Waltons in Salerno

Signing Out

2010-08-31T23:47:00.002-04:00

Thanks everyone for reading this blog over the months about our time in Salerno. I feel like this blogpost among a few emails to send out will really close the door on this chapter of our lives. If you are reading this without getting a newsletter we have decided to not return to various reasons. God has given us a peace on our hearts and we have already had a lot of closure being grateful for everything God has done in our hearts along the way. We are passing the torch to the Valiquettes, Gallos, and the other families and people who are letting the idea of living in Salerno long term resonate on your hearts.

We could not have made it this far without all the support of all the people in so many places across the globe. From Japan, Taiwan, Germany, Grand Cayman, Israel and Africa; there have been supporters living in every corner of the world. God has really brought together people for a common goal to help love others and share His gospel in the town and campus of Salerno, Italy. Its strange how God's plan works, allowing us to be on staff for exactly two years, 10 months of which were actually spent in Salerno the others raising support and having our first child. Even though living in a culture that is not your own is hard, in many ways, I can look back at the last chapter of our life and know we were right in the right place for such a time as this, knowing God is completely Sovereign. Life is a process full of dead ends and different processes that continually start and end.

Who knows, from here there might be other blogs about the life and times of the Waltons but for now there comes a time to search for new paths and ways to glorify God in this fallen world. Thanks everyone for listening

July

2010-07-16T08:41:00.003-04:00

So I have not done a post in a really long time. There has been a lot going on but just in random ways. Amanda's mom was here for two weeks which was a lot of fun. They got to do a lot of stuff which included me part of the time. Sometimes I had appointments with students and other times I had to watch Grant. It was good in some ways to be a part-time tourist in the land that we live since we do not always get to do it and never have an excuse.

I have been spending a lot of time with a lot of the summer project contacts like Emmanuele, Gaetano, and Giuseppe. Also some of my friends before the summer Andrea, Salvatore, among others. It is exam time in Salerno so a lot of people go MIA or set meetings up, having good intentions, and then cancel because they really have to study. The way school works here is you take all your classes for the year and then you take exams mostly in the summer (June, July, some of August because it is vacation month, and September). You can also take exams all different times of the year, but a lot of people take 2-5 of their 6-8 for the year in the summer.

The summer is a hard time for us also because of the heat and we do not have an air conditioner. Many people in Italy do not believe in air conditioning and they believe it can be expensive for your electricity. We are on the ground floor of our apartment building and there is no direct sunlight, but still without a breeze it can get hot.

We are almost done with our July update which will explain better where we are at.

Last Week For The Americans

2010-06-26T05:30:00.009-04:00

Its so sad. The Americans are leaving. Sara Love and Bentley Crawford, Natalie, and Breanna are all leaving within the next week. They have all been here two years with the exception of Sara Love who came on STINT here in 2006 before she was married so she has lived here 3 years. They have made so many friends and impacted this city for the gospel so much. Last night we had a dinner with our church and the goodbyes and the reminiscing started. Bentley and I have become good friends as well as the Crawfords have a daughter, Lila Grace, close to the same age as Grant. They are going to live in Miami to get a job and join a Sovereign Grace church there. Breanna is going to help out with the Magdalena film in Florence for another month before she goes to America to get a job.

This week we are moving a lot of their stuff to a really cheap storage unit we found close to the university. So we are boxing their stuff up and storing it for future STINT teams since we will not have one next year. Please pray for that.

A highlight from this week is that I got to meet with Gaetano for 4 hours on Thursday. He is one of the students that have professed faith in Christ from the summer project group. We talked about many things including the Bible being extremely metaphorical. Please pray for me as I continue to talk about interpretation of the Bible to him and how part of the Bible is metaphorical and part is literal.

Here are some pictures of our friends over time:

Above, Lila and Sara Love Crawford
Lila and Bentley Crawford
Bentley and I hiked a mountain, this is Bentley at the top.

Bentley with Braden from summer project and some people from Panta Rei, the student government group

Natalie at one of our friend's, Andrea's concert
Breanna, Coitaiba, me and Jutty in language class

Our whole language class from Febraury

Back to Normal Life

2010-06-16T16:29:00.004-04:00

The summer project just left Sunday. We are still trying to get used them not being here. They brought so much life to the city. Their intentionality with the gospel in relationships with the students was clutch for us. They were able to survey a lot of people to see who was spiritually interested. There are a ton of new contacts that I have gotten to know through them.

One of the main people are Emanuele or "Manny". He wants to be in a community of Christians. He understands how important this is after receiving Christ and seeing how we interacted with each other. He is really easy to talk to and loves America. He hopes to come to America at the end of August to visit all his friends in Mississippi and will probably be a good person to recruit others.

Others are two friends Gaetano and Francesco. These guys both are asking questions want to know more about the Bible. On my facebook profile you can check out Gaetano giving his testimony. I got to meet with him today and talk about "how God can still love us when people go to hell".

The other key group that we met is Panta Rei. I have met close to 15 people through this group including the president. He is extremely interested in doing service projects with us in the future. They are the student government group on campus and when the summer project went in their room and starting talking about the Bible they all wanted to listen to the scriptures being read in Italian. There are a lot of them that are close to accepting Christ. It is the first time we have started seeing God move in existing community on campus in a long time. These groups is the closest thing you can get to Greek Life and they seem like one big happy family.

Continue to pray for these people and groups as well as our team as the other 4 Stinters here are leaving in two weeks.

Here are some cool pictures and video:

Above, I took the summer project guys to my favorite pizza place, Pummarola 'Ncoppa

Antonio, Ambrogio, and I

We made the newspaper in Salerno. The picture is from one of our BBQ and the article talks about why we are here.

Partial video of Caleb, one of the summer projecters, giving his testimony at a BBQ and Marko translating.

Summer Project

2010-05-31T03:32:00.002-04:00

So we are halfway through summer project! I felt like they just got here but soon they will be off to Rome and Florence. There are 35 of them including the 3 staff. Its the biggest project ever been in Salerno. God has been using them mightily. I have got to be in on some of those meetings or and also been there in a group as they have gone out to initiate conversations with students in English. They probably have met 150 people with 30-40 people being ones they have met with 3-5 times and gotten to hang out with them elsewhere for lunch, coffee, or in Salerno. It is hard because I do not want to neglect my friends also.

I got to share the gospel with Matteo the other day. I saw him for a few minutes since then and just hung out with him in between classes. Pray that I will have another opportunity to go back into the gospel in depth. Pray for my time with Raffele who I got to see for the first time since last summer. My wife and I along with some other friends went to his house for dinner. He has been learning English from Mormons in another city outside Salerno. I got into sharing the gospel at the BBQ with him but was interrupted. We have mutual friends with Francesco and Lucia who I have hung out with a few times. Please pray that at some point they can hear the gospel. My friend Erol on campus is struggling in his faith because he is learning about Evolution in his classes. I was able to give him a book about it as well as talk. Pray that he reads it and continues to have faith. These are just a few of the things God has been doing through me.

The last thing is that I got to go to a soccer game yesterday. It was a little sad because the Salernitana team is so bad that no one came to the last game of the season, but they still have spirit! I hope you enjoy the video.

What Is There To Do In Salerno For Fun?

2010-05-08T14:24:00.004-04:00

So many times we talk about ministry on this blog, but a lot of times we do fun things with Italians as part of building friendships with them before, during, or after starting to process the gospel with them. We also go on dates as a married couple, so there are many things in the city we do for fun.

1. Go to an awesome Pizzeria-

Trianon, Vaca d'presa, I Due Fratelli, Pummarola n'coppa, Pucciarelli: it doesn't matter just that you got some good pizza and good person or persons to share it with.

2. Go to the Market-

In one of our posts over the summer, there is a video of one of the few outdoor markets in Salerno.

3. Get some Caffe'-

Bar Rosa, Bar Trieste, Bar 089.....to me it depends if you want to sit outside, inside, or sit in a room overlooking the lungo. I am getting there with appreciating that caffe' tastes different at different bars. Yes, I said "bars" but bars here is where you get caffe'. In America, you go to a cafe' to get coffee, but here you go to a bar to get caffe'. You can also get Alcoholic drinks too. Its like if Starbucks had a full liquor bar. Crazy, huh?

4. Get some Appertivo-

In America, we eat lunch usually 12-1 and dinner 6-8. Here in Southern Italy, lunch is eaten 1:30-3 and dinner is 8-10. Breakfast is usually eaten on the run with you caffe' or cappuccino. There is need for appertivi. Basically its a snack that is meant to hold one over until dinner in the 5-7 range. We go to the L'Office for appertivi because we know the owner. Usually you drink a bitter drink with ginger in it to settle the stomach as you at snack food. You pay for the drink and usually the snacks are provided. I am still trying to get this appertivo thing down because I do not like to snack really and I do not like the bitter drinks.

5. Get some Gelato-

Nettuno or Gerrys? At night if you want to wait a while and be wall to wall with 40 of your favorite friends, Nettuno might be for you, the Nettuno flavor is my favorite flavor in Salerno, but Gerrys is my favorite Gelateria. The air condition does something to you in the summer when its so hot outside.

6. Go the Park

There is a beautiful park in Salerno with benches, shade, and fountains. There is no equipment for kids to play on, but they can run around!

7. Walk on the Lungomare-

Take it from these Italians, its the bomb.com, kinda creepy but hey they did it so I don't have to.

Spring Conference

2010-05-04T13:24:00.005-04:00

We got back late Sunday night from our Spring Conference. We took 2 big vans to fit all 5 kids and 10 team members in. In coming up and going back we had to pack both vans at the same time in order to get all the stuff in them we needed to. It also always gets me how different driving in another country is. On top of that it was raining on Sunday evening and there was a ton of traffic as we drove on the autostrada on the outskirts of Rome.

Grant's favorite toy as we drove up

It gave me time to think about a lot of the content of the conference. God works His big story in the small stories of Abraham, Job, and Paul. The most impacting was probably remembering Job's story. His story included incredible affliction, but the central message was not about trials and temptation but just how much he trusted God. He desired answers to all his questions of why he was getting tested when the Lord just wanted his trust.

This week is a little different. One of the leaders of our team is going back home to get married and start a new life. Amanda Craig is in her fourth year here and is considered long term staff in Italy. She is pretty close to fluent in Italian and she has gotten to know the culture here pretty well. We are meeting a few times to discuss the future of the ministry again this morning so we can get her input before she leaves on Sunday. Its somewhat of a debrief in order to bring structure of what the ministry is going to look like for years to come. Between all our team there is 17 years experience of living in Italy not counting Amanda and I since we just got here and Evin the Valiquettes babysitter this semester, so we feel like the dialogue that comes about on numerous different topics is going to be key in the framework of the future.

New Friends

2010-04-19T08:49:00.002-04:00

Some of the highlights this week is that we got to have Francesco and his girlfriend, Lucia, over for lunch this past Wednesday. I met Francesco when the vision trips were here a few weeks ago. A picture of me and him is on the blog a few posts back. This was the second time I got to hang out with them and the first time they got to meet Amanda and Grant since I met Francesco for the first time. They only know a few words in English so we only talk in Italian which is extremely good for my language learning.

We met Ambrogio on campus a few weeks ago. He is interested in studying the Bible and so we went through a lot of scriptures on how Christ is the fulfillment of the law last Thursday. He said for the first time he understood that the law is a guide and shows us our sin not the means by which we get to heaven on how good we follow it. We are going to meet again this Thursday. Please pray that it goes well and we are lead by the Spirit.

A Few Interesting Things

2010-04-16T14:29:00.004-04:00

Newest Insieme- Agape Italia's Newsletter. I posted about it a while back. It gives you the best vision and reality of where the ministry is heading inside of Italy as a whole.

Another fun thing is this map of Italy made of words. Click on it to make it bigger. We live in Southwestern, Italy. There is great coffee and pizza is our region. The fun thing about the map is to see how diverse Italy really is region to region. The only big mistake I found on the map is that Good Pizza should not be above the Vatican.

Lastly are some interesting facts about the spiritual reality here in Italy.

DID YOU KNOW:
• 32,000 (out of 33,500) Italian communities have no established evangelical witness
• Only 10% (of expatriate missionaries) on average return for a second term
• there are 616 official religions in Italy
• there are an estimated 100,000 recognized fortune-tellers
• less than 5% of Catholics are actually practicing
• Islam is the second religion in Italy. Jehovah’s Witnesses are as numerous as all Evangelicals put together
• 2.6 million foreigners live in Italy
• in Milan alone more than 1000 teenagers commit suicide each year

Would you take a moment and pray about these things?

Buona Pasqua

2010-04-05T05:26:00.008-04:00

Has it really been two weeks since I have posted? Time flies these days. I have something say that I am very excited about! We finally got our internet at full power! A technical person came about a week ago worked on it for about two hours and our DSL turned on 3 days later! It makes Skype and our vonage phone way more consistent. So feel free to call if you want but do not call past 4 in the afternoon. The time in Salerno is on our blog so you do not forget :)

We have been trying to get back in a groove here being on campus without leading a bunch of Americans around who do not speak much Italian. We have gotten in some good conversations where we have built some relationships or shared the gospel or both. We try to rely on the Holy Spirit to guide our conversations. Please continue to pray for us.

Our Bible study with Marko, Gian Luca, and Andrea continues to go well. God has really blessed us with 3 guys that want to go deep and also understand a ridiculous amount of English so that we only have to talk in Italian a little. They converse in Italian about what we are talking about in English. I almost think it is better because it forces them to talk to each other for understanding and it is interaction between them and not just us. The first picture below is of Gian Luca and his band. He is the lead singer. Andrea is also in a band as a drummer. The second picture below is a set with him playing drums and his friend Mimmo playing base and singing.

