New York State of Mind

Well it's official: our summer in Italy is over. Sad but true. We arrived in New York last Thursday evening after a very long day of International travel. Don't get me wrong, we were ready to get back to the U.S., but we were also sad to be leaving the place that was our home for more than 2 months. We definitely enjoyed our last few days in Italy, and have also enjoyed our time here in NYC. I wish I could write about everything that has happened, but unfortunately we'll have to settle for some highlights. Here are just a few:

We knew that we would have a few days to do some fun stuff our last week in Italy, so we took a couple of days and enjoyed them. On the Saturday before we left, Josie, Brian, and I all went back to Cinque Terre and enjoyed a day at the beach. We really had a blast swimming in the Mediterranean and getting a little bit of a tan. The next day was our last Sunday, and last worship service, with the church in Prato. I was able to say a few words (with Mike translating of course!!) to the church about how grateful we were to them, and how much we would miss them. After church we all planned to get together again before we left, so we didn't have to say all of our goodbyes then. Later that night, there was a little fair going on in Prato, so we got to check that out and see what a fair looks like in Italy. It's a little different than what we were used to, but not much really. On Monday, Josie and I decided to stay in and pack our things and clean up before we left on Wednesday morning for Rome. Tuesday was our last full day in Tuscany, so we decided to go back into Florence and see some of the things we had still not experienced. We stopped off at the market to snag a few souvineers, then we caught a open-top sightseeing tour bus. We had done this same thing in London a couple of years ago, so we knew that we would really enjoy it. We weren't disappointed. We got to see so much of Florence that we would never have gotten to see. Plus, the tour tells you all the history behind what you are seeing, which makes it so much more interesting. After spending the day in Florence, we headed back to Prato for a little get-together that the church members had planned. We all ate pizza and talked and laughed, enjoying our last night of fellowship together. We said our emotional goodbyes, then headed back to our apartment for the last time. Early Wednesday morning we grabbed our bags and headed to the train station for Rome. Since the train ride is about 3 hours, and we needed to be at the airport by 11am, we decided that it would be better to just stay the night in Rome to avoid any potential problems. We booked a night at the Hotel Riviera in Fiumicino, just outside of Rome and only 10 minutes from the airport. This place was special for us since it is the same hotel that we all stayed in 4 years ago when we first arrived in Italy. This place was also great because it is only a couple of blocks away from the beach! So, instead of going into Rome, we spent the rest of the day in Fiumicino at the beach. It was a perfect ending to a great 2 months in Italy. We really couldn't have asked for anything better. The next morning we started our long day in the air by flying out to Amsterdam first, then on to NY.

The first thing we wanted to do when we got to New York was sleep!! After a long flight like that, I'm usually pretty worn out. Josie's dad picked us up at the airport, and took us back to his house in the Bronx were we got a good nights sleep. We've been here since then, mostly relaxing and trying not to melt in this heat!! On Sunday, Josie and I jumped on the subway for a short trip to see her grandmother and sister who live here as well. Josie got to show me around her old neighborhood a little and take some pictures of her old school and playground. It was also good to spend the day with her family, especially since it was her grandmother's birthday. It was a little confusing for me, however, since they all speak Spanish and my mind is still stuck in Italian! I can see that it's going to take a little time to get used to speaking Spanish again. :) We had a good time visiting with everyone there, and then headed back to her father's house for the night. Then next day I had a meeting with Jared Looney, a church-planter here in the Bronx. I have been in contact with him for the last several months about their work here, so this was a great opportunity to meet with him in person and discuss the work here. They are doing a great work, and I enjoyed hearing about their successes and failures here in this very difficult field. Josie and I are planning on meeting with the church that meets in their home on Friday night, so we are looking forward to getting a first-hand look at church planting here in the Bronx. On Tuesday, we decided to head into the city for a little sightseeing. New York City is one of our favorite places in the world, so we definitely wanted to see it at least once while we were here. We decided to take Bobby, one of Josie's brothers, along with us since he hasn't been to the city very often. He wanted to see the Statue of Liberty, so we started there. After seeing Lady Liberty, we headed back up town, taking in the city and all its sights. After walking around for a few hours and seeing a lot of cool stuff, we decided to head back home to avoid being caught in the rain. We hope to get back into the city again before we leave, but I'm not sure if that will happen or not. Rain is in the forcast for the rest of the week, so we'll just have to see what happens.

