More, Jesus, More

I just love the late spring/early summer season...life always seems to be craziest here, but it's tipped in a positive direction, as always!  Something about the weather getting warmer and people being outside makes a difference...Vitamin D, maybe?  Same as the last post, there are a lot of exciting things the Lord is doing here now!

Last week started off incredibly encouraging for me.  Two Sundays ago I went to a lunch the Karrs and a member of their local church, Julia, were hosting in our area for a short term team of students coming to work in Rome for a week from Holland.  The group was from Athletes in Action, a ministry that uses sports as a common language all over the world and a chance to meet people in new places.  Myself, Cristina, Jason, and Caleb (the journeyguys) joined the Karrs and Julia to welcome the four Dutch students in our area.  After a fun lunch getting to know each other, they wanted to worship.   These sweet students started singing with us, and I was unbelievably thankful to have a chance to worship in English for the first time in over 8 months.  Music is so special to me, and corporate worship is at the top of my list for things I miss from my life in Athens-these four, and the rest of their team, actually reminded me a lot of that fantastic SWAT community I've missed.  That Sunday afternoon with those four Dutch students is one I will always remember.  I went with the Karrs to their hang out time in a park the next Wednesday evening to see them one last time before they left Rome and join them in connecting with locals through volleyball, soccer, and frisbee.  At the park I got to meet the rest of the team, and after saying bye to random park friends collected throughout the day we had a fun time eating with the Karr's local church (Breccia), talking about God's movement in Rome, and learning about the "crazy Dutch," as they say.  Hanging out with them, the Dutch team and the tiny Italian evangelical church, was such a neat glimpse of the body of Christ!

me and the "crazy Dutch" from lunch..beautiful people
I'm looking forward to seeing again in heaven!

Last Thursday, Manuela and I met in the park for our first time talking about the Bible after she's read.  I thought we would discuss maybe the first chapter of Romans, but she read through chapter 8!  She had a ton of questions, many very difficult, but the Spirit completely guided the conversation and it was awesome.  We talked about grace (our main topic), the justness of God, His Sovereignty, how He reaches individuals in different nations, and much more.  Today I gave her a new Bible, since her old one is a Catholic Bible and she calls it a dictionary (it's massive), and she was quite excited to start underlining.  Get this, she's also talked to her mom about grace and her mom was interested and came up with many questions!!  Please be in prayer for not only her, but her family and friends she is starting to tell about Jesus as she is considering the decision to follow Him with her life and heart!

Right after that incredible afternoon with Manuela, Sharon and I headed to Ireland for a long weekend.  It's pretty cool that Dublin was the one city I wanted to make sure I saw this time in Europe, and the Lord brought me a wonderful friend who lives there.  While I was excited to see everything, really it was a fantastic opportunity to spend time with Sharon.  The entirety of our first day (Friday) we spent with her family, in honor of her brother's confirmation.  Since Sharon was in Dublin for a confirmation ceremony, religion came up often in passing and the Lord provided opportunities here and there for me to share pieces of what I believe or what's different in the evangelical church than the Catholic church.  This trip strengthened our relationship, since we got four solid days together and I spent significant time with either her family or boyfriend as well.  I'm looking forward to seeing doors the Lord opens from here...and praying frequently that even though she seems so far off, the arm that is never too short to save will lead her to Him.  

Sharon and I in front of Newgrange, the oldest building structure
(older than the pyramids!).  Newgrange was one of many enclosed
tombs for hunter gatherers 5,000 years ago.

Tomorrow morning (or since it's post-midnight, later today) our team is leaving for a much-needed retreat.  We have all been waiting for this ever since Steph surprised us with cute hand made invitations a few months ago, and it really is at the perfect time.  Cristina will be leaving at the end of the month, the Coopers go stateside in June, then I have to leave in July, so we are all glad to have a weekend resting in our God, encouraging each other, and growing together before the summer splits.  Life has been fun lately, full of people time and students that all of a sudden want to be around us often, but breaks are necessary.  We'd love if you would pray for our retreat this weekend, that we would be drawn nearer to Jesus and return to Rome rested and ready to go!

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!

One Year Later...

Hey friends, tonight's post is going to be a little different.  Rather than focusing on the stories in the last week and a half (they'll make the March newsletter, no worries), I thought it'd be neat to write about something the Lord's been reminding me of the last few days.  He is faithful.  Always.

One year ago exactly, I was wrapping up one of the most incredible SWAT weekends I was blessed enough to coordinate.  It was in East Ellijay, and boy, the whole week leading up to the weekend was crazy.  I had several leaders drop out 1-2 days before, and through talking with leaders on the weekend I saw how almost every one had experienced severe spiritual warfare in that week.  I was no different.

Last March could be classified as a month of storms for me, and ironically so can this March.  Both have been marked by death, frustration, uncertainty, anxiety over the future, loneliness, discouragement, sickness, and even small daily inconveniences adding up.  Both were months I felt robbed of joy, months where God was quiet and I was waiting.  Both months still had good days and brighter points, but overall they've been months where I just really needed to see the Lord in the waiting.