God also has been dealing with me in the area of my repentant heart from one of the Bible studies. It is a deeper issue that God exposed to me through the study. It is an awesome thing that God has been growing me and humbling me because here I am supposed to have it all together, but I don't. This is one of things we are trying to implement. We need the gospel just as much as any Italian.

This past week we have gone at half speed as we want to continue to be intentional but it is our Spring Break and a week where Easter at end causes the university to be more empty. I got to spend more time with Francesco. His picture is below. Also Jaime and Tyler came in town and got engaged. They were interns on the team last year. The bummer of this week was that Grant was sick for a few nights and caused us to not get as much sleep. We missed a few days that were beautiful that we could have taken day trips. We do not always have a lot of time blocked off to do a whole day because a lot of times on Saturday or Sunday we will hang out with students or at least do church related events.

It was Pasqua yesterday and Paquetta today. Basically in English Pasqua is Easter and Pasquetta is little Easter or Easter Monday. The tradition on Pasquetta is to go some other city and have a picnic with friends and family. We met some friends at Marko's hotel from Battipaglia that attend the church there.

For Pasqua you give huge chocolate eggs to people. I asked a few people if they have had Easter egg hunts or heard of the Easter bunny and they said no. So it is weird that their is the tradition of the Easter egg. Wikipedia translated says that the commercialized Easter egg is more prevalent where there is more traditional Easter and thus Easter egg hunts have not become as popular. It is basically the same as the tradition of the Christmas tree at Christmas. It is the merge of two different traditions that happen around the same time of year. Here is some of the big eggs decorated beautifully with sweet surprises in them. The first picture are Juventus and AC Milan eggs which are big soccer clubs in Italy.

Post-Vision Trip

2010-03-20T04:50:00.012-04:00

It has been sad to see the vision trips go back to America. It was good in some ways having a ton of Americans here in Italy for two weeks. It was really interesting also to see how both weeks were totally different not just because the trips were from two different places.

UCF was the first week. There was four staff and four students for a total of eight. Five out of the Eight had been to Salerno before. For them it was good to catch up with their friends on campus. The week was very rainy and cold so there were not may Italian students around to share the gospel with. We ended up doing Soularium with blown up 8x10 size pictures for two days on campus inside the buildings. Soularium is a tool that uses pictures to share the gospel. People relate their life, spiritual walk, and God to different pictures and allows them to explain more in depth because the pictures are very well done, depicting certain emotions. Moreover, I was able to meet a few guys through the outreach at the Cube that Thursday.

Mississippi State came this past week. There were 22 of them and campus was booming since it was some of the best weather this year. They were walking up to people and using a gospel tool called the Ransom Principle which focuses on the law and good works at the beginning more than the 4 Spiritual Laws that Crusade normally uses. The gospel was shared so many times this past week. We met a lot of spiritually interested people. The top people that I met and plan to meet up with again that you can pray for is Francesco x 3, Emanuel, Pierre Paolo, and Lello. Please pray for existing relationships with Carlo Alberto, Alfredo, Davide, and Orlando who plays semiprofessional basketball here and came to Christ in 2006. I plan on trying to reach out to all these guys within the the next two weeks.

Soularium
Francesco and I

Playing Soccer

UCF Vision Trip

2010-03-07T08:05:00.004-05:00

As Rodney mentioned in the last post, we have two different groups coming in for a vision trip over the next two weeks. These weeks have the potential to be very exciting for the ministry here, but they also require quite a bit of work. The group from UCF will be here for the first week.

Monday:

Arrive in Salerno around 12pm

Evangelism/Cultural Training 3pm-5pm

(Please pray for this small team of only 8 Americans to be on fire for how God can use them this week on campus.)

Tuesday-Thursday:

On campus evangelism 10am-3pm

(Please pray for the team to meet English speakers on campus to engage in spiritual conversations. Also, please pray for the weather. It is supposed to be cold and rainy which could mean that there won't be as many students on campus just hanging out)

Thursday Night:

Outreach event at local hang out called the Cube

(Pray that many Italians will come to this event. Pray that the STINT team would connect with any new contacts that the vision trip team makes)

Thanks so much for your prayers. Please also pray that despite the less than perfect weather (40s-50s and heavy rain) that the team would be able to connect with students on campus.

This Week Update

2010-03-04T09:30:00.012-05:00

This week has been very busy for us here in Salerno. First, Vision Trip is next week and since Amanda and I are the point people that have been organizing the events, making schedules, delegating tasks that need to get done for our team, and communicating with the vision trip leaders from UCF and Mississippi State respectively. We will put out a schedule on our blog this weekend so you can be praying during the exact time for some of the events. (We are 6 hours ahead of you in Eastern Time, you can see the clock on the right side of our home blog page for the time in Salerno.

The Crawford's also arrived back with their little one, Lila Grace, who today turns two months old. The Crawford's are the other couple on our team other than the Valiquette's. Please pray for them to adjust back to Italian time and culture!

Also this week Jutty and I met up with Nico on campus.

Nico is one of the guys who became a Christian in 2006 during the summer project when almost 40 people indicated decisions for Christ. Nico has been discipled on and off since then with two of his friends Andrea and Paolo. Nico would like to keep studying the Bible so we are going to meet with him on Thursdays!

(Here's Rodney on campus this summer when we bumped into Nico and his friends.

Nico is to the left of Rodney in the blue shirt.)

We re-started the guys Bible study this Wednesday at 3pm where it should continue every week. Marko, Andrea, Gian Luca, and Stefano are going to be a part of this. They are hungry for the word and are interested in being in a community of believers. Please pray that we can start other studies and this one will grow.

The biggest prayer request that I currently have is we are getting about 10 people together who have professed faith in Christ, who are currently growing in their faith with us, and people we see on a regular basis so that we can keep up with what God is doing in their lives. We are going to have a time that they can share about how God is using them and how they are growing in Christ WITH EACH OTHER! Many of them only know us and not each other. We are excited because this could the beginning of people seeing that there are other Italians that are sharing their faith and God is moving in their lives. This event is going to be at 7pm tomorrow, 3/5. Please pray that the Holy Spirit moves in our midst and that God would heal a lot of people of sickness on our team including the Crawford's, the Valiquette's kids, and Evin their nanny. Can't wait to update you guys on how this goes!

Here's a pictures of Amanda and Grant enjoying some sunshine. We haven't seen very much of it since we've been here so we've been trying to take advantage of every chance that we get!

Insieme (Italian for together)

2010-02-19T08:10:00.000-05:00

Please sign up for the Agape Italia (remember Campus Crusade is Agape Italia in Italy) quarterly newsletter Insieme. It will give you more scope into the big picture of ministry here in Italy. You can view this months newsletter here. A lot of times we talk about things that are Salerno specific on the blog and our newsletter. I wanted to make a blog post that only talks about this because it is very important

My first language course in Italy

2010-02-17T08:43:00.008-05:00

Last summer my wife took a beginning language course to improve her Italian. I met with a tutor, really my friend, Andrea, a language student at the university here. We met for 3 months in person and on skype when I returned to America in August. We want to continue to meet but in addition I am taking a language course at a school here in Salerno to improve my Italian skills. I am way better in writing, reading, and understanding than speaking. In some ways my speaking is one level down compared to the other 3. So I am taking lessons in a higher level this week. I might drop down a level for next week so that my speaking might improve, I do not know I have not decided yet. UCF gave me a great foundation in Italian 3 years ago when I took two semesters my senior year of college. You guys can pray for me as I study and try to figure out where I should be as I feel inbetween two levels right now.

In the midst of learning language, planning for this semester, and getting settled in, I have got to spend some time with some students. Some of the highlights that you can pray for is: I will be meeting with Peppe to discuss John over the next month. We are going to look at 5 chapters every week. Pray that God opens his heart and that through the Holy Spirit I am able to answer his questions. If you know any good online resources about the book of John please shoot me a comment. I have an idea of how I want to do it but I always appreciate help. We arrived at this decision to study John after a long talk about humanity, the Bible, and the person of Jesus. I know God has the capacity to change his life as he has changed mine so please pray for us.

Also pray for Salvatore. He has become more interested in spiritual things over the times I have met with him. He wants to study the Bible in a group setting sometime. Pray that this would come to fruition and as sometimes students want to learn English and not necessarily talk about spiritual things. Pray that our talk of the gospel last week begins to change his life and will happen again.

Lastly I want to leave you with something that we have been experiencing in Salerno. Today is ash Wednesday, which is the beginning of Lent. The period before this is called Carnevale. The word comes from "carne levare" which means to "take away meat". During this period kids dress up like they would for halloween and use silly string and confetti on other kids. Yesterday was the actual day of carnevale equal to that of Fat Tuesday. There are many parties and not just kids dress up. The weather was really bad so it was not as good as normal. I did not take any pictures because I always had my camera when the weather was bad but here are some pictures I found online of carnevale in Salerno.

Random and funny...

2010-02-13T09:36:00.004-05:00

Here's a funny little picture sign on a bus that we saw the other day. Some buses are more handicapped accessable than others. So I guess if you were waiting for this bus you would know that it was good for people in wheelchairs, with canes and pregnant people. Yes, the lady of the left with the giant circle is apparently the symbol for being pregnant.

I promise we'll be back with some more posts soon.

We finally feel like we're getting settled in and have a couple of cool things to be blogging about soon :)

We are here (again)!

2010-01-31T07:03:00.003-05:00

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!

2010-01-04T16:29:00.006-05:00

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.

Finishing Up At USF

2009-12-18T12:17:00.006-05:00

Christmas time is fast approaching! We have been enjoying this time buying last minute Christmas gifts, getting to spend a lot of time with family, and get to accomplish some last minute things before we leave next month on the 13th. Time is flying as we are one week from Christmas!

One of the things I asked everyone to pray for over the last month or so is the time I have been investing at USF in order to get some sort of Fraternity/Sorority Community Group/Bible Study started. We have had two meetings with 2 USF Alumni who were apart of the Greek system, One Intervarsity staff, one Crusade staff other than me, Ross, and one active brother in Sigma Chi, Greg. The meetings have gone well. USF greek life is different than UCFs and a lot different than the south's. Starting a ministry here at USF is going to look totally different. We want to start with a core of believers and by believers we mean seekers, nominal Christians, or anyone that is even remotely interested in knowing more about Jesus Christ. It is going to take the Spring Semester for all the people in the fraternities and sororities that we even slightly know to be believers to build relationships with these people since the alumni and even Greg are a little removed from their chapters. The next meeting is January 5th. Please continue to pray as I phase out of this role that the Lord would be sovereign over bringing key people together to start this ministry. Also pray that we would know if Intervarsity or Campus Crusade are going to be the main backers with accountability to this arm of ministry.

I have also debriefed with Ross and John the two staff at USF Campus Crusade about what I have found in the IFC meetings I have attended, the presidents I met with, and hours I spent trying to basically survey the Greek system at USF since they were never in a fraternity in their prospective colleges. Going through all the stuff for a good 2-3 hours made me a little sad that I am leaving this "in the middle". I trust that God will use Ross and John to follow up some of the things I started or did. I, somewhat on purpose because I was leaving and knew it was going to be hard and somewhat because Grant being born called for me to have an active role in a lot more activities than I will in the future, did not participate in getting to know a lot of Kappa Sigs even after invited to do so by some of the guys I met at USF. It is hard being passionate about Italy as well as Fraternity ministry because Italy does not have any fraternities at the universities. It was probably still one of my main regrets this whole semester, but I know I did the right thing being there for my wife when she needed me ;)

It was hard but okay as I attended my last USF Campus Crusade meeting of this semester. I know that God has called us to Salerno. It is tough because they do need staff at USF. Maybe someday the Lord will bring us back here.

On the Italy front, continue to pray for the two girl Bible studies and the one on one follow ups from Thanksgiving get together that have been been taking place and will continue to take place over the next few months. Continue to pray for Marko as the Lord is bringing him closer to Himself. There is a plan in place for Marko to come to Unveiled Christmas Conference in Atlanta not only to grow in his faith but get to share with college students what the Lord has been doing in his life. Please pray that money comes in to make this happen.

I will leave you with a picture of Grant sucking his thumb. He tries so hard to get his hand in his mouth and when he finally does, it is a grand sense of accomplishment!

What a happy baby...

2009-12-08T09:15:00.003-05:00

Here's a little video clip of Grant. The cooing and smiling are both new in the last week or so. It's been so fun finally seeing him react to all of our talking with him and the silly faces that we make. Grant truly is a great baby. Of course, he has cranky days (but so do I, for that matter). But most of the time, he is truly a delight. We are so blessed :)

Thanksgiving Weekend

2009-12-01T12:10:00.001-05:00

Every year, during Thanksgiving, what I have to be thankful for seems to get simplier and simplier. This year I am thankful to be in loving relationship with my heavenly father and thankful that I have trusted him for Salvation. I am thankful for my wife, son, and the rest of my family. The Lord has truly blessed me.

This Thanksgiving weekend was a full one for us as we spent time with Amanda's family on Thursday, went shopping and decorated Amanda's mom's house for Christmas, had a second Thanksgiving with my family, and then spoke at Glenwood Presbyterian in Orlando about our summer and God's workings in Salerno. This trip to Glenwood was one of Grant's first out in public. He actually did pretty good. He had poopy explosion while Amanda was holding him sharing about us in Sunday School. He went through two of his three outfits in one morning something we did not anticipate, but hey we can't complain!