I had really wanted to add some overall reflections from our time in Italy to this post, but since it is so long already, I think I'll save that for later. In the mean time, just know that we are doing very well, and enjoying the blessings that God fills our lives with every day. I hope the same is true for you all as well. Please continue to pray for us as we seek to do His will, and that we might be shining lights in the darkness. Also remember our brothers and sisters in Italy, and those here in the Bronx. God bless you all.

Aaron

Weddings, trips, and joy!

Hey there everybody!!!
We have exactly one week left till it's time for us to head home. We have so much to share with you guys about all that we have learned and all that God has taught us during our time here, but I'm gunna leave that to Aaron. Instead, I'm gunna share with you about the really cool things that we've been able to do these past couple of weeks. We have been able to participate in all kinds of neat activities and I simply can not wait to fill you guys in.


First off, we were asked by a member of the church to sing at his wedding. Luigi, the groom, really wanted a few of us to sing some pretty acappella songs for the ceremony. Talk about a honor!! and PRESSURE! I mean Italian weddings are a HUGE deal. They spend alot of time planning them and spend tons of money to make them just perfect, the last thing I wanted was for us to go "off" and ruin their whole ceremony=) Thankfully, we practiced and we did pretty well. The wedding was a smaller one( 35 people) and it was at a garden on the top of a mountain. It was gorgeous, hands down the prettiest location I've seen in a long time! The ceremony was quite similar to the ones we have in the States, there were prayers, songs, the reading of the vows...etc. The only things that I thought were different was that they sat in 2 chairs, and that before they were pronounced husband and wife they had to sign this paper ( them and 3 witnesses). All in all, it was beautiful. We sang and then they let us stay for the appetizers, and then we had to leave. The dinner part of Italian weddings is the biggest deal. They eat for like 4 or 5 hours, like 7 courses.....all paid for by the couple. AYE! Talk about expensive, no wonder we weren't invited=) Wish you guys could of seen it. It rocked! And for a little while, I really felt like we helped to make their special day a little more perfect=)



Next on the list of cool activities, is our trip to San Gimignano. Ok, so we have developed a close friendship with a couple named Deborah and Orfeo (members of the church). We have spent quite a bit of time with them in the time that we have been here. Well, one day they had this great idea for us to take a trip together to one of the little towns on the Tuscan hillside just to enjoy our time together and for us to get a better feel for Tuscany. We decided on San Gimignano, the Manhattan of Tuscany, and lemme tell you how glad I am that we did. It's simply breath taking! It's called Manhattan because of it's many towers. It used to have like over 100 tall towers, now it only has 7 but they are pretty neat. Ok, so our trip. We ending up going with Deborah's whole family( who was already in town for the wedding) =). It was a blast, exploring and experiencing life in the small town. We all got to have some pretty neat conversations, some even spiritually focused, so besides the fun, I think that the trip was a success! =)




The fourth of July was classic! One of the Aimers has been developing a friendship with an American girl who lives here in Prato, but who isn't a member of the church. Her name is Julianna. Anyway, Juliana invited us all to spend the day with her and her fiance at the lake. We were thrilled and we planned for this pretty traditional fourth. I mean, we had hot dogs, sloppy joes, peach cobbler...the works! We spent the day soaking up the sun, talking, and swimming. My 3 favorite things!!! It was cool though because, it gave me the chance to really talk to the Aimer girls and encourage them. Girls have some of the best conversations when they are laying out=) We were thankful for that little piece of home on that special holiday!



The last really interesting thing that we did was this last Sunday. The whole church decided to head up the mountains after church top attend the annual "Wild Boar Festival". =) . It was all new to me, but they were all pretty pumped. We all caravaned up this curvy and really dangerous mountain road to get to the festival, that was at the summit of a huge mountain. It was scary but really neat. When we got there, we heard Italian folk music and saw what looked like a little fair. It was soo cool. Old people were dancing and waltzing in the center of it all.... soo cute. Basically what you did, was pay for whatever type of wild boar meal you wanted, and then you picked it up at this huge tent. The food was AMAZING! Wild boar is my new favorite meat. It was juicy and soo tender, who knew? We all ate, listened to music, played cards, and just hung out all day long. It was "an event". It was soo cool to see the church members fellowshipping and enjoying each other's company. I loved it.

