Venezia

I'm sorry - I'm sure no one reads this anymore because I've been so irregular :-) But I'm now coming down on the last few weeks before I return to the states! I can't believe it's already almost over! I'm having a wonderful time seeing Joel - he's currently in Poland but he will be coming back Wednesday (don't ask me why he went to Poland :-) - crazy) Meanwhile, we have been hitting the Christmas Play pretty hard, trying to finish everything up. We're currently making costumes and discussing the decorations, and the kids know all their lines (well, almost, haha) I'm really excited about everything coming up, but trying to take one day at a time, because they are most definitely limited! This week a girl from North Carolina is here, Kaitlyn, and I took her to Florence on Saturday and we went to Venice with the Pastor's wife on Sunday and Monday - WOW Venice is absolutely incredible, and honestly indescribable. Not only is it a unique and fascinating city, but it also surprises you with beauty around every turn (in between tourists and tourist shops... and McDonalds). Sometimes the streets and bottom of the stores and hotels flood - it gets as deep as 3 feet! When we were there, we only saw a few inches of flooding - but it was definitely cool! I wasn't that excited to see the city when I first planned on going, but now that I've seen it, I will FOR SURE go back. I LOVED it. :-) I'll try to write a little more as more exciting things happen!

Mi Dispiace

Means I'm sorry - I'm sorry I haven't written much! I get a little busy. This week wasn't that eventful, aside from the fact that I went to Florence yesterday, and this past weekend I went to a small town festival with Sammy's mom, and then hung out with a bunch of Italians at the chocolate festival in Grosseto. That's when I bought the cutest little chocolate mice for the Childers kids - only to discover that they were filled with burning alcohol.. oops! They had all these weird chocolate shapes, including those nasty teeth... hahaha. Anyway, Joel's getting here tomorrow, and I'm having trouble thinking about anything else!! :-) Oh ya, and it was Elizabeth's  birthday...  she's so CUTE! I totally love her :-) <3

Perugia e Terni

So, I'm finally going to Blog about my weekend! First we went to Perugia which had beautiful sights and is known for it's chocolate. Also, that American girl who got falsely accused for murder lived there, and Paul said that he saw the guy originally charged for the crime getting filmed - he had seen the guy a lot before that even. Super sad and scary, though. Then we went to Deruta, famous for it's ceramics, and hung out at the missionary's house. Then the Childers left and the missionary's wife took me into town to look around. It had some fall color, so that was wonderful, and we went down this alley into a little ceramics shop. The owner had found an ancient furnace underneath his shop, so I got to crawl down in there and look around. There was tons of old pottery and ceramics, some of the stuff was really beautiful, so that was really fun. I had a really good weekend with those missionaries, the people at that church were SO friendly, and a Spanish woman spoke a lot with me in Spanish, so I got to practice some. I'm aweful... haha. I also taught a boy English during the Sunday night service, and that was hard without knowing Italian. On Monday morning I took the train to Terni, but no one knew what it was famous for. Turns out, it's famous for Europe's biggest waterfall, as well as the fact that La Bella Vita was filmed there!!! (Beautiful Life - incredible Italian film, but make sure you watch it with subtitles, not voice-over). That was incredible to see, and we saw a bridge made in 100 BC! It was a fun trip, and I rode back with the Maiettas Monday night in a torrential downpour - a little scary. Today I've just been doing homework and not feeling too great, I think I'm going to go to Pisa another day instead of tomorrow. Just not up to it.

