Break Ins & Break Throughs

Hey, friends!  I know I just updated recently, but there are two new areas where I would love for you to join me in prayer!

In the last few weeks there have been several break ins in our area.  We started hearing about the robberies in early April, then in the last week our team has been either directly or indirectly affected.  First the woman who lives above the Coopers was robbed, then Cristina's next door neighbor woke to two men trying to open her balcony door.  Sunday Jason and Caleb couldn't get into their apartment, and after a locksmith came to help we found out the reason was because someone had tried to crack the lock on their door.  Obviously stuff is just stuff and doesn't matter, but it is something to pray about and take precautionary measures toward since you never know when something could turn violent.  Also, this weekend after leaving Taylor's birthday party and walking home, our friend Marco was surrounded by a few guys and threatened in an area we all frequent regularly.  He got away with just a few scratches, so we're thankful and now he has fun telling his story of pulling a Chuck Norris in defense.

Now on to the really awesome part of this post- Monday afternoon the Lord blessed Manuela and I with an incredible conversation.  We met for lunch and ended up running into the boys, so we all ate together and it was good for Manuela to meet them.  Afterwards, she and I went to McDonald's (the rooftop terrace is so far where we've had our biggest spiritual conversations, believe it or not) for sundaes.  God did not disappoint this tradition, for we ended up talking about grace, prayer, making decisions, the Holy Spirit, having joy and peace in hard times, and so much more.  Through that, and her sharing that she prays but feels like something is missing, the Lord gave me a chance to share the gospel in entirety, complete with how it is on us to decide if we will accept the gift of salvation through Christ.  Huge!!  She wanted me to write all the verses we talked about, so I sent her back with them to read in Italian.  I offered to help her start reading through the Bible, beyond the gospels she's read in her father's Catholic church, and she's deciding.  Even more, she's wrapping her mind around the idea that it is a choice that we are given on whether or not we will follow Jesus with our lives through a real relationship and embrace the Holy Spirit.  Please, please join me in prayer for her as she seeks God and asks Him to show Himself to her...He is SO good, and she is so close!

precious Manuela

Scusa?

After 7 months in Rome, I have finally had a full Italian immersion weekend! Goodness, with all the language practice and late nights over the last few days, I was very thankful to have a true Sabbath today. The Lord is so good, for He answered a prayer of mine immediately from last weekend with the opportunities that He provided for this weekend.  Sometimes we wait for His answers to see more of Him in the waiting, yet others He graces us with immediate affirmations of asking in faith!

Wednesday afternoon I met with Beatrice for our third conversational lesson, and her friend Giorgia.  At the end of our time together, Giorgia offered us a coffee (exciting after the first meeting, to have a student want to extend time).  I was already pleasantly surprised with just that, so the invitation from Bea to join her and a few friends for her boyfriend's birthday celebration this weekend was shocking.  Taylor and I had just been talking on Monday how we really hoped for more chances to "be uncomfortable," as in joining a group of students who are already friends, making ourselves the outsiders and ones to overcome the language barrier, rather than having to invite new friendship prospects into our group of English speakers.  That idea of becoming the outsider, going to the darkness, has been dominating my thoughts and prayers the last two weeks, so this instant invitation from a new student was truly a gift from the Lord and affirmation He had already started preparing me for the experience.

Thursday afternoon I went out with another student, Benedetta, for our first hang out time outside of direct conversation practice.  She took me for a walk down her favorite street in Rome, and we spent several hours of the afternoon together looking in shops, a museum near the Colosseum, and chatting.  That evening as I was returning to my apartment, I received a surprise dinner invitation from Wayne.  Naturally I accepted (who turns down a free meal?), met Taylor, and we headed to his apartment where Cristina met us later.  It was such a fun night, because Wayne introduced us to two of his Italian friends (Matteo and Luigi) and the six of us hit it off as a group.  That started my spree of Italian practice, since dinner conversation was in Italian, but fortunately in a small group setting I was able to follow along most of the talk and contribute stories of my own.

our new friends, thanks to Wayne! Luigi (awesome, I know)
is center and Matteo is on the right

Friday night we had a Black & White themed birthday party for Taylor at the boys' (Caleb and Jason) apartment.  The party went on for over 7 hours, which gave lots and lots of time to talk intentionally with all who came.  I left (late late) that night feeling so excited and thankful for how the Lord worked during that time, because I got to follow up with Matteo and Luigi (fortunately my Italian was smoother the second time), got to know Lorenzo (a friend of Francesco's), have some quality time with Franny, met a few new people, and also hung out with the English speakers-Corbmac, Sharon, Alyson, Jacoba, Caleb, Jason, Cristina, Marco, Wayne, etc.  As if the night wasn't eventful enough, Corbmac and I put together a surprise for Taylor and 8 of us did a mini flashmob to Michael Jackson's "Black or White."  Needless to say, Taylor loved it and the Italians viewing determined we (Americans+Irish+friends) are in fact crazy.

flashmob group, and of course all photo attempts show
character rather than "serious" faces (way better)

Saturday night was the big night for meeting Beatrice's group, and Taylor and I left with the "we hope they like us!" attitude.  While normally I love chatting and getting to know new people, Saturday was a challenge...my dominant question became "Scusa?"  I saw how spoiled I've been with Italian friends that have decent conversational English when I was thrown in the mix of a group of Italians speaking mainly the Romano dialect for a night that didn't start until 11-clearly, when my brain is operating at its best..not.  The good news is I've become accustomed to the "smile, nod, occasional 'si'" bit when I can't keep up with most of the conversation, and Taylor has strong Italian after living here almost 4 years so she could more or less keep up.  Somehow I got through the night picking up on about 30% of the content and contributing my own in very elementary side conversations.  A big helpful factor to language lostness is the group dynamics in Italy; guys typically dominate the conversations and girls are not expected to say much, so that works great for me when I can't understand much being said!  After we (Bea, her boyfriend, brother, Taylor and myself) separated from the group, they took us to a great overlook of Rome you can only see by car.  Bea is so sweet, and sent me a follow up message today saying the group liked us and wants us to join them again soon-yes, we got the casual callback!

