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 :-)