One thing that I have been really unhappy about is what I'm learning about being a missionary and their support. For instance, one of the families I visited doesn't have enough support, so they have to do some work to make enough money, but the churches in the states are MAD that all their time isn't spent in the ministry! They think that the missionaries should come back and get more support. The system is RIDICULOUS. I would NEVER go through a mission board. I mean, it's not the missionary's fault, and that's the system set up, but it couldn't be more WRONG!!! The missionaries have to come home every few years for MONTHS at a time, keeping up with churches so they don't lose support! This is SO bad for the Italian churches, and they often lose a lot of people who just weren't dedicated enough to be left yet. I mean this is a HARD mission field, and the churches in the states don't realize that! Of course people aren't getting saved every week, or every month even. It takes a lot of investment and time to really get to a serious conversation about it! I mean, there has to be a better way, it's just sad that so many missionaries have such a hard time. I am just realizing that to minister to Italians, you really should "forsake" your American-ness and become an Italian - embracing everything about them. Once you're one of them, you can have the best impact! Often people here brush off the difference the gospel makes in us assuming it's just a cultural difference. But if you are embracing the culture completely, it won't be like that. But you really can't do that if you are going back to America every 2 or 4 years. This is just a few words on the massive confusion that is a missionary's support system... urg.

Anyway, I'm hoping to go south, maybe to Naples this weekend, but we'll see. Miss you all! <3 :-)

Roma!

Yes, I know you all know what that means... Yesterday I spent a wonderful day in the beautiful city of Rome! I got up early (yuk) and rode a bike to the train station, to get on the train at 7:30! I then rode for 2 and 1/2 hours to my stop - Termini. I walked to the McDonalds and met Sammy and her sister Melissa. After walking around a little and looking at some cool old church, Melissa had to go to class, so Sammy (now an official  Roman resident) and I took the bus! We went to a Piazza (square) first where the lion fountains are, and everybody has to take a picture on the lion... Then we ate breakfast. The Italians eat these cute little pastries and stand at a counter and drink espresso or Cappuccino for breakfast. It was good :-) We then proceeded to the "Via dei Condotti", the famous street where all the Gucci, Prada, Burberry, etc. stores are. We went in a few, just to look around. When you walk in some model doorman with an expensive suit will open the door and breath some rehearsed Italian welcome. There are about 10 items in each room, the average price usually in the thousands. Snooty women are walking around and occasionally there were some men wearing tight pants carrying purses... interesting. It was fun, though, and all these shops were in beautiful old buildings. Then Sammy and I walked up the Spanish steps (keep in mind, I wore boots... with heels... stupid, stupid, 
stupid.) and back down. We stopped at some other cool places on the way  to Trevi fountain - I didn't throw a coin in, because I know I'll be back :-) I also saw the newspaper building which was huge and cool, and then Sammy and I ate at Hard Rock Cafe, haha. I got cherry pepsi which was incredible, because it literally does not exist in Italy. Then we decided to go to the mall! :-) It was fun, the first Italian mall I've seen, and there was even a store like a walmart, haha. So I got to see the tourist Rome and the real Rome - it was an awesome day. Then I traveled back to Grosseto by train and made it back to the Childers'. It was a fun day, and I can't wait to go back soon!