Rome @ 3 am 

While last night ended up being okay, it is really frustrating to work so hard to understand and simply not be able to do so.  I felt like I was in one of those driver's ed simulations where they throw in cheesy distractions - first Bea picked us up with loud house music playing in the car, then we met a large group in a pub, then it got later and later..etc etc, all factors making comprehension tougher as the night progressed.  Please pray for me, that the Lord would multiply my time so I have opportunities to study more, and simply have favor in His eyes to have what I need with language abilities provided in each scenario!

Thanks for your prayers! The Lord is really opening up some doors in Rome and drawing several people to us all of a sudden from different directions; pray His name is magnified through everything we do and His light shines!

April Antics

Well hello, mid-April, I wasn't expecting you so early!  Even though I was lacking in the blog updates last month, since I sent out a March newsletter yesterday I'm just going to recap the last two weeks.  (If you are not on my Rome listserv and would like to see the monthly newsletters, please send me your email address!)

A super-eventful March closed with the first of many coming goodbyes.  Sara, one of the girls who did the exchange program back in August and became one of my first friends in Rome, left to go to Spain for a 5 month work-study program.  I'm glad for her she has this opportunity, but we are both sad we don't know when we will see each other again!  One upside of Sara's departure is it inspired all the other girls to try to arrange many little events for us to spend time together during her last month, which was great after not being all together in a while due to winter finals (Jan-Feb) and a new semester.  In one month we had dinner at Silvia's and a salsa night, several lunch gatherings, a museum exhibit, a fried chicken/Southern food dinner at Kyra's, a bar Sara wanted to visit called Latte Piu (and the Spirit made a way for a gospel conversation there!!), and to cheer ourselves up after Sara left,  Silvia, Claudia, and Manuela came to my apartment to learn how to make American chocolate chip cookies!  I'm telling you, that's a record number of hangouts for one month!

salsa night, Sara center

All of us together for the last time :(

quick shot in Capri before boarding the ferry back to Napoli

April started with a bang, because my family minus one came to spend a week with me.  Since they wanted to see as much of Italy as possible (understandably so, Italy is awesome), we flew through Naples, Capri, Rome, and Florence in 6 days.  While we had a good time traveling together, my favorite part of them being here was simply having an opportunity to introduce them to team members and show them a tiny snapshot of my daily life.

After a great day in Florence I said bye to my parents and Anna Claire on Friday night, then went into a crazy Easter weekend.  Our team has been waiting for months for our two Journeymen to arrive through the long training and preparation process, and they finally made it to Rome right before Easter!  They lucked out, since we had a weekend of fun celebration already planned to graft them right in to both our team and friend groups.

with our new Journeyguys (Caleb-back, Jason-right)
after the first Easter picnic

 Saturday evening Kyra set up something special for our team- we celebrated the first half of the traditional Passover meal together.  Only the first half, since we believe Jesus is the Lamb that fulfilled the waiting but we also wanted to honor the Jewish tradition.  Sunday morning our team went out for a picnic in a huge, beautiful park so the Karr and Cooper kids could have an Easter egg hunt and we could enjoy more time together.  [Note- picnic to "enjoy more time together?" We are so assimilating to the Italian culture, they are all about picnics when the weather is nice to pass the hours with friends]. 

The primary chefs for the dinner, with Italian style
gnocchi al forno (gnocchi bake) as the first course
and the Irish traditional roast lamb for our second.

Easter dinner was unlike any I've had before.  One of my friends, Alyson, is an au pair here and hosted our crazy group for the night since her 

family was out.  It's always difficult finding space for large groups in apartments!  We had 6 Americans (visitors and new boys included), 2 visitors from Milan, 2 Romans, 2 Irish, 1 German, and 1 French visitor in attendance...the accents were hilarious.  We ate a lot (naturally), and enjoyed the chance to introduce the new guys to our little collection of international friends so quickly.  The Monday after Easter is also a holiday in Rome, called Pasqueta.  While Easter is the day you celebrate with family, Pasqueta is the day you celebrate with friends.  So, true to cultural custom, we all went out for...what? A picnic in Appia Antica!

2 of our students gave us Kinder egg baskets!

Now I'm finally settling back to normal life...a little too normal, since I got hit with some brutal allergies in this week after Easter.  They've told me Rome is one of the worst cities in the world for allergies, and I believe it.  Since we have to keep our apartment windows open for air and walk everywhere, there's really no escaping the pollen.  Another glamorous element to spring in the big city is the mosquitoes..they come into your apartment and attack you in your sleep.  Oh well, it always opens up a conversation with Italians to complain about the bugs together!  With all the lessons starting up, Taylor and I had a pleasant surprise from two of our students- they gave us Easter baskets! It's a huge custom in Italy to give Kinder eggs (this special kind of milk chocolate in Europe), and when Marta and Veronica heard we never had Kinder eggs on Easter, they took it upon themselves to remedy the situation.  Marta and Veronica are also 2 of 4 of my students who signed up to go on the Athens exchange in August!  Please be praying for them, Silvia (a different one, a new student of mine), and Marco...we saw last year the power of being exposed to a growing church and loving community centered around Christ!