We have made it a tradition to have a Thanksgiving outreach in Salerno every year. This year we had twenty people. Some were new people and some were people that were invited by our friends. Please continue to pray for those relationships to go deeper.

The holidays are much among us. Of course there are really only 3: Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years that we celebrate in a 5 week range. These 5 weeks are usually busy for everyone, with gift buying, vacations, holiday parties, decorating for the holidays, families, and the actual holidays themselves. Usually during this season, I get so busy that I do not pray as much as I should. There is not as many people that want to hear about our ministry. Students go on their break. As well as praying for my diligence, could you commit to remember the true reason for the season is our Savior Jesus Christ?

Below is a recent picture of Grant :)

Prayer Requests and Reflection

2009-11-11T14:25:00.004-05:00

Grant is almost a month old. Time has flown by in a lot of ways. We have been doing well, thankful to God for everyone's prayers during this time of transition. Its amazing that soon it will be Thanksgiving and then the end of the year. Please continue to pray for our support to come in we still need about $600 monthly before we can leave in January.

Earlier this week in one of my times with the Lord, I have prayed through 1 Thessalonians 2 over both the ministry at USF and in Italy. Would you pray that over the ministry in Italy, too? . God has been doing awesome things in Salerno with two girls Bible Studies going on consistently. Continue to pray for the ministry as Justin and Abbey Valiquette have come home for a few months to raise some extra support and Bentley and Sarah Love Crawford are coming home soon to have their baby in the U.S. we will not have any men on our team until we get there. Pray that we do not lose momentum in the ministry with these things happening.

God has done some awesome things at USF. I have not done a lot there lately as I have been really been trying to focus on being available so the Lord can raise our financial support. We are really close to starting to launch a Fraternity/Sorority Community group. The Lord has raised a few people up to do so. I have also gotten to meet with a few fraternity presidents to get ideas of how we can be resource to the Greek community. Continue to pray for our efforts that the Holy Spirit would lead and guide us and show us exactly what this community group is going to look like.

Our Anniversary

2009-11-03T10:13:00.010-05:00

Two years ago today Rodney and I were married. It's one of those weird things to me where in some ways it seems like our wedding was just yesterday and in other ways it seems like we've always been married. Obviously, there have been a lot of changes in this year of our marriage; raising support, moving to Italy, having our first child. But through it all, I am so glad I'm able to look at my husband and be thankful for all that the Lord has done and is continuing to do in our lives. I remember people telling us that marriage would reveal so much our selfish nature. There is nothing like living in such close proximity to some one else and having your lives be so intertwined to bring out the best and the worst in yourself. I can definitely attest to that now. Our marriage has challenged me and grown me so much over the last two years. My mom watched little Grant for a couple of hours last night and Rodney and I had the chance to go out for a nice dinner. We reflected and talked about the last year and all of the changes. We talked about our first year of marriage compared to our second. And I realized how much better I know myself now than I did two years ago. I've learned so much more about how what really encourages me, what really upsets me and how to communicate what I'm feeling and why. What an unexpected blessing! When I walked down that aisle two years ago I woul have said that I knew a lot about myself and a lot about Rodney. And now, when I look back, I feel like I hardly knew myself, let alone any thing about Rodney. The Lord has been so gracious to us as we've grown and learned so much over these past two years.

And now, a little note to my sweet husband- Thank you so much for all that you are and all that do for me, and now for our family. The Lord has used to in such a powerful way in my life. I am so grateful for our love and our marriage.

1 Corinthians 13:4-8 (from The Message)

Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn't want what it doesn't have.
Love doesn't strut,
Doesn't have a swelled head,
Doesn't force itself on others,

Isn't always "me first,"
Doesn't fly off the handle,
Doesn't keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn't revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.

Love never dies.

Here Comes Grant!

2009-10-21T15:12:00.002-04:00

Grant Charles Walton was born Saturday 10/17/09 at 6am sharp. He was 8lbs. 5oz. at birth, as well as 20 1/2 inches long.

Continue to check facebook and our blog for more updates. We just got home from the hospital Monday at about noon.

Praise the Lord for a healthy baby with no complications during childbirth! We cannot thank the Lord enough for this as well as a rather complication free pregnancy. Please pray for us as we are learning how to be parents. Pray that God would give us wisdom and patience beyond our years as well as supernatural energy to keep up with this little one. Amanda had a lot of contractions since Wednesday leading up to the birth on Saturday morning so we both have not gotten a lot of rest before he came.

Check out the top image on how Grant and Amanda looked alike at birth! It is kind of crazy how similar they look!

Post Orlando, No Baby Yet!

2009-10-11T20:21:00.003-04:00

Grant, when are you coming? We have asked him this many times in the last few days. We are disappointed every time he doesn't answer us. We have tried to continue our lives as much as usual but at the same time, we have to be as ready for him to come when its time. As Amanda likes to say: Eviction Day is coming!

We got back from Orlando last weekend and had a great time. We got to visit with a lot of friends, but since we were only there for a few days, we did not see everyone we wished we could have, but thats how it goes. We had an extremely refreshing time in Orlando. It has really helped us and built our faith in many ways. We were encouraged by many friends, Amanda had a good shower our church OGC put on for us, and we got to hang out with Brett and Nicole Bradley. They are raising support to be in Salerno, also.

This past week on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday we met on Skype with our team in Salerno for a few hours. We got to develop a bunch of our vision, goals, and focus for this school year coming up. Its so good for us to be in these meetings and get to contribute.

Also this past week at Cru at USF, I got to talk about Storing Up Treasures in Heaven from Matthew 6:19-24. I was not sure how it was going to turn out, but it turned out well as God's word was preached and I got to be his vessel.

Getting Closer

2009-09-30T09:45:00.013-04:00

The Countdown to Baby Grant continues. We have started going to the doctor like every week. It is becoming more and more real to me as our stroller and some of our cloth diapers have come in the mail yesterday. To my wife, I think it became real when she had morning sickness a back at the first month. That is how men and women are different, I guess. Here are some recent pictures of us, as you can see, we're getting closer and closer...

We are excited about visiting Orlando this weekend. We have not really gotten to see a lot of people from our church and other people in the city we know. If you are not going to see us this weekend do not worry because we can only see so many people and we will probably be coming back to do our baby dedication and speak at some churches so let us know you really miss us with a comment and maybe we can see you sometime. (That last paragraph makes us sound like we are celebrities, its not true I promise)

Also another thing that you can be praying for everyone out there. Is that I spoke to the Inter Fraternal Council at USF last Wednesday and got a few fraternities interested in what we are doing there and how we can help them accomplish their goals. I have followed up with an email and I got no responses. The Lord answered my prayer with the president of IFC, Matt, letting me speak out of at the meeting Please pray as I continue to follow up with all my contacts that they would be interested and for the few that may not that they would tell me straight up. I will be following up with them on Monday.

Life as we know it

2009-09-15T09:32:00.006-04:00

So its the middle of September. I am discouraged in a lot of ways that I do not want to list out. Well, some of the reasons I have not really pinpointed yet. I do not want to list them out mainly because it makes me more discouraged and I do not like to be negative, but the problem with that is that sometimes I come off being a little bit in denial. You know what I am saying all you optimistic people out there. Sometimes we can be a bit fake. There I said it! I actually hate being fake, but I my realism and my optimism sometimes battle for my behavior and my realism seasoned with shades of optimism usually wins. I feel that lately I have been trying to be optimistic lately and stuck my realism in the backseat, which means also my transparency. So at least, I just want to be open and honest on our blog. It gives me an outlet.

In ministry, I feel like one must act like he has it altogether (although folks I would not try this at home). Sometimes it just happens whether you try to do it or not. Your ministry becomes more like a stock market investment. You want to always make sure the shareholders are always happy so they keep investing. One can never run his or her ministry like a business, but its a temptation sometimes.

Having said all that I want profess that the Lord owns everything including our hearts. The Lord has provided for us to this step even when stuff goes wrong. The Lord has put a roof over our heads. He has given us good health. He has given me at doing language learning even if I am not as good as Jonathan Prudhomme :) We want to hold fast to Isaiah 41:8-10 and apply it to what God is doing in our family.

In other news, continue to pray for my time at USF. In the area of getting involved in the fraternity system and starting a Bible study, I need the Lord's help. I have one person I have met with face to face named Adam that seems interested and then a few friend of a friend people that I have yet to get in contact with. Amanda and I are extremely grateful for John, Kerri, and Ross who are on staff and been a great encouragement.

I will leave you with the comparison the maps of UCF and USF campus. The universities are the same size but USF is so much more spread out. At UCF, you just park and walk where you need to go, but at USF that does not really work because it can take you like 30 minutes, which means extra confusion for Rodney in his parking adventures.

Back in Tampa

2009-08-27T14:11:00.003-04:00

Here we are in Tampa once again. We left Italy from Naples back in on August 12th. Amanda and I were extremely thankful to have Peppe, one of the Italians involved with Agape Italia, take us to the airport at 4am since our flight was about an hour drive's away leaving at 6:45am! The whole travel process from Naples to Denver where we had the STINT briefing conference was 23 hours. (We will talk more about that conference in our newsletter in this month). Everything went smoothly for the most part until we got to our layover in Frankfurt, Germany where from there we would fly straight to Denver on a 10 hour flight. We had a few hours so we got coffee. We tried to our terminal but there was a large German policeman who put up police tape and told me I could not go to Terminal C. I preceded to ask in English if there was another way, in which he replied the same statement he made before. I guessed that he probably did not understand English and walked away. We ate lunch and the tape was not up when we came back, but we had to go through customs and everyone was at lunch at 12:30 so no one was at any of the Passport booths. To make a long story not as long we made it to the gate with like 5 minutes to spare from when our plane was going to take off. To make matters worse on the flight my personal LCD monitor was not working. Thank goodness Amanda is good at sharing :)

We arrived in Tampa on Wednesday the 19th of August. From that time through the weekend we had a lot of family commitments including one of Amanda's baby showers. Monday was the first day that we had some time to finally catch our breath and figure out our plan for the few months we are here in Tampa. Basically what we will be doing is as follows(in this order):

1. First and foremost, have a baby. I am trying to serve Amanda the best way I can during this period.

2. Raise extra monthly support. We have lost a few hundred dollars of monthly support and plan to loose a few more because of the economy and we have to raise about $800 more of monthly support. (I have updated our thermometer on the right side of the page with the latest numbers).

3. Do language learning. I am going to try about 10-15 hours a week to learn Italian. I meet on skype with Andrea for 6 hours a week. Amanda is going to build off what she has already learned in class.

4. We will be helping out with the ministry at the University of South Florida which is about 10 minutes from where we are staying in Tampa. We found out that two of their staff left last year after we decided to pursue the endeavor, so we were an answer to prayer for them in some ways. I think it will be good for me to continue in ministry and sit under another healthy ministry before we go back.

Please continue to pray for us because just as we were getting used to Salerno, we are back in Tampa. We understand the Lord is this is more of the process that the Lord wants us to go through in order to prepare our hearts for ministry in Salerno.

The Body

2009-08-10T06:23:00.003-04:00

Amanda and I have been attending a church that meets right in Salerno. The services are completely in Italian, although Pastor Dominico does sometimes talk to us in English. The only part we used to understand are the songs since there are slides and we recognize the rhythm to be American songs that we have sung growing up. Just recently we have been understanding about half of what is said by Dominico and other church members during the service. Last week there were 5 nations represented in the church of about 20 as there were people from Turkey, France, Russia, and America. America is truly blessed in someways to have (for the most part) everyone speaking English, but we do enjoy the diversity that we found in Europe. It is sometimes confusing, but it is truly beautiful to see all the cultures and people dwelling in unity in Christ.

We are truly blessed to be a part of an encouraging body of believers here in Salerno. I have met with Dominico a few times just to have lunch as friends and we talk about things pertaining to life as well as spiritual things. As most of you know he is really interested in what we are doing. We have been encouraging each other in the ministry God has called us to. He has had some time off this summer, but during the rest of the time he works as a teacher in Naples. He works full-time and is a full-time pastor. He is extremely educated which comes out in conversations about Italian history and politics which help us understand more about Italy and how to reach people for Christ. Pray for his body of believers to grow deep in faith as well as in numbers from more people coming to faith. Pray that we can really get more students involved in his church.

Below is a picture of the church. Dominico is 5th from the left. We are all the way on the right.

Saturday Morning in Salerno

2009-08-08T07:20:00.018-04:00

When we lived in Orlando, one of my favorite things to do on Saturday morning was to go over the Winter Park Farmers' Market. I guess it all started in college when I could walk over from Rollins before most of the campus was even awake. I love to walk around and see all of the plants and fresh fruits and veggies. We would usually end up picking up some coffee and breakfast (chocolate croissant for me and a crepe with chicken, veggies and sauce for Rodney). If you live in Orlando and haven't checked out the Winter Park Farmers' Market, you definitely should!

Well, this Saturday morning we went to the Salerno version of the farmers' market. Unlike the market in Winter Park, this market is every morning, not just on Saturday. As we walked along the rows of vendors, we couldn't help but notice the similarities and the many differences.

Overall, I have to say that the fresh produce here is much better than anything I've seen in America. When you walk by the mounds of peaches, you can't ignore the amazing smell. Below are some pictures of the market. As you will see, in addition to the produce there are also many other items for sale including clothing, shoes, candy, pots and pans, laundry detergent, rugs and curtains, just to name a few. There is also a whole row full of fish and other seafood items. We haven't been brave enough to try any of the seafood yet, but I'm sure it's nice and fresh.