Siena - Autobus

Autobus... Bus, obviously... So FINALLY I'm going to write about Siena - I'm lazy I'll admit it but here goes :-) So Wednesday morning Kelly dropped me off at the bus station. I bought my own ticket and got on the bus. After 1 hour and 15 minutes we got to Siena, after driving through mountains looking down on quaint little villages and grazing cattle. I couldn't figure out which bus stop to get off at in Siena, but thankfully picked the right one and stood at the bus station, all alone, with no idea where to go. Since the weekly market only lasts until early afternoon I started to look for that first. Some sweet old lady handed me a tract as I wandered the streets, totally random but really cool. I finally found the market, which was actually right across the street from the bus stop. Wow. After looking at all the stands for a while (you have to be careful... all the stands with Chinese people working them aren't selling Italian stuff - so I only go to the Italian booths) I heard some girls speaking English. I got SO excited, because I hadn't heard English in forever! I found out that they were studying abroad there... although it didn't take me long to realize that Siena is a MAJOR tourist town... Then I decided to look for a place to eat, and for their city center. After following the tower I saw high above the buildings around me and admiring the ancient architecture on every building, I saw some stairs going through an archway down into what looked like a wide open space. (The Piazzo del Campo) So I went down the stairs and WOW there was a huge empty area with restaurants surrounding it. And this amazing building with an old bell tower. So I sat at a quaint little restaurant and ate and read for a while. It was interesting to listen to the Americans there - I was thankful I blended in with the Italians fairly well. The waitresses spoke English pretty well, but the obnoxious, pushy Americans would speak loud and slow, like they were talking to idiots. No wonder people don't like us. Then I saw another tower and decided to try to find it. After wandering around admiring the dusty ancient beauty of the crumbling brick and stone buildings, a magnificent duomo (cathedral) appeared before me, shining in white, glorious splendor. It was very similar to the famous duomo in Florence - the Siena cathedral was built during the 1300s, the early years of the Renaissance. I stood gazing at the intricate carvings and brilliance of the facade for quite a while. To be honest, it is difficult to experience all these things alone, with no one to talk to about it... all I can do is shrink in the greatness of it all. But each day I am reminded of the steadfast love of God as He stands beside me, revealing His power and beauty in each incredible aspect of Tuscany! After admiring the Duomo for a while, I found my way to the bus stop (surprisingly- it was quite a maze), and went back to Grosseto.
Today I was pretty busy with the Christmas play - it's coming together and we got a lot of practice in tonight. I also sat on the roof for an hour or two today, while reading and soaking up the beautiful, sunny day :-) It was a nice break from the freezing hours of the morning - apparently tile floors and cement walls make your house a giant ice box. No wonder the Italians don't use ice. Anyway, it's now 1:30 am because I had to retype this - it got deleted. awesome. haha - miss you all, keep in touch!

Amica

Amica = Friend. Tonight I went to the city center and hung out with Samantha and her two friends Carmen and Rita. They didn't speak English but could understand me most of the time and I could understand them most of the time. Sammy did a lot of translating :-) It was SO fun, though. We went shopping, and the girls would make fun of people's outfits and talk about hot guys, hahaha... I guess that doesn't change between cultures! I also discovered that I am an Italian "redneck"... I guess Italians in the south speak a dialect, not the "formal" Italian that the Tuscans speak, and they are poorer (All the fashion comes from Rome and North of Rome), and I guess my name is an Italian redneck name! haha. But it was ok, because all 3 girls were also from the south. Haha. It was awesome to hang out with friends for a night - and I'm really excited about really getting involved in some things and traveling pretty soon here, so YAY! Well, it's past midnight so I'm gonna go to bed, but I still miss you all! :-)

Chiesa

Chiesa = Church. Today Sammy came back from Rome and she brought me to her youth group - it was interesting and fun to meet some Italian teenagers. They sang worship songs, which was cool to sing in Italian. Tomorrow Sammy and her friends are going to bring me shopping  - her friends don't speak English, so it's interesting! Fun to hang out with some people my age, though. Other than that I've just been trying to make travel plans and get the Christmas play going - it's looking good so far... oh ya, and homework... fun stuff. But URG I can't wait for Joel to get here... hahaha... can't help it... Miss you all!

Nuonata!

BABY GIRL!!!! Lilly Ann was born October 11th, 2010 at 10:44am. She weighs 3050 grams... don't ask me what that is, cuz I have nooo clue. So that's what I've been doing today - babysitting... It went pretty well, except for when Emma ran down the stairs and hit her head on the railing - made a huge dent in her head and it bled quite a bit... What a great babysitter, right? But now I'm exhausted and not quite ready to do this again tomorrow - but the kids are sweeties so I can make it through :-) Guess I'm not quite mother material yet, haha... I keep trying to post pictures of the city center where I read and shop, but it isn't letting me... weird. I guess I'll put them on Facebook. Anyway, I'll update more later, I've just been waiting for the baby the last couple of days - but then Kelly's labor started at 7 am and she had the baby within 4 hours... they left for the hospital at 10! craaaazy... Anyway, miss you all!!!