I know none of the activities listed above sound much like "work" and maybe it wasn't much "work" for us, but they were amazing opportunities for us to love people. We just spent time with people and tried to show them that they were important to us. I just feel like that is soo important here, well everywhere. Relationships are everything! People will not respect you or listen to what you have to say if they don't know you. And on top of that, I really felt like all of these activities really gave us some time to strike up some much needed and beneficial conversations, so for that I'm thankful! God is good.

We love you all soo much and miss you. We are excited about being able to be home to see you all soon! Thank you again for helping to make this amazing experience possible. You have truly been a part of this work, right along with us. Thank you. May God bless you all wherever you are, whatever you are doing. We send our love.

Josie

Overdue Update!!

Ciao tutti!! I sincerely apologize for not writing sooner. We have been so swamped with things going on here that I really haven’t had much time to update the blog. So much has happened since the last post that it would take far too much space and time to write about it all, so I’ll give you the Cliff’s Notes version.

On June 25^th, Josie and I travelled to Venice to celebrate our 3^rd wedding anniversary. Venice is such a beautiful and romantic place, and even more special for us since our relationship first started to bloom there 4 years ago. We had an amazing room right on the Grand Canal, overlooking the famous Rialto Bridge. After spending a day and night there, we took a short train ride to Padova to visit with the mission team that is working with the church there. They were gracious enough to endure our endless questioning, and even fed us lunch! They are doing a great work there, and are an encouragement to us. Please remember their work there in your prayers.

After our two day outing, we returned to Prato to finalize our work on our “mini” campaign that began the next week. We printed, cut, and distributed about 5,000 flyers, as well as put on puppet shows and hosted dinners for the church. The campaign was only three days, but it was a lot of work, and I believe it was very beneficial for us and the church. In fact, the flyers seemed to be already gaining a response. The day after we distributed our evangelistic flyer (advertising only Bible studies, no English lessons) a woman walked in the church requesting a Bible and future Bible studies. We were amazed at such a quick response, considering it is apparently not unusual to distribute thousands of flyers and never receive one response. I can’t tell you what an encouragement it was to us all. I believe there has also been a response to our flyer offering free English lessons (using the Bible) as a result of our distribution. Please pray for these responses and others in the future.

As I mentioned earlier, we also hosted dinners for the church and those in the community. The ladies of the congregation prepared amazing meals for us all, and then we all gathered together for a devotional. The first night was a singing devotional in which Josie and I taught the congregation 3 songs in Spanish. There is a large family of Honduran immigrants that attends the church, and we decided to do the Spanish songs in an effort to make them feel special. It definitely worked! When we told them that we would be singing some songs in Spanish, they were so excited!! They even brought some of their other Honduran friends that have never come to church because they do not yet speak Italian. They all were so excited to speak to Josie in Spanish; you could see their faces light up when they got to speak in their native language. What was better is that the church, even though they struggled through the songs, decided to sing them on Sunday for the Spanish speaking members! It was a beautiful gesture to illustrate how much the Hondurans mean to this congregation, and something that is certainly outside the norm for Italians here in Prato, considering immigrants are very discriminated against and disliked.

The second night was a night of prayer, in which we divided the men and women into two groups and had them each pray for certain things. It was a blessing to hear the men of the congregation discuss their own individual prayer requests and praises for the church here. The women also seemed to have a good response in their group, bringing laughter and tears during their session.

The third night was more focused on evangelism. We decided to have a Mexican food night in which we would invite all our friends who are not yet Christians into the church for a free meal. One of our Honduran sisters helped Josie make tortillas and empanadas, and Mike and I prepared the cheese and toppings. We had quite a turn out; apparently Mexican food is quite popular, although there are no Mexican restaurants to be found here! Several of our friends from the community showed up, and the building was so full that many of us ate outside in the courtyard. The food (of course) was amazing, and everyone seemed to have a really great time. We all stayed until pretty late, talking and laughing and enjoying the fellowship. The church really seemed to get a lot out of these three nights, and Mike later mentioned that he thought they would try to do this again in September. We were blessed to be a part of it, and it was a great experience for us to learn how to organize a campaign.

Well, I think this post has been quite long enough! I wish that I could say everything that has happened. In fact, I wish that you all were right here with us, experiencing it all for yourselves. Our Lord has truly blessed us during this time, and we thank you all for your help in making it happen. I pray that you are all doing well, and continuing to see God in your lives. Drop us a line and let us know how you are doing, and if we can be praying for you about anything. Continue to remember us and the work here in your prayers. God bless you all.