Yes, this man is using his bare hands, don't be alarmed...

Now that's some fresh sword fish!

This is just a short clip from the market. We just didn't want you to miss out on the sounds of the market, as well as the sights.

The Weak Will Be Strong

2009-08-06T12:21:00.003-04:00

It has been awhile, but many headaches from trying to learn Italian later here we are. I won't spoil our language learning escapades as they will be in our newest newsletter ready to hit the streets any day now.

What I do want to talk a little about is how Christ calls the weak to His service. I know its kind of crazy that Jesus wants weak people to preach His gospel, but He does. In addition to attending a church on Sunday nights, Amanda and I usually try to listen to some sermon on Sunday morning. The past few Sundays we have been listening to sermon's of Tim Keller, pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian in New York City. We listened to one on the Community of Jesus. Some of the interpretations he pulled from Luke 6:12-36 was that Jesus saved us to make us into a people not just forgive our sins. The values that we hold dear are weakness, sacrifice, grief, and exclusion in which His grace gets stronger when we lose the world's recognition.

The last statement along with I Corinthians 1-2 hit me hard. Paul explains in 1 Corinthians 1:17 after he talks about people in the church boasting about who baptized them that God sent him to preach the gospel not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. He goes on in verses 26-31 of chapter 1 that Christ chose the weak, low and despised to shame the strong, powerful, wise and rich according to the world's standards. Also in the first two verses of Chapter 2: And I when I came to you brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.

So why am I talking about this? I am weak! I have hope! I am right where Christ needs me to be so that He can use me just like He did Paul. Everyone puts Paul on a pedestal but he was just a weak man controlled by Jesus Christ. I do not have compelling eloquent words of wisdom. I do not want to hold dear what the world does. I am totally nothing without Christ and Him supernaturally making it possible in the Spirit demonstrating himself through me in His power as He did with Paul (2:4-5).

Italian Recipe

2009-07-24T08:01:00.005-04:00

Mario, who has been serving with the team in Salerno for the past two years, recently posted this recipe on FaceBook and so I thought I'd pass it along to all of you. Scarpariello is a classic local dish. Most of the restaurants in town have some version of it. I've never been a huge "spaghetti" fan (I know, ironic, since I moved to Italy) but this sauce is different. With all of the chessy goodness in it, I think it helps to balance out some of the acidity of the tomatoes. While I haven't used this exact recipe yet, I know that Mario is a great cook, so I'm sure it's delish! So enjoy, and while you're enjoying say a little pray for the people of Salerno.

Scarpariello for 5 people:

Ingredients:
3-4 lb of cherry tomatoes the size of golf balls
1 1/2 sticks of butter, could use less if you feel like losing some flavor for less fat.
fresh basil
500gr parmigiana cheese.
500gr penne pasta.
peperoncini

**Notice how parm and pasta are equal. this is very important to achieve the thick creamy sauce.

1) In a huge pot, put stick of butter and all the tomatoes in and cover over med high heat until they are all popped, about 12 min.
2) Then uncover and turn to med heat, now you can stir a little, and remove the skins if you like to. You also want to add some basil, and peperoncini. Let simmer for 30min to 1hr, depending on the quality of the tomatoes. it should start to look think.
3) Oil water and start cooking pasta, 10 min before sauce is done.
4) When you drain the pasta keep 1 cup of that water to add to the sauce in a min.

5) Now add and mix all the remaining butter, the sauce, the pasta, and the parmigiana together. add around 1 cup of left over water slowly while mixing.

6) Serve immediately, garnish with fresh basil leafs.

Sto Studiando Italiano

2009-07-14T06:44:00.005-04:00

We celebrated July 4th with some Italians. Below is Ilaria, Amanda, and I making the colors of the American flag. Ilaria was a person we talked about on a newsletter from the Fall about her coming to know the Lord. She was one of the people that got baptized at the baptism from the last newsletter.

Peppe and I have became good friends. In Italy, nicknames are taken from the end of names unlike in the U.S. where it is the beginning so a nickname for Giuseppe (Joseph) is Peppe. I like the way Peppe is not afraid to ask questions or talk about anything. He tells it like he sees it and his honesty has allowed our friendship to grow really fast. His uncle owns a school in Nocera where students from the U.S. come to study abroad. Peppe has learned English because he has been the guide for the American students getting them whatever they need. We joke that he is their "babysitter" because of how he has to attend so many times to their drunken habits. In Italy, we discuss, that people drink one or two always or have some wine with dinner, but these Americans come and get drunk every night. Last Friday, Peppe and I spent some time going around his town and eating lunch and talking about deep topics to shallow things like stupid American movies. He has told me that he wants to learn more about Christianity since, from studying the Bible with our group, he is still learning about who Jesus really is. I enjoy spending time with Peppe. This evening we will go with the Crawford's to a big mall called Volcano Buono(Good Volcano) which is next to the bad Volcano, Vesuvius :)

I have also spent an evening with another Giuseppe. It was a really good time and helped both of in our English and Italian skills. He speaks just a little more English than I do Italian. Giuseppe has a cool story of how his friends lead him to Christ a few years ago. His parents are Catholic and they do not agree with the Evangelical way. Stuff sometimes is very hard for him because when people here when they become "Evangelical" which for them is just actively pursuing their relationship with Jesus Christ they can excommunicated slightly from their families and friends. He explains it is very difficult to talk about this new fresh relationship with Jesus because no one wants to listen to him. A lot of times Catholicism hear is nominal just as Christianity in the U.S. is very nominal. I hope to meet more with Giuseppe to discuss the Bible since he has not ever really been "discipled" only attending church on a regular basis. On the way home, we listened to some Michael W. Smith and Third Day in his car, which was cool for me to see he listens to Christian artists in America! Below is a picture of me and Giuseppe.

Andrea has agreed to tutor me in Italian this summer. He is a language major and knows English very well. We talked for about 3 hours this Friday and I learned about many things, but most importantly the difference of using -ando onto a verb in Italian is like putting an -ing in English but in Italian it is always in the present. If you want to say "I am studying tonight", it's: "Studio stasera" because you are not currently doing it, but "I am studying now" is: "Sto studiando adesso. Andrea has really been challenged by our group in the last year to have more of a relationship with God and Jesus Christ. Andrea has been a practicing Catholic, still being active in the church unlike many young Italians, but has now understood the gospel and that it is only by Christ's good works that we are saved. Below is a picture of Andrea and I.

Please continue to pray for me to learn Italian and not get frustrated and my time here and my relationships with my friends that the Lord would use those relationships.

Trash in Salerno

2009-07-11T09:22:00.005-04:00

You might be wondering why I am writing about trash. A lot of students are taking exams and busy for the summer, so many of them cannot hang out. They do not go to campus as much, which means we do not also. As they finish their exams, more and more of them are becoming free as they days go on in July. It has been good to have some free time to get stuff set up around the apartment as well as recover from the summer project's pace. We have been reading and studying the language.

The other thing has been taking up our time is trying to figure out what the new trash schedule is. The trash in Naples and I believe some other areas of the region used to be (and still could be) controlled by the mafia so it always gets taken care of, capische? :) A little Godfather for ya. The way trash is taken care of in Salerno is changing and they are trying to recycle more, no big deal, right? Wrong! The Valiquettes, the Crawfords, and us have not gotten the necessary trash cans, schedule and bags. One night I even tried to get rid of the trash in a pile by some businesses and I was yelled at in Italian. I responded,"Quale giorno, vetro? No lo so. Quale giorno, organico? No lo so. Quale giorno, carta? No lo so. (Which day, glass? I don't know. Which day, organic? I don't know. Which day, paper? I don't know.) They got the picture and left me alone. Check out this fun schedule........Yea click on it and zoom in real close. I found it at my neighbors, took a picture and translated it so I knew how to get rid of our every growing, smelly trash in our apartment. I think we figured it out, even the part of the trash man coming between 8pm and 4am, meaning that day is actually that night. One of the great things we have grown accustomed to in becoming acclimated with the new culture.

It's a boy!

2009-07-06T10:04:00.009-04:00

As some of you may have already heard, we just recently found out that our first child is a boy. We are both very excited (not that we wouldn't have been excited about a girl) but it's just so much more real to know the gender. Just during the past few days I have really been able to feel a lot more connected to the baby, just by knowing that it's a little boy in there.

We have also recently decided to come back to the United States for the birth. After seeking lots of advice and really praying through all of the options, we both really feel like this is what's best for our family. Obviously, our parents are ecstatic to have us coming back for a few months. For us, this decision is a little more bittersweet. Just when we were hoping to be settling into a routine here in Salerno, we will be leaving. Of course there are many pros to coming back to the US for us too. It will be a huge blessing to be surrounded by family and friends as we welcome our first child. It is also a comfort to me to know that I'll be able to stock up on tons of American baby products before we leave and have to rely on the adventure that Italian products can be.

Lots of people have been asking me how it's been to be pregnant and living in Italy.

Overall, it's been great. The slower pace of life here gives me the complete freedom to nap in the afternoon if I need to (all the stores are closed then anyway). Several times people have given my their seats on the bus. I'm definitely getting plenty of exercise as so much of daily living here involves walking to the grocery store, walking to the bus stop, walking to our friends' apartments, walking, walking, walking. I joke that with all of the walking that I have done, that I better have the easiest delivery ever. (I know, there are no guarantees, but it's a nice thought, right?)

One of the challenges have been that I feel like people are staring at me all the time. Culturally, there doesn't seem to be a stigma attached to staring (no one tries to pretend that they are not really staring if they are) and so as some of the few Americans in Salerno, it's not uncommon for any of us to get some strange looks. However, when you couple that with getting used to the fact that I'm much bigger now than I'm used to be, it's been a little challenging. It's much better now that, at least in my mind, I clearly look pregnant. But there was a phase when I was convinced that I didn't look pregnant but just fat, my clothes stopped fitting right and I just felt awkward all the time.

The other biggest challenge has been my seemingly unquenchable hunger. Some days I literally feel like I could eat constantly. Within an hour of finishing a meal, I'm ready for a snack! I was joking with Rodney the other day that I can eat groceries as fast as we can buy them. It's a little harder to buy food in bulk when you have to carry it back without a car. The other challenge in this area is that so many things are closed in the afternoon and then dinner restaurants don't open until 8pm. Needlessly to say, if we're out and about and I've failed to bring some snacks in my purse, Rodney can have an unhappy, very hungry pregnant lady on his hands.

Culture Differences and Our Trip to IKEA

2009-07-01T16:46:00.011-04:00

First, I just wanted to say this post is just to some things about Italian culture that are just different than ours. (The pictures all have to do with alcohol, but that was not really intended to happen). The second part of it was about our trip to IKEA in Naples to get some items for our apartment in Salerno.

These pictures were all taken at an Italian mall. As you can see the drink in the bottom left is a Virgin Mary not a Bloody Mary

This is a Burger King meal. Yes they have beer on tap at Burger King, I had to get it because of how ridiculous it is.

This is a bar/restaurant but in the back of the picture is the playplace that you would find at McDonalds or Burger King. They had plenty of room in the restaurant but decided to put it there.

In Salerno, it is not common to see some public displays of affection. I did not attach any pictures because I feel that would cross the line :) In the U.S. people would get so many stares and it is so culturally insensitive it would not happen too much. It is just people hugging and kissing on the sidewalk or on a bench. If you are not Italian it will surprise you every time.

In the U.S., Sunday night is a night of getting stuff together for your week, relaxing, resting before the week starts. In Salerno, Sunday night is one of the busiest nights to go out. You will see people the most people walking around at 1am or 2am. I think for this reason Monday morning many stores are closed and do not follow there normal hours.

This brings me to my next point. Stores close at all different hours here. Sometimes stores are closed and the hours on their door say otherwise. These are not just "mom and pop" stores in the city but chain stores outside of downtown. When you travel to the store, be prepared. You could travel 30 minutes and the store could be closed and have no sign of opening soon.

The culture here is so laid back. Servers at restaurants are extremely slow. Not in a bad way of course:) but in the way that they want you to enjoy your experience. After a 2 to 3 hour meal, they will ask if there is anything you need. You say, "No I am done", then you sit there for about 10 minutes, and you are like where's the check, I do not want anything else? You have to ask, its not assumed you want to leave.

Coffee is a short shot of expresso not a relaxing drink to sit down and enjoy. It is meant to help with digestion, give you a pick me up for the day, or give you a chance to do something with a friend.

Driving is absolutely crazy. There are no real lines in the road in the city. So even though there is enough room for two lanes of traffic, people weave in and out in cars and mopeds. This brings us to the story of us driving to IKEA to get some small furniture and things for our already furnished place. We rented a car to go about an hour north to Naples where the IKEA is. So after praying a prayer of safety, we started on our way. For all the guys out there, driving here is driving how you always wanted to in the U.S. but never had the ability to. Its like have 5 of the most aggressive drivers you have ever experienced on all sides of you at all times including the weaving moped component. We only had one person back up on the highway because he missed his exit :) Once we reached the area that the IKEA was at in Naples getting to it was another story. There were a series of signs that look like the one below and there was no continuity between signs so you follow a few of them for a while taking turns off what looks like interstate off-ramps and then after like 5 IKEA signs you stop seeing them for the next few off-ramps. These off-ramps are coming every 1000 feet so its rapid fire signage. Lets just say it took 20 minutes to get to the IKEA we could see from the interstate :)

We finished and headed home. The road names are small and only the to and from cities are listed. When you traveling in a small area, two roads could go to the same place but just take a different route, so it made it difficult but we made it. I pulled into the small streets of the historic center of Salerno where we live and unloaded the stuff as quick as possible so that I would block anyone because I was double parked.