Blaaaah

Italian for "sick"... just kidding. I'm feeling kinda fevery and not so great, which is why I was too lazy to write the past couple of days... but quickly I'll just mention that Sunday we went to another horse show, saw Italians try to Country Line Dance (HAHAHA), and then I reeeally wanted to go to one of those little towns at the top of one of the mountains/foothills surrounding us. So we went, and it was AWESOME and kinda scary. I put pics on FB showing where all we went, but it was seriously beautiful. Now we are all just waiting for the baby to come - Kelly was due on Monday, but still no baby. Today is her birthday and she's going in for a Dr. appt. later, so hopefully she'll have the baby today. So Happy Birthday Kelly! (and baby!?) Miss you all - this is especially depressing while I'm sick... yuk.

Cioccolata e Fragola

Cioccolata e Fragola = Chocolate and Strawberry... Awesome flavors of Gelato :-) Yesterday I rode my bike to the market... all by myself :-) The market is just outside the city center, and all the businesses in Grosseto (and beyond) set up booths and sell things for cheap(er). So I set out on my bike at about 11:30 and finally arrived at the city center at 12:30... and looked around for a half an hour before the market closed at 1... Then I sat down at a bar (keep in mind, Italian bars are American cafes) and figured out how to order something... It was tough, haha. In the middle of the city center (the walled part of the city) there is a wide open space with a statue of the founder of the city and an old church, typical Roman beauty built somewhere around the 1400s - so renaissance architecture. Needless to say, it was beautiful, and I read a book for a couple hours while sitting in the sun. Then I got hot so I found an open gelato shop and got, yes, you guessed it - Cioccolata e Fragola... YUM! Then I wandered the streets, but sadly shops in Italian are open from 8 - 12 or 1 or so, then they CLOSE for a couple hours and open again at about 4:30... although they are all totally different hours. Sometimes restaurants don't open until 7... which would be an early supper for an Italian... So I just looked at all the closed shops and admired the beauty :-) I feel pretty out of place at times - I mean all the women, ALL the women wear skinny jeans, heels or boots, and yes, they are already wearing scarves. Literally everyone. I saw a 70 year old woman in skinny jeans, hahaha. It's kinda funny, but you know that's what's next in America... Then I left, and it took me 15 minutes to bike home. YES I got lost on the way there... it was crazy... And a bike is like a car there, so you have to be brave and ride with traffic... pretty scary! Anyway, I'm just chilling in my room doing homework now, but tonight we're going to the pastor's house for supper. Miss you all so much, keep writing!

Santo Dio

Santo Dio = Holy God... Just a few quick updates - today a guy came to the door and changing something that had to do with gas and electric bill. He asked Paul if he was an American and why he was here. When Paul told him about the Baptist church (this was all in Italian of course), the boy began to ask lots of questions, wondering what the difference is between the Jehovah's Witnesses and Baptists. He is currently studying with Jehovah's witnesses and wanted to know. Paul explained that we use a different Bible, one that doesn't have interpretation adjustments. The boy was very interested and got Paul's email address so he could prove to Paul from our Bible that Jesus was not God! Good luck with that one :-) It was an incredible conversation to listen to, and with my Spanish and limited Italian I was able to make out what happened most of the time, while baking a chocolate cake... trust me, baking in Europe is ten times harder!!! But it turned out ok :-) AND I am so excited about the Christmas Program - Kelly kind of put me in charge of it, so I'm writing a script and picking out songs... I just translated (well, Paul did) The Gospel Song into Italian, and of course I have to adjust the melody, but I think that will be a great witnessing tool in the program. They say that the Christmas service is their biggest service of the year, so I'll be praying for that! I'll write the Italian words to the song here, if anyone's interested :-) Miss you all!
Santo Dio con amore divento
Uomo perfetto e la colpa mia porto
Sulla croce i miei peccati strappo
Con la sua morte vita nuova c'e l'ho

LOVE that song - as you can see, it is MUCH longer in Italian, haha.

