Insieme (Italian for together)

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

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...

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)!

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

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

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

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

Less Than 2 Weeks!

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

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

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

Finishing Up At USF

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...

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 :)