Goodbye Italy

I am now back in Australia, heading into the third part of outreach. We are finished our time in Italy and are headed up North to a small mining town called Port Hedland, to work in high schools for three weeks. I haven´t written about our last few days in Italy, so I´ll fill you in.

Basically, the last week was AMAZING! It started off with a noble attempt to spend the day in Venice. It is only a three hour train ride to get from Milan to Venice, but it took us nine hours to get there. Factor in late buses, missing the train, long bus tours throughout Northern Italy and lot´s of announcements in Italian and not in English, and you have a very long trip to Venice. When we finally got there, we only had two hours to spend in the city. We did a very quick run through the city and took pictures and bought things as quickly as possible. Venice is an absolutely beautiful city and I am so excited to go back one day and actually have time to spend there! The way home took 4.5 hours on the train, so we ended up missing the last bus out to our town. We had to call up the ywam base in milan and ask to crash on there floor. We slept on the ground in our clothes and then headed back the next morning.

We got back to the church to find about 20 extra people at the church, including a team from Brazil and a ywam team from San Fransisco. All these people had come out to help out with this massive evangelistic campaign that the church was doing in the town we were staying in (Casarate Primo). This is a program they do in Brazil and have recently brought it to Italy to try it out. Basically they knock on every single door, talk to every person and run huge events and concerts in the evening. There is also constant prayer and intercession going on. It was four days long, and extremely busy and eventful. It was truly amazing to be a part of - many, many people came to know Christ and many heard of Jesus and were open to him. It was a little bit frustrating because we can´t speak Italian and most don´t speak English, so we couldn´t really evangelize to them. However, we were able to support them in prayer and we also performed our drama skit a number of times. It was just a really awesome time and I loved every part of it. The church is amazing and are very welcoming and hospitable. There were also a bunch of Brazilians who came over and were a big part of it. So any time we had a meeting or shared testimonies, they had to translate it from Italian to English and Portuguese. There were constantly three languages being spoken - it was pretty exciting. I loved it :) We also connected with the team from ywam San Fran.. it was really good to have some new people around to hang out with. Overall, it was a jam-packed four days and was tons of fun. Definitely the highlight of Italy!

I am going to miss Italy. The people we connected with were just amazing. I feel very fortunate for the experience we got. If I had been in Italy for a holiday, there is no way we would have met as many people that we did. We also wouldn´t have ha the opportunity to enter into people´s lives and homes and just really be adopted into their family. I felt so loved there all the time. Even though communication was hard because of the language barrier, we still had an amazing time together. They are truly amazing people and I am going to miss them.

We left Milan on Sunday night and slept in the airport. We then flew to Frankfurt, Germany and spent the day in the city. We flew through the night to Johannesburg, SA and spent the day in the airport and then flew through the night back to Perth. We had a day and a half in Perth and all the outreach teams were back so I got to see everyone else! I was a little worried about meeting up with them again, because I didn´t know if it would be the same, but it was. It was so good to see them and hear their stories!! We are now driving two days north, where we will be for the next three weeks. We have also gained 4 other members to our team, which is really great. I am excited for what God has in store for these next weeks!

Thanks everyone! I love you guys. I have many, many pictures I want to share but I don´t know when it will be possible… I´m working on it :)

PS. Just arrived in Port Hedland today. We drove about 10 hours today.... Australia really is a barren, empty land. We saw NOTHING along the way... only two gas stations. Last night, we ran out of gas because the one and only one we saw was closed. WE travelled for almost an hour on completely empty.... pulling a trailer and everything! It was crazy! Anyways, we are here now.. just settling in at the church :)

ITALY!

So we have been here in Italy for almost two weeks. We are staying in a small town an hour out of Milan, called Casorate Primo. We are staying in a church so we are just sleeping on the floor in the sanctuary and cooking our own meals in the kitchen. We also don’t have showers so we go to one of the neighbour’s houses to use theirs. They have been so kind, letting us come in every other day or so and taking over. That is the only time we can use the internet as well, so I’m only able to get online for a couple minutes every few days. This church is really great.. it is a very active evangelical Baptist church among all the catholic churches in Italy. They are also connected with the YWAM base in Milan, which is just getting started.

Casorate Primo is probably the cutest little town ever. It is one of those places where everyone knows everyone and you can walk anywhere within a couple minutes. There are quite a few old people here and everyone rides bikes everywhere! They all have the cute little bikes with baskets on the front. We have also gone into Milan a couple times – such a nice city. The architecture is awesome, and there is a lot of history here. We saw the square where Constantine gave the speech that legalized Christianity, which is pretty cool. The one thing that is really interesting about Milan is that there is a lot of graffiti. It is everywhere! I kind of hate it and love it at the same time.. It sort of makes the place look dirtier, but then it makes a cool contrast between the old architecture and the crazy graffiti. Also, Milan is a fashion capital so everyone is dressed very well. There is so much good style here! The most important thing is the shoes.. there are stilletos everywhere – even when people are riding bikes. It can be pretty intimidating trying to talk to people because they just all look so cool! It is a way different vibe from SA, where everyone is open and laid back.

In terms of ministry, we actually haven’t been too busy. We are getting involved in everything the church is doing and we have also been going into the city to do evangelism. The church has this massive evangelical campaign in a couple weeks, where they are basically trying to reach every single person in the town and talk to them about God. It should be pretty cool to be a part of. What I have really enjoyed about this part of outreach is how we have really been included in the life of this church and these people. They have welcomed us into their family, which is really cool. And because this is such a small town, we are able to get to know a lot of people. I like being in this little town because we are able to see how real Italians really live. This is a tourist area and practically nobody speaks English so we have to use our terrible Italian and they try to speak as much English as possible. We are experiencing the real Italy :)

I really like Italy. I like their gelato :) And I am excited to see what God will do here. Please pray for opportunities to open up for us to speak with people and really just minister to this city. Prayer for our team is also much appreciated. We have now been together for a long time, and I think the unity isn't as good as it should be. I think we might be getting tired of eachother... or maybe just tired in general.

I love and miss you guys! Thanks for your support!

PS. Some fun facts about Italians: they LOVE to say ciao (we say it all the time - for hello or goodbye), they greet eachother with cheek kisses, they use their hands like crazy when they talk, their coffee is a small espresso shot (really strong, really good), they are super good looking, they are loud, they care a lot about style (especially about shoes! But this might be specific to Milan), they drink a lot (beer taps in McDonald's, wine everywhere), they drive fast and crazy, they speak really fast and it sounds amazing! There are many more things about Italians that I am learning, but that's all I can remember for now. Ciao!