McDonald

YEP that's Italian for McDonalds... they just don't say the S. AND YES I went to McDonalds... Don't hate me, it was awesome and it's the first time in my LIFE that I've gone to McDonalds, gotten a meal, and eaten all the fries. It was that good... sometimes you need a little taste of the familiar I guess. Anyway, I haven't done much, we went to the market yesterday and other than that I've just been doing homework and hanging out here. Meanwhile I'm trying to plan a trip to Venice... and later Paris and London... We'll see!!! Miss you all, keep writing!

Cavallo

Cavallo means horse in Italian, in case you were wondering - I thought I'd share some of the Italian that I'm learning along with my blog posts. I haven't written in a while, but I'll give a quick recap of my past few days: Friday I made genuine tomato sauce with an Italian woman named Gaetana. Then I ate lunch with the Pastor's family, a very loud, rambunctious Italian family :-) at night we went to David's horse show. It was actually pretty cool, had lots of awesome shows - not that I know anything about horse riding... Saturday my lectures were finally uploaded, and I spent most of the day inside trying to catch up. And I skyped with Joel, so that was a big deal :-) Sunday I went to church, and sat through an Italian sermon, trying to catch words (and stay awake - I have gotten nooo sleep! My own fault... hahaha) then at night we went to David's horse show again (I'll put pictures up on facebook, it's easier than here.) and to a Pizzeria that some church members owned at a little coastal town. Today we went to the beach - WOW!! when we got there no one was there, and it was beautiful and incredibly blue. The kids loved it and are now all thoroughly sun burnt and tired :-) When we got home we ate and I went to the grocery store allll by myself, it was scary and embarrassing... I spilled milk all over, couldn't find anything, and some guy put his stuff with mine and I accidentally paid for it before I saw it... but it all worked out and then I got back safely. Then tonight we went to a festival in town... it was fun, but some guy tried to teach me how to juggle and I couldn't even figure out how to juggle two balls... so he gave up haha. They have schools for everything here - that was for a circus school, and we saw pictures from a cartoon school, haha.

Meanwhile I have been doing lots of schoolwork and God has been working in my through my devotions and my classes. I know that learning complete dependence on Him will always be an uphill climb, but I couldn't be in a better place to do that. It's nice that it is so incredibly gorgeous here though :-) Thank you all for your prayers and notes - seriously I LOVE hearing from people even if I don't always have time to write back right away! Love you guys! Time to go to bed :-)

Today was another crazy day - after getting woken up in the morning by the usual adorable chorus of high-pitched "Mawy Wose! Mawy Wose!" Samantha (the pastor's niece) took me to the market that happens every Thursday - it was a "slow" Market day because kids had started school on Wednesday, but I found out where to find all the good stuff and that Italian kids have 5 years of high-school, sign for their own absences after they turn 18 (aka they basically skip whenever they want without their parents knowing), have school Monday - SATURDAY, but get out at 1... so ya that was interesting. Also, Kelly wants a phone so she is going to get one and let me use it while I'm here, yay, so I'll have an alarm clock and a way to talk to Joel when he gets here :-) Then I did some homework and went to church for the first time since I arrived, and didn't understand a word of the service and had cute little Emma cuddling in my lap the whole time with several other kids hanging around... and on... me. haha. Then I had some real, delicious Italian Pizza! So good. Then Kelly and I had Italian hot chocolate - which is like warm pudding-milk, and she taught me how to knit really cool things - she's pretty awesome at it haha. So, that's my whole day.... in case anyone was wondering. Tomorrow morning I am going to go help a woman can tomato sauce - every year she makes a YEAR supply of tomato sauce with her home-grown tomatoes... so yaya I should learn A LOT! And David's horse show is tomorrow - he's such a cutie and I hope it goes well!

