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 :-)