I went uphill to get the car out of this area which was a bad idea. I should have just gone the wrong way one-way (which I have seen Italians do so many times). There are two cars behind me as I go uphill with mopeds coming at me with about one foot of space on each side and I had to pull the emergency brake, rev it up, and drop it to risk from stalling out and going backwards down this 60 degree incline. I spun out a little since the street was wet from rain in front of a store with about 5 Italians watching me on the street. This by far is expert driving, beating my advanced driving I learned in Miami a few months prior. I do not want to do this for a very long time!

Below are some pics of the car filled to the brim of stuff we needed from IKEA and Carrefour (the Italian version of Wal-Mart).

Follow Up to Last Post

2009-06-16T11:50:00.003-04:00

As I said in the last post, we are trying to meet a lot of students that our American students have become friends with so we can keep them connected with Agape Italia. One unique thing that I forgot to mention in my last post is that Amanda and I got to go over to another city to meet Dylan and Chevas's friends. We ate dinner at Raffaele's house. We got to meet his family and friends. They were so nice and hospitable. They picked us up at the train station and drove us to the house where we had a great time talking and singing before they took us home. We ate fresh Mozzarella di Bufala and hot dogs with special sauces specially designed by Raffaele. It was a great time where we got to know some the parents of Raffele and get to have Amanda and I's first home experience in Italy.

The other amazing thing that has been happening that I forgot to mention is Amanda has really gotten to connect with a lot of girls on project. They really look up to her as an older sister. She has really gotten to have an impact in her small group Bible study. Small groups, discipleship and Bible study are things that she loves to do and it has been a great asset to our team this summer. She has connected with a lot of the girls in a way that she will get to have a special connection for years to come. Every night, the girls beg for "Storytime with Amanda" where she gets to tell a funny or meaningful story about her life. A lot of the things she has gone through make the girls laugh or point them to Jesus because of how he has changed her life.

Chevas, Chiara, Sasha, Dylan, Rodney and Amanda at Raffele's house.

As Summer Project Continues

2009-06-15T11:47:00.005-04:00

Girls talking some girls and a guy they met on campus.

Playing poker with some Italian friends

At the beach with some Italian friends

America versus Italy soccer match. We were losing bad until some Italians switched to our team.

Kevin, one of the Americans, doing some of his magic tricks

So it has been two more weeks. It has really flown by. This week is our last week on campus and we are really trying to get all the friends we have met to be friends with all the people that will be on STINT next year or people that are on the long term team here. The above pictures are just a few representations of our time here. It is hard to always have a camera on campus or remember to use it to take pictures of all our friends. A lot of the summer project students have tagged me in pictures on facebook also.

I have met many friends in the last few weeks. We have gotten to share a lot of our lives with them. It is exciting to know that I will have more time here in Italy with them. My friend Pasquale had to go back to Algeria to work. I was very excited to give him my Bible since he did not have one and it has been hard on him to be there. I am excited to get to spend more time with him when he comes back next month since he works one month and then is off for a month. He is very honest and that is what I appreciate about him. We hope to discuss more of the Bible and life when he returns.

I have gotten to become friends with two guys named Davide who are friends. They have been so nice to us and invited us to play soccer and to the beach as you can see in the above pictures. Their hospitality is very encouraging. They were really excited to talk deeper things of life and we got to share the central message of the Bible with them. They had never really read the Bible before so were excited to hear about it and were glad we talked about it. They said sometimes we talk about unimportant things so much it was good to talk about something important. They are also very transparent. Being here in Italy, I have learned more to appreciate being open and wanting to sacrifice my own needs for others. I love how genuine the people are here. They are open and I enjoy being open with them.

Amanda and I have gotten to encourage and be a leader to all the students this project also. It has been great getting to know them and being there while they have grown in their faith. It has been good getting to see them share their testimony about what God has done in their life and just the good news of Jesus Christ and how his gospel changes our lives when we trust his sacrifice and live for Him and not the world.

Please pray for the group that we can continue to spread the good news of Jesus and what he did for all of us on the cross. Pray that we would get our friends connected with Americans that are staying in Italy longer. Pray for Amanda that she has energy and pray for both of us to not frustrated some things that have not worked out to what we thought.

The First Week Or So

2009-06-02T05:33:00.003-04:00

The guys of summer project on our day off

The Girls of summer project on our day off

Its hard to believe that it has already been a week and a half here in Italy. Today, we get a little free time because of the Italian independence holiday. We have been on campus now for about a week. We as a summer project have gotten to share the gospel many times with students. We had a lot of students go to our barbecue on this past Thursday also. I did not have the best time on campus this week. I was pretty sick on last Tuesday and slept for like 4 hours and fought that off. Also we missed part of Wednesday because we had to turn this document into the post office requesting to live in Salerno. Those things coupled with the language barrier equalled a frustrating time on campus. The language barrier is pushing me to study more Italian even before we start formal language learning with our class or tutor. For now LiveMocha will have to do. Its awesome, free, and like Rosetta Stone.

Since the first six weeks our primary goal is the summer project, we have to try to find English learners as they do. The great thing about the summer project is we are really learning how to be servant leaders and getting to help them in sharing their faith, some for the first time. I have to remember I am here for the long haul and to have patience with building relationships with Italians. I did get to spend time with Pepe who has known the STINTers (11-month interns) since September. I am excited to get to be his friend in the future. I did get to have some good time on Friday playing basketball with Davide who I met at the barbecue and has known the STINTers for 2 months.. That was definitely the highlight of last week. I hope to continue to hang out with him, as he spoils us because he speaks great English.

I hope to update you every week during this season. Its tough because we have a full schedule.

Pictures Finally

2009-05-27T11:08:00.009-04:00

Us in Atlanta

Our Plane

1st night in Salerno

Training

Campus

We are here!

2009-05-22T10:54:00.002-04:00

We have arrived in Salerno! After leaving at 6pm eastern time from Atlanta on 5/18 and we got to Salerno after taking two planes and a 3 hour bus ride at 5pm the next day. Salerno is 6 hours ahead so there was about 17 hours of total travel time! All of our 11 bags got to Salerno okay along with all the students bags which is a total answer to prayer. We did not have to pay any for extra bags because the 7 other men other than me on the summer project we came with totally served us by checking in one of the bags and being responsible for moving the bags to Salerno. We have been pretty much been settling in since then and do a lot of training with the summer team that the year long interns have been doing.

We got to witness an outreach that one of the churches that partners with the ministry and the other Christian ministry on campus put on at the hotel the project stays in last night. Students were not the main focus so there were not many english speakers there for our students for summer project to talk with. I did get to meet Pastor Antonio who is the other pastor we will work with other than Pastor Dominico.

Today was our first day on campus. We got to do about 2 hours of prayer walking as well as learn about where everything is. One of the things that we do not want neglect this summer is prayer. We are calling God to act and preparing our hearts for ministry when we pray. It is a necessary part of ministry.

We have some pictures that we will post at a later time. We have currently misplaced our camera cord in all our bags!

5 More Days To Italy!!!!

2009-05-12T20:36:00.002-04:00

We are counting down the days. There are 3 full days until we leave Saturday morning and 5 until we leave for Italy. We are packing, getting bank accounts set up, planning for babies in Italy, trying to finish our New Testament Survey class, and trying to adequately spend time with all our family. Between those things and all the ones in between, we are busy. There is so much you have to think about before you leave the country, let alone move to another one.

We have been eating at a lot of places that we really like that we will not get to eat in Italy. I am a huge fan of Pei Wei so we got to eat there with my family a few weeks ago. We have gotten our share of Five Guys Burgers and Fries and Jason's Deli's Ranchero Wrap with no jalapenos of course, right Amanda ;). The one that got me was Jeremiah's Italian Ice. Its only in Orlando area. The "gelato" they have is good, but it knocks the real gelato of Italy. I like Jeremiah's but does not compare to the real gelato of Italy. Amanda is going to miss it though. She will just have to get used to the real thing;)

There has been errand nightmares. When I say errand nightmares it means store clerks not knowing what the heck they need to do. I had to go back to a T-mobile store because the store's way of switching from post-paid cell phone plan(regular) to pre-paid(pay as you go) was different than customer service. After much arguing they took back my extra SIM card that I bought :). RadioShack is supposed to know everything about everything and help you buy the right product. I found that was not true when I bought a European Power Adapter. As soon as I got home, I found it does not work in Italy! We bought the right ones online, but had to take the other ones back.

We found out that our financial support goal is going to go up by 10% so our goal is going to be about $8300 give or take. That in some ways has been hard to take because as soon as we reached 100% we have to raise more for the new Walton. In a lot of ways, we trust that the Lord has brought us this far, He is going to do the rest. In a few others, thats easier said than done. We are just ready to do what we have said we want to do for the last 8-9 months. In a lot of ways we feel like we are starting the first day of school going to Italy. We feel excited to go but there is a lot of nervousness about everything working out and about doing ministry. I am learning daily to give everything over to the Lord, everyday. Well, need to go and pack some more suitcases. I look forward to keep you updated.

Here We Go!

2009-04-23T13:03:00.002-04:00

We are leaving in a few weeks to finally embark on our much anticipated journey. Saying goodbye is not something I am good at. If I had it my way, I would just go and not say anything. Its nothing against anyone but just the way I prefer to do things. We do have so many people that have stood by us in so many ways it has been great. In some ways, we feel so independent leaving in a few weeks and in other ways I know that we could not do all this without everyone's support.

Some of you might have seen on facebook the news about us being pregnant. We are thanking God for giving us this incredible surprise. I know most of you are like "Surprise, I think you knew what you were getting yourself into". To make a long story short, with present conditions, we were told by doctors that we could not conceive. The Lord is good! In a lot of ways with being so accountable to everyone for our ministry, I am worried about what people will think. Also since this time is such a transitional time for us that in some ways it looks like it is just something else to think about as we leave and live our lives in Italy. It has been hard for me to struggle to not go into either one of those pitfalls.

We trust that the Lord is sovereign. He does not put on us more than we can handle. He does all things well and He is more than enough for me like two great songs off a Chris Tomlin worship album that we have. Sometimes it also bothers me that I have to fight for joy for this. Even if I am 90% joyful I get angry at myself for being even 10% not. We have to trust the Lord and I have to support my bride as number one. Thanks everyone for your prayers during this time. We are ready to do ministry in Italy, but now mindful of the life growing inside Amanda!

Visa Don't Leave Home Without It

2009-04-12T18:31:00.017-04:00

In this past week, we made a trip to Miami and back to get drop off our visa paperwork! Stuff is getting more and more real for us. We have currently been in Orlando tying up loose ends before we are going to be primarily in Tampa the last 3 weeks that we are here in the United States to say bye to our familie

We went down on Monday after we picked up the paperwork from Crusade headquarters. We got to have some quality time with the team leaders Dylan and Chevas Grace who as our first assignment we are leading the summer project team with.

Here is a picture of Dylan and Chevas. Dylan was my bible study leader my first two years of college.

On Tuesday morning, we went to drop off our visa paperwork at the Italian Consulate. We got there right when it opened and it took a total of ten minutes. They did not even look at our passports as we dropped off the paperwork to see if we said we were!

We had some extra time so we did a little sightseeing around Miami before we left. Here are some pictures of the lighthouse and scenery on Key Biscayne.

Book Suggestions?

2009-03-31T08:38:00.002-04:00

So one of the things that we are thinking about it what books we want to be reading in the next year or so. Not all the surprisingly, English language Christian books aren't readily available in Salerno. We are planning on visiting a used Christian bookstore and stocking up before we go. So we're looking for suggestions. We want to be reading books that really challenge our hearts. We think that we're going to have a lot of practical application in the day to day ministry we'll be doing, so we want to really go deep in our personal reading. So, what have you been reading? Do you have any suggestions for us? What would really encourage our hearts? Please leave us a comment (it's right below this post) or shoot us an email or phone call. Thanks for your help!

Answers to prayer

2009-03-20T16:25:00.002-04:00

We met with a pastor who works with a homeless ministry. We were well recommended to him by people from Amanda's family's church. He was really excited to hear about what we were doing with college students. His ministry has been blessed financially and was looking for a way to give back to ministry overseas. It was clear that this meeting was arranged by the Lord. His ministry is going to support us at $10,000 a year or $833 a month! It has pushed us really close to our goal at about 95%!!!!

We know we could not be able to come across this man and his ministry without people like you praying for us. Also if all the people on our financial support team at $20 a month stopped giving we would be probably back at 85% so that shows how the Lord orchestrates things. From the start God knew that we were going it was just the means on that happening. Please continue to pray as we make logistical plans over the next few weeks. We are still praying to leave in May.

Why Europe?

2009-03-18T14:02:00.005-04:00

Here is an interesting article I read recently about ministry in Europe. All three of the authors are on staff with Campus Crusade (I'm pretty sure). It's not specifically about Italians, but Europeans in general. It is interested to think about how a different culture perspective can greatly impact how one responds to the gospel. This is actually only the first section of the article, but I thought it was the most interesting. Enjoy!

Why Europe?

by Ed Stetzer, Caleb Crider and Larry McCrary

For many, Europe is a place of history or a potential vacation destination. Who really cares about the people and their culture? It is largely a place that has already experienced its best days or made its impact upon the world--the rise and fall of Rome, the rise and fall of the Third Reich, the rise and fall of Great Britain, the rise and fall of the Soviet Union.

