We are here (again)!

We arrived in Salerno at 11:30am Rome time on January 14th. That is 5:30 am Eastern time. We were 30 minutes late on our last flight that was an hour and a half from Munich to Naples. It was a total of 17 hours of travel time from when we left the Tampa airport. Grant slept most of the way in my arms making me sweat profusely. I thought I would preempt this problem by wearing shorts and a t-shirt on the plane. Then when we got to Munich and it was 25 degrees Fahrenheit we had to go out into the snow and take a bus to the airplane. All the Germans and Italians in parkas were looking at me like a crazy American. I was not super crazy thinking that I was going to be in climate controlled airplanes and airports all the way to Naples. In a nutshell, Grant did not have any jetlag because he slept a lot but us a combined 1.5 hours of sleep during the whole trip. Grant the first week was sleeping into about 9am here which was awesome for us!

The second week we were here we had to go to a conference in Spain with all the interns across Europe. We flew out of Naples and we got Marko to take us to the airport since he was going to pick the Valiquettes up (our team leaders). So we got to cross paths at the airport which was cool and got to meet their new nanny Evan and her mom also. We flew to Barcelona and had to stay one night because of the flight times. We use Easyjet, Ryanair and Vueling when traveling in Europe because they are cheaper than trains usually. You have to be careful though because Ryanair flies into the Rome airport that is way out of the way and not way easy to get to anything. We stayed an extra night in Barcelona so we could do some sightseeing since we are not really going to get to travel to much with Grant being so young and trying to stay in Salerno this summer. We got a deal on Priceline where you can name your own price.

The conference was awesome. We got to get refreshed and got to get back on the same page with our bosses and our team. One of the highlights for me was the session about all the different things that we need to check up on in the Lord. These ranged from our eyes, ears, tongue to our minds. There are so many things in a new culture that might cause us to check out emotionally, spiritually, and mentally. We have to stay close to the Lord and trust Him and not our own strength.

We just got back to Salerno on Friday evening and are settling in again getting ready to jump into ministry this week part time and full time next week. In the meantime we have taken a few pictures of Grant below.

Less Than 2 Weeks!

We hope everyone had a blessed Christmas and had great time bringing in the New Year. We did as we have had fun spending a lot of time with family as we are leaving to come back to Salerno in 9 days. That means that we are going to be crazy busy in the next week packing and getting ready to leave. We will be landing in Naples at 11am on the 14th. It is exciting and scary to be returning to Salerno. Mostly exciting because we have missed everyone and what God has called us to so much. Even with our child being born we know that being in Salerno and working on the college campus there is what we have been hand selected to do during this time in our lives. Scary, because we again have become familiar to the U.S. and its luxuries. We are going to miss our families and know that it is going to be hard for them to be far away from their only grandchild. We know that God will provide us an extra measure of grace to complete what He has called us to do.

Lately I have been thinking of some New Years Goals. Yes thats right I am a slacker and have not done them yet. No, I do not call them resolutions. There is a lot of stuff that I want to work on in 2010. A lot of stuff I am believing God to do in Amanda, Grant, and I's lives. Things I want to see happen in Salerno. For instance, I want to see a group of guys get together and study the Bible like the girls have been having before Christmas. We do have people we meet with to disciple. We have people we share the hope of Christ with and what He has done in our lives with individuals. We have not been able to have a consistent meeting with a group of Italian guys to only study the Bible. I have faith that God can do it.

Last I want to leave you with some photos of Grant, one from his dedication at OGC. He loves to stand up now, smile at you, and grab a few select things. Today he absolutely yelled while I was on the phone. Not upset yelled but just high pitched happy laughter. It was pretty funny.