Back to Normal Life

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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.