Even culturally and spiritually, the great names and great movements are like fond memories--Aristotle, Socrates, Michelangelo, Bach, Beethoven, the Roman Catholic Church, the Reformation. Why would anyone want to focus their attention on Europe?

The Context

According to the latest Eurostat demographic studies (2006), there are 821,000,000 people who live in Europe. The spiritual climate among the European population has been eroding for many years. In a 2005 article, USA Today reported that in some countries like France, Sweden, and the Netherlands, church attendance is less than 10% in some areas.

According to the European Spiritual Estimate (http://emrg.friderich.net/), only 4.2% of that population follow Jesus and demonstrate a concern about the people around them following Jesus. Hundreds of millions of people are waiting to have the opportunity to encounter the transforming power of the gospel. Is the lostness of Europe a reason to be concerned about Europe? Is it possible that God would want to move among the peoples of Europe once again?

As we explore the people and cultural landscape of Europe, it is helpful to think of Europe as a river with three major cultural streams affecting it today. Each stream is a spiritual challenge in itself, but combining the three makes for extra-difficult navigation, when it comes to engaging people with the gospel and starting new churches.

The first stream - which is decreasing in size - is that of the institutional church's decline. This may be the Roman Catholic Church in some countries, the Church of England or the Lutheran church in other parts of Western Europe, but as a whole the churches are declining in attendance. What makes this stream interesting is that, while it is decreasing in size and influence, the veneer of the institutional church still has an impact on the culture.

In Spain, where Larry served for the last five years, his friends would say that they were not part of the church and would speak out against it. In the next sentence, however, they would claim that they were Catholic, thus identifying themselves as religious.

For those of us who live among the peoples of Europe, the opportunity is to help them see it's not about religion but about a relationship with God found through Jesus Christ.

The second stream is the growth and influence of Islam. The flood of Muslim immigrants moving from countries in the 10/40 window to Europe over the last 10 years is incredible. Most major Western European cities have several mosques, and in some cities, mosques are literally buying and replacing the empty cathedrals.

Consider these statistics:

It is projected by the year 2050 that one in every five Europeans will be Muslim.
(Eurostat 2006)

Country / Population / Muslim Immigrants

United Kingdom / 60,776,000 / 1,640,958
Germany / 82,400,996 / 3,213,000
Spain / 40,000,000 / 1,000,000
Netherlands / 16,000,000 / 1,000,000
France / 63,718,177 / 6,737,000

Significant-sized urban areas exist such as Marseille, France or Rotterdam, Netherlands where up to 25 percent of the population are from Muslim backgrounds.

The increase in the number of Muslims moving to Europe makes an impact on the cultural and religious climate. Believers here have a great opportunity for ministry in that we don't face the same restrictions on sharing the gospel as those in closed countries. This gives us some freedom in how we can minister among people. For an interesting blog related to this subject, check out www.reconsidereurope.blogspot.com.

The third stream we need to mention is that of the post-Christian or secular worldview held by many Western Europeans. In most Western European countries, evangelism research shows that less than 2 percent of the population is evangelical. ("European Believers Report", 2007 by Ruth Robinson, Greater Europe Mission)

The only exception to this is Scandinavia, and they have a whopping 3 percent according to most studies. ("European Believers Report", 2007 by Ruth Robinson, Greater Europe Mission) The worldview of most indigenous Europeans is post- Christian/secular.

While most are generally closed to the idea of institutional church, the hope lies in believers who will live out their faith incarnationally in Europe. While living in this context, we have found that the vast majority of people have never had the gospel explained to them in a relevant way.

Cultural Thought - There has always been a flow of cultural influence from Europe to the US. Consider this:

Art - Monet, Goya, Picasso
Philosophy - DeCartes, Locke
Science - Newton, Einstein, Pascal
Cars - Mercedes, BMW, Volvo, Audi, Saab, Volkswagen
Music - Mozart, Beetles, Spice Girls, smile
Fashion - Think of Paris or Milan

With this being said, the cultural climate in the U.S. now is similar to that of Europe a generation ago. It is fertile ground for postmodernism to become the predominant worldview in America.

Thus, we believe that Europe is one of the most strategic places in the world at this moment for evangelism. While there are glimmers of hope in Europe, by and large the national churches have declined so much that they no longer have the sending power which they once possessed. Therefore, the lost populations of Europe need people from other parts of the world to come and offer them the hope of the gospel in a relevant way.

Based on declining church membership, studies show that North America is becoming more closely identified with the emerging post-Christian culture of Europe. We believe that we can learn some things from Europe.

March is for awesome

2009-03-05T09:41:00.003-05:00

Theres three ways you can help us out. Most of you that have met with us in person have heard that phrase. Sometimes, I feel like people are like, " Okay, right, you really want money, why are you trying to disguise it in three ways?". It sometimes hard to believe that myself because finances are what get us to Italy, but prayer and referring other people to us work hand in hand with the finances. I am really starting to see that. If people were not praying we could not do anything. Also, if people were not referring us to people they cared about we would run out of contacts and people praying. We would run out of potential people giving. Its amazing how they work together in the "Circle of Ministry Parter Development". I know that sounds kind of cheesy but its true. Romans 8:28 states, "And we know that all things work together for good for those who are called according to His purpose." Thank you to all those out there who have been praying for us in general and also for us to meet more people to share about our ministry. We have had an influx of Tampa and Orlando referrals. We know its because of prayers and verses that describe God's character like Romans 8:28.

Elizabeth, Amanda's sister is coming in town tomorrow and March 13th is my mom's and Amanda's dad's birthday. Pray for us to spend time with both of our families and still have energy and vigor as we meet with people and share about our-soon-coming-to-reality ministry!

Sunrise to Sunset

2009-02-17T15:09:00.007-05:00

There was like 3 posts in like 3 days and I have not really felt inspired as of late. We had so many group appointments about two weekends ago we wore ourselves out. We had 4 appointments in 3 days. It was good to get to meet close to 50 new people and share about our ministry. One of the nights after sharing, we went out swing dancing on UCF's campus. I wish I could post some pictures but we forgot the camera probably because it was spur of the moment.

The Monday after that weekend, the 9th, we had planned

to have a beach day and a celebrate Valentine's Day dinner. Amanda wanted to wake up for the sunrise and I agreed because we do not always have the opportunity to do stuff like that even though I am more of a sunset kind of guy myself. I felt sick when I woke

up, but thought that it was just because I did not get enough sleep, I get sick to my stomach when that happens sometimes. Little did I know it was the start of the plague. I ended up throwing up on myself at the beach as I was trying to move the car. I really did not know it was coming, it was kind of like a sneeze, and spending a lot of time in the beach bathroom. I did get to see the sunrise in all its glory and spend sometime sleeping off my sickness on the beach. All in all that day I slept close to 7 hours from my original waking time and we had to cut our beach time short.

Amanda got sick the next day when I was feeling better and she recovered on about Thursday. In the middle of the week we had

a few appointments to share about our ministry cancel on us for various reasons, which was discouraging because it happened like 3 nights in a row, but it was okay because Amanda was sick anyway and it probably would not have gone well.

Friday the 13th, we decided to reschedule our Valentine's dinner. It was awesome to get to connect with the woman of my dreams and get to go on a special date with her watching the sunset and going off to dinner both on Clearwater Beach after we had transitioned to Tampa from Orlando on Thursday for a few weeks. We felt like we were missing each other on a few different levels so it was really good to get to pursue her heart and her acknowledge mine.

Thanks for your prayers everyone, we have been meeting new people to share about our ministry and continue to pray for our time in Tampa. Pray that people we are meeting with would make time in their busy schedule to hear about how God is moving in Salerno, Italy and how the we plan to share the gospel of Jesus Christ allowing it to take root in Italians' lives.

Bible in a Year=God's sovereignty

2009-02-02T09:18:00.005-05:00

First let me say please read previous blog because we have done two in two days and my wife did the previous one and she is trying to do more so I do not want to knock her post down a notch with this one today.

You guys must be like whoa what the heck happened, 3 posts in a few days, but I felt inspired so I thought I would go for it. I am not a native blogger, so when I feel like it I need to go for it because who knows when it will happen again.

I am reading the Bible in a year. The book I am reading is online called The One Year Bible. You can click on previous link to read what I am talking about for February 2nd. Do check it out one the actual website because you can start now too and just finish next February 2nd.

The Old Testament reading for yesterday was about Moses escaping with the people to Israel and God parting the Red Sea and all of Pharaoh's men getting drowned when the waters fell on them. I know that this story is always used to share about what is going on in their lives and how the Lord is using them or taking them through the wilderness, so I am weary about using it here, but it does match especially since (I looked ahead in the Bible in a year) and Joshua starts in April. We hope to leave for Italy in May so it might fit for future bloggings. Anyway, we feel in a lot of ways God has kind of led us out of Egypt which was our old way of life, working in our jobs and living in our apartment, thinking we would be done with support raising in January. We are now in this February season at around 75% of our support,

and not knowing where the rest is going to come, feel like we are in the wilderness explained in today's reading. I have compared and contrasted some points.

It took the people of Israel 3 days and it probably took us 3 months to start feeling hopeless, but eventually it will take us right around a year to be in our "support wilderness" but it took them 40 years :)

The Lord gave them Manna everyday and I feel like in this season we get manna by taking everyday at a time.

The Lord currently is preparing us for ministry and those 40 years prepared the Israelites for the promise land because they were not ready.

The people of Israel really felt like they were going nowhere and some days we feel exactly like that complaining and grumbling.

In leading Amanda and I, I feel like Mr. Inadequacy himself, Moses, but I know he has called me to be a Joshua and enter the promise land eventually!

Pic on right is people gathering Manna.

On a lighter note, I went to my first Orlando Magic game of this great season that they are having and last game for a long time this past Thursday. We are probably start doing "last times for a long time" for a lot of things that we enjoy doing that we cant do in Italy as it gets closer to us leaving. I have been a huge fan for a while and found a good deal on a great game against LeBron James and the Cavs and the Magic pulled it out in the end!

Fun around town

2009-02-01T15:29:00.009-05:00

I just wanted to post a few pictures of some of the fun things that we've been going recently. This season of support raising has allowed more free time than we've had in awhile so we're trying to take advantage of the time when we have it. We know that it's only a matter of time before things get crazy again.

We went out to a

local piano bar

with some friends from church. Here's a picture of us with Ryan and Sherry (they are the couple that we live with when we're in Orlando).

We realized the other day that we didn't have any

pictures of the four of us, so now we have at least one!

Rodney also took me out on a fun afternoon date. We starting by having a little picnic at a park that I like. The park has a big open field, but it also has this pretty fountain.

After the park, we went to the humane society to play with some cats. One of the hard parts of our support raising has been that we gave up our cat. Jeremiah now lives with my sister. He seems to actually like her more than us, but we still miss him :( The first picture is Jeremiah, he's "studying" with my sister as you can see. The next picture is the gigantic cat at the humane society who wanted me to pet his belly forever.

Life in 2009

2009-01-29T11:12:00.004-05:00

We are at 75% of our goal! The only way it happened was God because we literally picked up 10% in 10 days. This shows God is in charge of support not us. There are many people who came to us in the last 10 days to be on our support team which is very unusual but refreshing none the less. I would really like to thank everyone who is currently committed and giving and not giving up on us. It would be hard for me to start my monthly gift if the people I was supporting were not on the campus they said they were going to be on. We could not do what we are doing now and putting so much time into support raising if it were not for the people that have started giving. Our ministry has in a way started now and I very much feel a part that is true.

In general, Amanda and I have been doing well. We have our ups and downs but in general we are doing well. Yesterday we talked with Jutty and Abbey, our team leaders in Italy, and we realized how much they need us over there in order to reach the goals and aspirations that we have set for Agape Italia. They helped us remember that this process is part of our sanctification and that we should not look at it as we cannot wait to get out of this season, but this is part of the process that is preparing us to do ministry in Italy. Also with their small children, the adjustment has been hard in a lot of ways and so they are extremely encouraged with us heading over there to be a part of things. It was extremely encouraging because so many times we feel so replaceable, because we feel so weak because we do not have other purposes than to just raise support. We cannot hold jobs nor have consistent ministry in one place because we travel so much between Tampa and Orlando.

We are starting to think about logistical stuff such as bank accounts, plane travel, Vonage phones, etc. When I say we, I mean mostly Amanda. She loves to look up this kind of stuff and plan and find the best deals. I love my wife! We actually have a reason to start doing things and thinking about things because we are so much closer. This is the update for now, I feel good no tangents this time!

Wisdom.......in your teeth?

