wasn’t so strong so painful, but I guess that is what love is…
Our newsletter written for August 2007:
Click here to open the PDF.
Ok, after way too long, we’ve put some photos up of us over here! To make a long story short, I, Matt, the server monkey, spent way to long putting off setting up a photo sharing web app. In the end, we got a flickr account. Visit it here. I also put a link up in the sidebar to the right for easy reference.
Well, we in Italy are coming up on one of the strangest seasons of all in the country: Summer. In case you didn’t know, most Italians are appalled when they hear about American vacation for the first time. To them, the US is a country full of workaholics and Italy is much more sensible. Italian vacations and holidays include the following:
10 to 20 state holidays a year.
the ponte or “bridge” between a holiday and the closest weekend if said holiday does not fall on a monday or friday.
the week around easter.
the week or two around christmas
ferragosto, the two week span in August that is more exciting than Christmas to some Italians. Though officially about two weeks, this effectively includes the entire month of August, and perhaps some of July, too.
Weekends are out too once the weather turns nice in May. (There’s one family who attends the church that hasn’t been here in about a month because they have been at their mountain cabin most of the time.) And all in all it’s a bit silly–and a bit frustrating–as suddenly everyone who was very dedicatedly coming to bible studies or meetings from January to May suddenly turns into a flake.
Still, it has its perks, as we will be able to have much more time with the youth. They all about disappeared mid-May to be very studious only to show up again this last week, as say, about 100% of the evaluation of students in the Italian school system is final exams which are notoriously difficult (blech!). Because they are all done and don’t have anything to do until September, we will have fun with them.
Really, summer has the potential to be great, as everyone has a lot more free time. The biggest hurdle is to convince people that the church is worth spending time with. For various reasons, be it family, a lack of normal work hours (the normal work week is 36-40 hours, but free days aren’t necessarily Saturdays), or culture in general, we have trouble as a church having a sense of community.
The church has a hard time creating a more effective community because most people within it don’t see the point of it. Effectively, while the Sunday morning service is big enough to fill our small meeting space, the attendance of activites outside of the worship service is made up of a dedicated few.
Hopefully this summer will prove more fruitful. With the youth we are trying to provide a more welcoming environment for them to make their own.
So, we hope that summer is off to a great start back in the States, and we ask that you pray for us and the church here, especially for help in being a Christian body in more than just the abstract!
We’ve been in Vicenza for about six weeks now, and even though we feel settled in, everything is still very fresh and new to our eyes. It is easy to love the group of Christians here: Despite all they have been through, they still have a heart for God and have happily supported us and actively tried to find ways to use us and whatever skills we have to grow God’s kingdom. All we’ve had to do most of the time is just to say “yes!” and go wtih the moment. Although we do have plans and ideas for what to do with this year, it has been an immense blessing to immediately get up to speed and start going. It has helped us get to know the church more quickly and given us a better idea of where we can best help out.
Anyways, the biggest thing to happen to me this past week was that I gave the Sunday morning sermon for the first time in my life. I have never really preached on Sunday before now, let alone in Italian. Moreover, public speaking has never been my strong point. Honestly, I can’t remember a time before this past year when imagining me speaking in front of a crowd didn’t send my stomach off to do cartwheels. Well, however I feel hasn’t changed what I’ve been called to do, which has been to lead Bible studies and give talks over the past year. God has grown me into the role of being able to do this task, and for that I’m incredibly thankful. It’s really neat to be able to look back on the past year and see myself changed–regardless of the significance of that change. Despite inexperience, lack of understanding, or just plain fear, God can and does grow a person into doing that which was previously impossible. So, this has been a steady process. It’s not like it was a big jump to do this (though I still had jitters) as I’ve done the same sort of thing in a more informal setting, but actially preaching on Sunday felt like some sort of threshold to be crossed, and now I’m over.
The meaning behind the title of this post and the real point of why I’m writing it isn’t some conquering of the weekly Sunday morning address, however. Instead, it’s this: After our weekend was all over and done, I couldn’t help but feeling at peace and content. Our schedule is the most busy with weekend events:
- Saturday: Evening Bible Study
- Sunday:
- Italian worship
- Bible class
- Ghanaian worship
- Afternoon Youth Group Meeting
- Monday: Evening Women’s Bible Study
The peace that both Lauren and I felt was the awareness that God is actively making us into what we need to be to serve Him here, and that he won’t disappoint us. So that’s what an average Sunday is all about.
Our newsletter written for December 2006:
Recent Comments