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
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