2009-01-14T09:51:00.002-05:00

Greetings to everyone who reads these collection of thoughts, gripes, or tangents. We are doing well, considering the crazy idea that we got on this past Tuesday after going to the dentist. We decided to pull all FOUR of Amanda's wisdom teeth on Thursday. We decided since we were getting back in the swing of things and stuff was still kind of slow since people are trying to catch up from their holiday activities. It was fun in one sense because I got to share my crazy wisdom teeth stories from when I was a junior in high school, about the nurse joking that she was going to steal my watch and shoes when I was under the laughing gas and I said, "Sure, that's fine" and laughed as the doctor said, "Turn down his gas dosage what are you going to do kill him?" Also two days later after getting them pulled I went on first date with my best-friends-girl-friends-friend to a comedy movie. Dont ever do that it was a bad idea since you havent brushed your teeth in a few days and laughing rips out stitches :) What was great is as I met with people and talked to people at church I heard stories of waking up with the teeth puller wrench in their mouth. One guy had so much laughing gas and only had local anastesia(area numbed around mouth but not put to sleep) that he actually liked getting his teeth pulled and told the doctors he wanted to do it again. A mother who made two of her children out at the same time so she did not have to go through it again, that must have been crazy. There are other ones I do not remember and I need to stop rambling.
Amanda is recovering nicely....her jaw hurts from time to time but she is able to move around and she does not have swelling any longer. Her right side is worse than her left, so she could still develop there but she should be okay. Continue to pray for her recovery.
Lastly, I want to leave everyone with a thought. I am reading through the Bible in a year and over the last few days I have been reading about Jacob and Esau. Jacob was said to have his older brother serve him before they were born. Still through God's sovereignty he still received the blessing from his father, Isaac, after deceiving Esau and Isaac. I have a problem with it, because I have this thing that everything should be fair and if I put in 50 hours a week in support raising related activities that I should be blessed financially congruently. Support Raising just does not work that way and I have to remember just if I do not deem something as fair that it still might be in our Awesome God's sovereign plan.
I also found it interesting that he got deceived by Laban his uncle later when he wanted to marry Rachel. I think it is interesting in the Bible when certain characters get grace at certain times and when some get consequences. I always try to map in out with no avail in my head, because there is no pattern. What I do recognize is that God answers prayer and somehow mysteriously it changes outcomes and hearts, what I do not know is how it happens. Just a few thoughts into how I am processing things during one of the most difficult seasons of my life.

Its a New Year!!!

2009-01-05T15:20:00.002-05:00

2009....More importantly today is the first Monday in 2009. This way you can see if all the things you want to do in the new year really get off to a new start. It is good to be back in Orlando. I know all our family is in Tampa, but not to hurt any of their feelings, we just feel like Orlando is our home. It is kind of weird since both of us spent the majority of our lives in Tampa. Maybe its the Uptown Altamonte that we have gotten so used to walking around in the morning and night. Maybe its OGC our awesome church that we have attended for the last 3 years. Or it could be that we live about 5 minutes from the dollar movie theater. Whatever it is we love Orlando. I do not really know why I went off about Orlando, since we will be moving to another country in a few months.
The Christmas break we had of about two weeks was good for us. At first, I thought it was going to be crazy because the 19th-25th when we were in Tampa, there was never a dull moment even though we really had nothing planned at the beginning of the week. It was good to see my grandmother get out of the hospital okay on the 22nd. I thought it was going to be twice in a row with my mom getting out of the hospital on Christmas Eve last year.
All the Christmases we celebrated which each of our families went well and we got lots of gifts! The favorite thing I got was a toss up between Bluegrass worship music from Amanda (yes I like bluegrass and not country, it just puts me in a good mood always ;) and James Bond monopoly from Amanda's mom, Terri. I am not sure what Amanda's favorite gift was but it was probably her watch.
We left for Illinois on Christmas day out of Orlando so we had to drive there in the morning. It was not too bad, we saved a lot of money doing it. Illinois was so cold. There was ice on the ground for two days but it never snowed:( I got to know Amanda's grandmother, aunt, uncle, and cousins better. It was good for us to take a break for those two weeks including the week we were in Illinois. I did not realize how much we needed it until January 2nd or 3rd. It is a new year and I am trying to think about support in a new way with God's help as we are now back, ready to go, trying to figure a lot of stuff out for the rest of winter and Spring like where a few hundred more contacts are going to come from. Continue to pray for us we need it!

The Eve of Christmas Eve

2008-12-23T10:04:00.008-05:00

It has been a long time since we have shared what we have been up to. We got some

appointments in

Tampa after Thanksgiving. It was good to get to see a few people after Thanksgiving before stuff gets really crazy in mid-December. We tried to take some potential Christmas card pics. They did not really turn out and the one we kept is the last one from Miami, but we did get some great modeling pics:)

We went back to Orlando for some Christmas

parties. We were going to miss a lot of parties since we were planning on going to

Miami for a week to meet with some people down there. It is good to see people and meet with people in a non-support raising setting. When you are support raising, many times you can feel like you are on an island where that is all you do and all you know. While we were in Orlando, we met with some referrals and some other people we had been trying to get in touch with for a while. Sometimes I feel like when we are not going to be in a city for a short amount of time, it ends up working out better for us to meet with people. I thought it would work the other way, but it usually does not.

We traveled back to Tampa on Wednesday because we had a small group we were speaking at that night. It was a good to sit in on the small group and be reminded about what transparent Christianity looks like. We are all over the place sometimes we do not get to see our own small group for months at a time. We also gathered some things that we had left in Tampa.

The next day we left for Miami. We knew a few people down there so it turned out being pretty good with us getting 7 appointments in a week.

We had a few funny stories while we were down there. The first of which we sent some of our Christmas photos to the CVS for previewing. The problem was we sent them to the wrong CVS and wrote the store number down wrong. We eventually found the CVS, but just to show you there are 4 in 3 miles on U.S. 1.

One of our appointments there was a knitting club that was that was having there Secret Santa party known as The Sweet Stitchin' Betties. If you do not believe me go to their blog.

It was good to get some time in a place where we were the only people currently living there. Thanks Jason and Judith Ann Stubblefield! We were able to stay in their place while they went home to visit family.

The trip was hard only in the fact that we did not know where we were going, there was sporadic traffic, and Miami is an advanced driving city unlike Tampa and Orlando which is only intermediate. A lot of old high school driving habits started surfacing again :) All in all we enjoyed our time to Miami and we have a lot more contacts when we make our trip to go down to get our Visa hopefully in a few months!

We are currently in Tampa and fly out to Illinois on Christmas Day to visit some of Amanda's extended family and then fly back New Year's Day to Orlando, where hopefully our traveling will settle down a bit. Flying on holidays cuts your flight cost in half which we are totally all about!

Thanksgiving Debrief

2008-11-29T10:59:00.005-05:00

We have had the craziest two days! We had one Thanksgiving dinner with my mom, Ben, and my grandparents at their place at 1pm. We had a good time, but were sad my uncle could not make it as he had the flu. Before I go on, I want to stop here because I have a tangent to go off on. Thanksgiving is not a Jesus Christ holiday like Christmas is. I think in a lot of ways Thanksgiving is just important in some valuable principles. It helps prepare our hearts to be thankful before the holiday season even begins. I know a lot of people think Thanksgiving is just an excuse to watch football during the week or make a big meal or a "Turkey Day", but I want to make sure I am grateful before I eat it. There are so many people especially in the U.S. especially this year who do not have much. I do not want to take it for granted what I have and I pray for them to hold on and thank God for simpler things so He can get them through.

After our first Thanksgiving, we had a second at Amanda's mom's at 6pm. It was a good amount of time for my food to digest from the first. The food was also very good and I really think I gained about 5 pounds in one day (the scale said I did, I was not exaggerating). After dinner, we went through our ads and planned our black Friday agenda.

Friday morning we awoke at 3:55 am. Yes, 3 and 4 am are sleeping hours and we awake during them. We headed to JC Penney and then Wal-Mart at 5am. This was our first mistake because it was absolutely insane for electronics. I dropped off the girls, Amanda, her mom, and her sister, Liz and proceeded to find a parking spot. About twenty minutes later gave up and waited for them. I found out Liz yelled at a lady for pushing my wife about ten feet with the front of a shopping cart. We vowed never to go to Wal-Mart again when it opened. We also heard about a man who was trampled to death in New York. Next we went to Office Depot where a lady yanked a wireless printer, Amanda's mom's present, out of my wife's hand. We ended up finding some more so it was not such a big deal, it was just the principle of the thing. We were out till about 1230 pm as Amanda's mom had a lot of shopping to do. We got all of our shopping done for our family done in one day with sweet deals!

A lot of guys out there are like what the heck are you doing? Shopping for that long? Well, yes, Amanda has a good time and I do too as long as we keep moving. I make the whole operation run smooth, the chauffeur if you will ;)

The end of the day was us getting a Christmas tree, setting it up at Amanda's dad's house where we stay when we are in Tampa, and decorating it. The end of the end of the day was Rodney, asleep, face down on the ottoman. :)

Where have we been for 2 weeks?

2008-11-26T14:34:00.006-05:00

Greetings! I said we have to do this more and then did not post for over 2 weeks. Pretty ironic I think. We have been busy always trying to stay flexible. We are the traveling roadshow. Traveling between Tampa and Orlando trying to always meet with people. We are thinking as we meet with people either the holidays will be fruitful because people get more generous around the holidays or people will be extremely busy and have many holiday gifts to buy.

One of my favorite things that we have done in the last two weeks is that we attended Flavor Fest 2008 on the night of November 7th at Crossover Community Church in Tampa Florida. I have been growing up going to Christian rap shows there for years. It was really fun for me, but it was also the first time that Amanda had ever attended. She was a good sport and stood with me for about three hours as we walked around from stage to stage and hanging out with a guy I worked with at Pershing last year, Brian or Alpha Simplicity.

We got to talk to Jutty on the 14th. It was a much anticipated call that had a lot of business in the hour we talked. We did get to hear about the focus on the 25 Italians that have shown interest in the ministry instead of meeting new ones. I think this is extremely important if we want to have Italians taking ownership of the ministry within the next year or two. We are excited to keep in touch with them every 1-2 weeks to keep a fresh vision. I think it is easy for us to get lost in what the vision is for Italy with not being there. It is also easy to blame the people over there for not contacting us as much as I would have them do so. We have to remember that they are running the ministry and now with Vonage phones we can call, too!

This past weekend we got to visit Glenwood Presbyterian in DeLand on November 23rd. We spoke at few Sunday school classes. It was good because some stuff in Saint Augustine and Jacksonville did not work out. It was good to share our vision with some people either of us had not known in our pasts.

We are excited about Thanksgiving tomorrow!!!

We Need to Do This More

2008-11-07T16:10:00.004-05:00

We are in Tampa for the weekend and then coming back to Orlando for Tuesday and Wednesday because of Amanda's work and then back to Tampa on Thursday for a dessert that some people from Amanda's old church are throwing for her. Then, we have no clue I guess if there are people in Tampa that still want to meet with us and then we will stay here or if there are people in Orlando we will go back for that next week, it is kind of up in the air. We are going to be in Saint Augustine the weekend of the 22nd because Clay Nettles mom, Diane is throwing a dinner for us. We might go to Jacksonville the week prior or after the 22nd because there are some people there we want to meet with there. So we are basically nomads with no home and no consistent plans.

God keeps placing encouraging appointments right where we need them. It really has revealed to us more of His character. It does not mean that we still have gotten frustrated in the last few weeks, but our trip to Tampa has been a lot more encouraging that the first time we went. We are thankful for everyone's prayers!!

We are staying as busy as we can during the day, but sometimes it is tough as stuff slows down some days. We have learned to play about an hour of board games a few days during the week. Among our favorites is Mancala. It is game that you really have to think at and Amanda and I are pretty even at it. As much as I want to do support related stuff all the time because I do not want to regret that I could have done more, i need to have time with the Lord, play games, and exercise to be healthy. Just ask Amanda I can get pretty intense about support raising. As silly as it sounds, Mancala can help balance me out sometimes.

Wanting To Quit, But Continuing To Go By His Grace

2008-10-24T15:47:00.004-04:00

I love this blog because I can just be honest on here. We share about the fun things we do, because when we are not doing fun things 80% of the time we are literally are trying to raise support. That might be sending emails, making calls, meeting with people, sending out letters, designing prayer letters, talking through strategy, praying, writing thank you notes, etc. There is so much that goes into raising support mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually. When you are not raising support and "taking a break" you are still thinking about what you need to do. It is a job where you can always be doing more even if you are working at it from 8am to 9pm. It never leaves your mind with strategy and to do lists are always floating about in your head.

In addition, I have never really been as passionate as I am right now for the vision for Salerno, Italy for anything else that I did probably since I joined Kappa Sigma in the beginning of 2006, but even then I had to be laid back in a sense because I had to be very spiritually aware and cautious. I also had a drive playing sports in high school, but never for school in general in high school or college or working in the business world. For all of you out there that are saying, "What about your wife?", I say she is above this category because she is not something I did, she is more of the teammate running along side of me not a trophy or task that I accomplished, not ever a goal or objective.

So why do I say all of this? I say it to try to make people that have never really ever had anything that they are involved with other than there family or ever raised support a glimpse at what I am doing and why it is so hard when they do not really realize it is hard at all. The passion and the amount of dedication can cause me to be a workaholic and not really at times trust God to do anything, but almost a "I've got this Jesus" mentality. You called me to this and I am not going to let you down. Also the more passionate you are about something, the harder you work at it. I have got to trust Him daily in ministry in general, support raising or not, not only when I do not know what else to do or am really frustrated but always. He is the one with the plan who already knows how exactly our support is going to come in anyway.

Proverbs 3:5-6--Trust in the LORD with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;
in all your ways acknowledge him,
and he will make your paths straight.

Visiting the Billy Graham Library

2008-10-20T20:51:00.010-04:00

While we were visiting Rodney's grandfather near Charlotte, North Carolina we had the chance to visit the Billy Graham Library. If you're ever in the area, it was pretty interest to spend two or three hours learning more about Billy Graham's ministry. By the way, it's also free to get in, which always makes things better in my opinion. On the property is the house that Billy grew up in, Ruth's gravesite, a cafe and a museum full of videos and exhibits. Below are some of our pictures.