That said, I do miss everyone back home! Different time zones and I guess the vast distance between here and the states makes me feel sooo far away. But I have never felt such a need for people that I'm close to and only had God to turn to - And I'm so thankful that God is showing to me how dependent I am on other people - my prayer for my own growth in this semester is that God becomes my complete dependency. That I love other people and want to be near them but that GOD is the ONLY One I NEED. Anyway, that has really been on my heart lately, and I guess my prayer request right now. I love you all and can't wait to see you again! Arrivaderci!

Bella Italia

Today was a busy day - I babysat in the morning and painted Elizabeth and Evalyn's nails (the two youngest). we kinda hung out in the morning and I worked on homework in the afternoon. At 5, we headed to the stables to watch David (the oldest boy) practice horse riding, since he gets to be in some show, riding out with the Italian flag! Then we went to a beautiful ancient town on a hill on the coast called Castiglioni? something like that. You could see the coast of Elba from the castle-like town, it was gorgeous... but why write about it when you have pictures? Click on my slideshow to the right if you want to see some more pics!

I miss...

I miss ice... is that weird? I forgot that they don't use ice here. But mostly I just miss everybody back home. I have jet lag still and a lot of unpacking to do, but I love hearing from you all!

There are fighter jets that fly above the condo here all day - it's super loud but they do tricks and stuff so that's cool. And I had hot chocolate last night - it borders on chocolate pudding, suuuper yummy. I went to the grocery store and it's so funny to randomly see hello kitty stuff. And they play American music half the time so that's annoying. Whenever Kelly goes anywhere she gets stopped because the Italians are obsessed with her blonde kids - and the fact that she has more than two. I mean we only had two of them today (and she's pregnant) so people kept stopping her. Pretty funny. Anyway I'm FINALLY going to start unpacking, but I miss you all!

Jet Lag

I feel like I haven't slept in 78 hours - which is not quite true but OH I could use some sleep right now! It's hard to enjoy my new surroundings when I can't sit down without my eyes glazing over... But hey, if I make it a few more hours I can get some precious, precious sleep!!

That said, somehow I made it off the airplane, got my luggage, and found Kelly and Elizabeth (her youngest daughter). Then we drove from Rome to Grosseto, where I have been the past six hours or so. I met the whole family at their condo, and then took a nap only to wake up even more tired than before. Why is that, that sleep only served to make me more tired? At this point I am missing everyone back home very very much, but I'm sure that I will get busier and more excited later in the week when my brain allows me to think clearly. For now I will muddle through the best that I can. Grosseto is beautiful but a lot bigger than I thought. Tonight we are probably going to walk around the center of the city, and than I will see a little more. Until then - be glad you got a good night's sleep!

Airplanes

Here I am, sitting very much alone in the Cleveland airport. In about 4 hours I leave for New York - a lucky place to fly on September 11th. The airport keeps playing footage from that day, which only helps comfort me of course...

In only a few short hours I will be arriving in Rome - to see what my life will be like for the next 3 months! Exciting, scary, but honestly this is one good way to stretch my trust in the Sovereign God - Because only He knows what's ahead of me! So here's my last deep breath before I hit Italy!

Discovery

So, today I realized that the middle girl in the Childers family (the missionaries I will be staying with) is named Evalyn... just like my Evelyne! I thought that was interesting, since you don't here that name too often...

Anyway, so excited to leave in just a few days! Desperately trying to be prepared!!!!

Evelyne Grace

This might be a strange post to begin my blog with, but I can't help but begin by lamenting the fact that I will not see my new niece, Evelyne Grace, until I arrive back in the states in December. SO SAD! She was born September 6th, only 3 days after I came back to Northland. So little Evelyne, I can't wait to meet you very very soon!

That said, I leave for Italy in only 3 days! It is strange and a little scary, but soon I'll be posting pictures of my new life away from America :-)