English, Music, & Baking...Such Simple Gateways!

This spring is going to fly by.  Since finals have ended and life is back to 'normal' (though really, when is it ever normal?), everyone has been coming out of the woodwork.  The good news is that word must be spreading throughout the students in the jumbo class of first years Taylor and I work as TAs for, because all of a sudden we've had a large influx of people who want to meet with us for conversation.  It's great because now when we go to (the excruciatingly boring) class, we feel like we finally have a large number of students we know as opposed to the slow trickle from the fall.

What I like about conversation lessons is that it's the perfect opportunity to get to know someone or share ideas- all we do is talk.  Since my first conversational student in the fall (Marco) brought matters to faith questions and is now reading the book of John, it's exciting to think of the way the Lord might use these hours of English practice.  One of my new girls is really shy in class, but opened up to me immediately in our first private meeting by telling me far more than I expected about herself and insecurities, to the point I felt more like I was in the cliche psychiatric setting than a "teacher"/student relationship.  For whatever reason the Lord has given me favor with her in the way she trusted me from the get-go (very shocking in this culture), so for her specifically I'm praying our language appointments transform into a true friendship...she really seems to be seeking one.

With Sharon (center) after her show!

In the last week and a half two of my friends have shown off their awesome voices and I've been able to see them shine.  Last Thursday (National Women's Day) my Irish friend Sharon blew us away at a jazz club, and since then I've been asking her more about her background in music.  Turns out she was part of a female trio a few years ago, signed by Universal Studios, and toured the UK for a few years.  Who knew?  I loved hearing her story, and why she ultimately walked away from the path the group was going down.

During our coffee date the afternoon following her Roman debut, I was almost robbed.  Two gypsy women approached us with their babies, asking for something about coffee.  Sharon and I were trying to figure out if they wanted us to buy them coffee, or wanted our cups, etc...the words were random and nonsensical.  While one was blocking my vision (really in my face), the other tried to slip some items from my purse under the blanket with her baby.  Fortunately my ipod headphones were still dangling out, so we were able to get everything out.  It surprised Sharon and I both, but it was quite funny to see yet another side of her as she jumped to my defense. Needless to say, we're both going to be more on guard in the coming months!

ours looks just a bit different
 than the picture...

This weekend was pretty much a "Sharon weekend" because to celebrate her birthday, my friend Wayne and I combined our baking skills to make her a cake.  From finding the right ingredients for a deluxe cake all in Italian to making a three tier cake when only one can fit in my tiny oven at a time, this turned into quite the baking adventure.  Well with more time always comes...more creativity! Wayne and I decided to make our cake unique to the one pictured in our book, throwing the idea for elegance out the window and going with "childlike creativity."  Also, we may or may not have improvised to make a three layer cake out of two pan so that we could eat the third layer that night with Taylor to test it out....Our tower cake made quite the impression when we surprised Sharon though, she was ridiculously excited to have her own birthday cake.  She celebrated her actual birthday in Ireland and didn't have cake at all! I'm seeing more and more how American desserts are a huge hit with all my European friends, regardless of nationality.  Maybe it's the massive amount of butter we use, or the heaps of sugar, or how we combine salty and sweet...whatever it is, I'm totally okay with using baking as a way to love on friends here.  Tonight Kyra and I are cooking a Southern dinner for the exchange students, and you know that means we're going to end the meal with something sweet.  Sharon had a funny story about the huge cake and one of her (Italian) roommates the day after.  She said she came into the kitchen and saw him eating the cake while waving his hands wildly and repeating in between bites "e una bomba! Una bomba, una bomba!"  In Italy any really good, really sweet dessert or pastry is called "a bomb," and Sharon was laughing because she had never seen him so excited about anything before as he was about this cake.

The Happy Birthday hippos are really what inspired the
deviation in cake styles...you just can't put
multi-colored hippos on a cake and expect it to look sophisticated.

Cristina, Francesco (bass), & the rest of their band

Last night I went to see Cristina, Francesco, and the rest of their band perform at a pub where one of the guys works.  He's about to leave to drive around Europe living out of his van, so the bar let all of them be the first to try live music.  It was a really good opportunity to reconnect with some of the people I met at Francesco's birthday party back in December, especially since in Italy your mere presence in the same vicinity as others supporting the same friend makes you part of the group.
Cristina's cousins, who are both very hostile to the gospel like many of the others there, were apparently asking about some people Taylor and I were hanging out with most of the night since they hadn't seen them before.  When they found out that one of the guys, a good friend of ours, is gay, they were absolutely shocked.  "Doesn't the Bible say you can't do that too?" "They're really friends?"  Apparently visible proof of our friendship in an area that countered the cousins' former exposure with "religious people" took them by surprise, and for once left them speechless instead of the usual knocks against Christianity.

I know all these things sound so simple, so 'normal life' rather than 'missionary life'...but really, that's what being a missionary in a city like Rome is all about.   We were talking about this a bit as a team this morning, how our ministry is truly relational and doing life with our friends.  The gospel is not a presentation, not something we can push here in one meeting and expect people to change all their prior beliefs immediately, not even something to say all the way through because most of our friends would walk away from us mid-sentence.  It's a lifestyle.  Every person I have met here, once we get to a point where they see I am genuine about my faith, has started to absolutely scrutinize all parts of the way I live.  As Taylor was saying, the majority of these people have never even met a believer before.  They're going to be curious. If we're sharing bits and pieces of our love for the Lord and truth with them, before we can hope that they will start to think about Jesus Christ in a Biblical light, we have to know they will want to know absolutely everything about what being a follower of Christ looks like in all arenas of life.  From the daily routine to behavior to future decisions, questions will be asked and observations will be made.  The research is important if they're considering investigating our God.  In some ways that's really scary, because we really do feel like each little thing we do or say is under a magnifying glass.  Thank goodness God is sovereign, and His grace and love shines through our humanity.  He brings people to Himself through all different avenues...He's big enough to use English lessons, musical appreciation, and even cakes to magnify His glory.  May it be so!