Here are Rodney and I near the front entrance:

This is the house the Billy Graham grew up in that way taken apart, brick by brick, and moved to this property, about 8 miles from it's original location:

One of my favorite part of the museum was Bessy the Talking Cow. She talked about Billy's life growing up on a dairy.

Okay, here's one more picture from one of the displays in the museum. Enjoy!

Why minister on a college campus?

2008-10-11T19:20:00.007-04:00

In case you've missed us, we're up in North Carolina/Georgia for a few days. Things have been going well so far, getting some much needed R&R. We spent most of the day with Rodney's grandfather and had the chance to visit the Billy Graham library, which was very cool. We'll have more on that (with pictures) on the next post.

I found this article about why college students are a strategic group of people to minister to. It was a great reminder for me about the importance of what we are hoping to do. Whether it's students in Salerno, Italy, or students on your local college campus, wherever that may be, college students are great to invest you life and your time into. Enjoy!

Why College Students are Strategic

By Ken Cochrum with Amber Kineer

Teachable

They ask questions. THey consume information on a rapid level and can put an idea to action with proper motivation. New challenges tend to provoke new curiosity or heart openness concerning personal purpose, convictions and life goals.

Starting Fresh

They are setting a new life trajectory. The decisions made, the habits formed, and the friendships forged during the college years tend to set the course for a lifetime.

Leading

They are the educated elite that will most likely lead in every domain of society -- government, religion, military, education, even sports and entertainment. Our future leaders will be people who went to college.

Unfettered

They are free to take incredible risks. They are unfettered by commitments, mortgages, career ladders and kids. They are free to go anywhere the Lord leads.

Growing

They form a large presence. The number of college students in the world has increased from about 60 million to about 120 million in the past decade.

Seeking Identity

They desire significance. College students want to feel part of something bigger. THey want their life to count for something and they want a cause to live for.

Global

They are connected to a global student culture. Facebook, Myspace, Twitter and similar online social networks enable students to be accessible to their peers -- anytime, anywhere.

Innovative

The revolution of digital information has radically changed how people learn.. The average student is online 3 and a half hours per day. Paper books and printed Bible studies have given way to podcasts, short films, text messages and chat forums.

Integrated

They fuse with society. Students don't congregate on the campus but spill over into coffee shops, internet bars and along the city center. Increasingly, they don't even live on campus because there aren't enough dorm spaces. They're out in the city.

Active

Students are constantly searching for new ways to get involved with student culture and find a niche. They try many things and are exposed to new organizations, clubs, social groups, classes and professors every semester.

Tasteful Reminders

2008-10-04T11:30:00.007-04:00

We have been in Tampa now for a little over two weeks staying at Amanda's house that she grew up in in New Tampa. It has been a great setup for us as Amanda's dad has been extremely flexible with us coming and going. He even lent me a car when Amanda had to go back to Orlando for two days so I could drive around for those two days. It has also been good catching up with people we usually do not have time to see and spend time with since our whole family is in Tampa and we usually see them the most of the short time we are usually in Tampa. We have been looking at our trip of more of an exploration trip. We have gotten addresses and stuff is more clear on what next time in Tampa is going to look like which I look like a win in a lot of ways. We have inserted fun breaks in between all the people we have been meeting with. We visited the Gelateria Del Duomo which I had noticed in a brief trip to Tampa's International Plaza to pick up something for my sister-in-law, so when we returned to the International Plaza because of long story that involved maybe picking up my mom's husband Ben from the airport that never happened, we or maybe I should say I needed to stop. I do not want to go into great detail or length explaining my great love for gelato. I think that to make a long story short I do not really like ice cream that much or sweets in general to be frank, but Italian gelato I absolutely love and cannot get enough of! Cream based gelato (chocolate, hazelnut, etc.) contains only 6% fat and fruit based gelato contains none! If you do not know what I am talking about and want some explanation and a visual check out www.gelateriadelduomo.com. It was sooooooo good! It was the most authentic gelato I have tasted in the U.S. and up in the top five that I have tasted Italy! It was kinda pricey but one of my highlights for the week. (It does not take much to make me happy). It was kinda bittersweet in a way because it made me really want to be in Italy and upset that we were not there. On the other hand I wanted to be in Italy not to eat gelato, but to do the ministry God has called us to do. The gelato tastefully reminded me of what God is doing in our own lives and to not give up. We are now about to leave for Orlando today and stay until next Friday where we leave to go on our 10 day North Carolina/South Carolina/Georgia excursion.

The new Rays

2008-09-24T09:57:00.007-04:00

One of our first activities we did, once we got to Tampa, was to go to a Rays game against the Minnesota Twins. We always try to do at least one fun, non-support related event a week so that we do not go crazy. The first inning was littered with scoring with 8 runs scored by both teams including a fly ball that landed one seat over and two and half rows up into an old lady's lap. I was not on my 'A' game since it was just the 1st inning and did not go over there and snag it since there were open seats and I could have. The Rays ended up blowing the game in the 9th after they were up two runs and all they needed was three outs. This was my third Rays game in their 11 years and I thought I was watching the Rays of old who only won 70 games in a season once in their previous ten years. I would say the other crazy surprise of the game was an older gentlemen in the section over from us received a baseball to the top of the head after it bounced off the upper deck but he was okay. Thats it for the sport report, back to support raising! Enjoy the pictures!

Keep On Keeping On

2008-09-12T10:21:00.003-04:00

We are nearing the end of our 8th week. Support is going well, we are on pace to reach our goal still, but we are starting to get more one time gifts than monthly which could be a problem later on. I am learning when trusting God for things that current circumstances do not mean a thing, Chicken wing. Sorry had to do that. Anything could happen the next day or the next week, so what is happening now is something you kinda just put in the back of your head and look on. We attended our small group bible study last night. We are just starting a new series that we are going to attend when we can but we are going to be starting to be all over the place. We just had dinner and did an introduction to the book and I was encouraged and so was Amanda. We absolutely loved being a part of it last spring before it had a summer intermission. We both love being around people who like going deeper into each others' lives and the fact their are people that are from different stages of life. I wish we had a picture of everyone to share.

We are heading out to Tampa to make our first 2-3 week excursion on the 18th. At first I was okay and ready to go. Then, I got really frustrated because some things were not working out as I had hoped and now I am doing well again. This situation is just another one of the circumstances where I knew God was working because people were praying.

I felt like I was always on the side growing up as the one praying for people as they are in difficult situations, but now as the one prayed for, I know it makes a difference in our everyday lives. It is really hard to explain, but I can actually feel my faith being affected. For instance, stuff kinda turned around about the Tampa thing Tuesday night. I realized it today that our church had a quarterly prayer night that we could not attend that without a shadow of a doubt we were being prayed for there. Thanks to everyone who is praying, keep doing it!! Let me know what your prayer needs also because the primary people I am praying for are people I am talking to and that are excited about our ministry.

Check out these videos

2008-09-08T21:18:00.002-04:00

I just wanted to take a minute to highlight two links to video clips that are now available on our blog. If you look over on the right side of the page, under the links section you will see 3 things listed. The first is a link to setup an online gift. The next two are video clipping about the ministry in Italy. The first one, The Condition of Italy, was made by a former UCF student and now professional video producer/editor/guy. It talks all about the spiritual climate of Italians, especially among young people. If you want to know more about why we are going to Italy, this is a great place to start. The second video, Marko Rosetti's Testimony, is the impact that the ministry has had on the life of one man. Marko has had the opportunity to meet many of the students and staff that Campus Crusade has sent to Salerno over the past four years. His family owns the hotel where many of the short term students had stayed. By just seeing the lives of Christians in fellowship with one another, and through many intentional conversations over the years, Marko has come into a personal relationship with Christ. It is powerful to see and to hear the words come from a man who has been impacted by the ministry. Both of these videos are a great glimpse of what gets us excited about the ministry in Salerno. Enjoy!

Meet more of the team

2008-09-04T12:23:00.006-04:00

In addition to the long-term team, there is also a group of interns that are making a ten month commitment to live and work on the campus in Salerno. They recently attended a briefing in Colorado for all of the teams of interns being sent all over the world. Most of them are recent college graduates although two of them are returning for a second year of interning in Salerno. You will also see Jutty and Abbey (and Bryce and Addison) and Amanda Craig in the picture as well. Since they are supervising the intern team, they also attended the summit. All of the interns are leaving for Salerno next week so please keep them in your prayers as they are making some last minute preparations and saying goodbye to lots of friends and family.

Post Fay

2008-08-25T12:31:00.004-04:00

The Tropical Storm is finally over!!!! I have to eat my words a little about getting a little bit of rain because some places around here got about 2 feet in like 4 days. Things were a little dreary with us not seeing the sun from when it went down last Sunday night until this past Friday and us not having many appointments. God did provide Amanda with two part time steady jobs which is a total answer to prayer!!!! We are focusing on this week and things are already 10 times better than last week with much more appointments and no storm. We also are looking forward to this weekend with Josh and Cheree's wedding this weekend, as I am a groomsman. Just a little update...thanks everyone for their prayers!

<--Josh and Cheree

Tropical Storm Fay and the storm we call our lives

2008-08-19T12:41:00.005-04:00

Ahhhhh......Hurricane....no tropical storm....headed for Tampa....no headed for us...nope headed for Fort Pierce and we have some rain. I love when this happens and it always does. The storm changes direction and the weathermen are not really predicting where the storm is going but are really more like announcers in telling us what is happening. No one knows what LeBron James is going to do before he does it so why should we know what God's wonder of the hurricane is going to do?

Anyway enough of that because I can go on and on. Amanda and I are still going strong. Appointments have gone down a little this week but the Lord is still good! We are at about 23% of committed monthly support! We are still learning how to work together, we know how to be married as two working professionals, but not as two missionaries on one car and with one computer. This season of our lives has definitely pushed us closer together making us rely more on each other than we were relying on each other before. There are so many things that both of us have a say in and have to work together at them like never before. In staying with storms, we can call our lives a storm sometimes. With all the crazy stuff that happens in everyone's life one can be drowned by the rain, tossed by the waves or "storm surge" and blown about by the winds and feel like things are not fair. In Matthew 8:23-27, Jesus calms the storm when all the disciples were afraid in the boat. What gets me about this story is that Jesus was asleep when the storm was going, He was already calm before He calmed the storm. It does not matter how large the storm, He is more powerful than any of it! We can trust that even though storms come, Jesus will calm them. His disciples did not have faith, He called them out for it and still calmed the storm. We can trust Jesus to calm the Tropical Storm Fays of our lives!

Meet the team

2008-08-15T20:32:00.028-04:00

We thought that we would introduce you to the rest of our team so that you can put some faces with the names. So here they are...

First, this is Jutty and Abbey Valiquette. Jutty is going to be co-leading our team. In the picture are their two children, Bryce, on the right, who is 16 months old, and Addison, on the left who 4 months old now. They are leaving for Salerno very soon so please be praying for their travel. It could be pretty tricky with the two kids. Here's a link to Jutty and Abbey's webpage if you'd like to check it out: www.justinandabbey.com

Next we have Amanda Craig. (Yes, that's right, 2 Amanda's on a team of 7 people, I can't explain it). She is co-leading the team with Jutty. Amanda has been living in Italy for most of the past few years. She's been in Orlando this summer raising support and receiving some more training, so we've had a chance to get to know her a little bit which has been a blessing.

And finally we have Bentley and Sarah Love Crawford. They both attended Ole Miss and interned there with Campus Crusade for the past year. Before that, Sarah Love spent a year moving on the campus in Salerno. We got to know them this summer too during New Staff Training. They are both very friendly and certainly have that southern style to them, if you know what I mean.

So this is them! These are the people that we are going to be ministering with for the next few years. We are so excited to be there. Just working on this post has reminded me (Amanda) of how much we want to be there soon. Jutty and Abbey are leaving in the next week and Amanda is leaving a few weeks after that. Bentley and Sarah Love are still raising support like us so they don't know when they are leaving yet either. I can't wait for the day that we are all there together. I know God will do it, all of it in His timing.

Support Raising has begun!

2008-08-13T21:09:00.008-04:00

It's hard to believe that we have been working on raising support for 3 weeks already. The first week or so we spend a lot of time moving out of our apartment. The next questions becomes, well then, where are you living? Our friends Ryan and Sherry have opened up their guest room for us during this phase of support raising. It's been fun already. Living in community is certainly encouraging. However, Ryan did just get a Wii video games system for his birthday so it's hard not to let that become a distraction at times, but we're doing good so far.

Some people have asked what support raising really look like. What do you do with your time? We have been asking that same type of question over the past several weeks too. We want to be good stewards of our time and work hard everyday. But at the same time we know that we need boundaries and responsible expectations for ourselves so we don't burn out. The evenings are the busiest times for us. We try to have an appointment every evening where we are meeting with someone in their home for dinner or dessert to share about the vision. Any evening that we are not meeting with someone, this is crucial time that we can be on the phone with people, setting up upcoming appointments. During the day on Saturday and Sunday afternoon are also great times to make phone calls. On weekdays during the day time we do most of the administrative type work, sending thank you notes, emails, logging information into our support raising database, etc. We also have a correspondence seminary class that we are working on each week. It's a New Testament survey course and we're supposed to be investing about 5 hours a week listening to lectures, completing the readings and assignments. So with all of that, we seem to be staying pretty busy. I've attached a couple of pictures of Rodney working on support stuff, on the computer and on the phone. Those are the two main places that we are most of the time.

Anyway, I hope this gives you a little bit of a picture of the logistics of support raising. I know, I didn't really share much about how we are doing emotionally and spiritually, but at least I got a post on the blog. That's a start, right?