Back to East Ellijay...last March I still did not know that I was going to be in Italy this year.  Plans after graduation were at the forefront of my prayer life, but God had things He was teaching me in the waiting. With the two options at that point I was feeling pulled towards, Italy and staying with SWAT, I knew I would need to raise support for this year.  Independent, self-sufficient Chelsea did not want to raise support.  I was fighting God pretty hard on that one, struggling with unbelief and running scenarios through my head on different ways I could make enough money to live on solely by working over the summer (completely unrealistic).

When all the leaders finally arrived in East Ellijay on Friday afternoon before we went to meet the students, our meeting was terrible.  Various circumstances cut into our allotted time for corporate prayer, the most important thing to do before going to love teenagers like Jesus.  There was a spirit of discouragement hanging around the room, and it was by far the least peppy send off into a weekend I've ever seen..my fault, as the coordinator.  I remember feeling so frustrated that the enemy was still interfering with my precious SWAT leaders, and in turn, the hungry students on that weekend.  That night I fell asleep praying that the Lord would not allow Satan any more room into the weekend, that all the opposition was only a sign of the greater things God had in store for us...

That Saturday night, March 26th, 2011, is a night I hope I will remember the rest of my life.  Saturday morning and afternoon went smoothly, normal as far as SWAT weekends go.  Leaders had started bonding with their groups, programs were close to schedule, the youth pastors were happy...it was good.  Or so we thought, until we saw what God means by GOOD.  Saturday night, after the speaker finished, the Holy Spirit did not.  The meeting room with over 400 people was on fire.  It was one of the closest pictures I think I will ever see of heaven while I'm on earth.  I still remember each leader I encountered during that time of worship, the worship that extended far beyond when students were "supposed to" return to their homes.  I still remember the looks on faces of all ages, everything from amazement to thanksgiving to repentance to humility to awe to sheer joy.  There was a time I thought the floor might collapse from the weight of people dancing, jumping, falling to their faces all over the place.  Without a doubt, Satan had been giving his all to disheartening all of us and attacking our students in his best attempt to undermine what God wanted to do, but God is bigger.  "God," I wrote in my prayer journal that night, "You are alive, and You are moving....It's almost laughable now, all the warfare before-You always win!!"

The next morning, it didn't stop.  One on one times with students after that service were wonderful, from the stories I heard.  The Sunday morning service we attended at a Southern Baptist church yet again, was met by the Spirit...and I loved how the worship pastor stepped back, and allowed the students to listen to Him and keep going as they were moved.  I'm so thankful they did, because God met me yet again that morning, and broke me free from my fears about provision for the next year.  I committed to the Lord that morning, March 27th, I would live off support.  I didn't know what I would be doing, where He was leading, but I knew He would raise support, He would do the work, and He would provide, because I am His child and He loves me.

After church most of the SWAT leaders went to a local Zaxby's, oh how I miss it.  As I was saying goodbye to Jona, a dear friend of mine, I told her I was going to live off support next (this) year.  She gave me $10, and said God would multiply it.  Well Jona...you were right.  He did, and He is still.  That $10 bill is now in my room here in Rome.

a beautiful reminder, every time I see it!

So here's the thing: I'm in Rome, a year later.  A year later, I'm uncertain yet again what I'm doing after this point right now.  A year later, I'm praying for breakthroughs with the Lord.  A year later, I'm asking God to make a way, wherever and whatever that way may be.  The difference?  God has shown me over the last year that He is always faithful.  He's provided for me in every sense.  He's given me the desires of my heart over this year, including desires I didn't even know I had until they were placed in my hand.  Now, God has been taking care of me for a long time, years before that weekend in East Ellijay.  I was just too doubtful to believe He would keep doing it, and even more, that He wanted to give me the things I asked for in accordance to His will (1st John 5:14-15).

Yesterday afternoon I went to a nearby park for some time alone and away with my Savior, as my sweet friend Melissa suggested.  A change of scenery really does help, especially when that change puts us in the midst of His creation.  I laughed when He led me to this verse in Numbers:

"God is not a man, that He should lie,

nor a son of man, that He should change His mind.

Does He speak and then not act?

Does He promise and not fulfill?"

-Numbers 23:19

No Lord...no, You do not.  You speak, then act.  You promise, then fulfill.  You delight in giving good gifts to Your children, the best gift of all being Your presence and Your voice.  

Just as a closing encouragement, whatever it is you need now...guidance, financial provision, companionship, wisdom, patience, the list could go on and on...bring it our Father.  He's a good Dad, and He loves to provide for His children (Matthew 7:7-11).  He likes when we ask Him for what we desire, even though He knows better than us what we need, because He wants us to be honest in our relationship with Him.  He likes when we ask, so He can be glorified all the more when He answers! He is faithful, always faithful.

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!

Playing Catch Up

Well, to state the obvious I'm a bit behind on updates.  My intent and goal before leaving for Italy was to write at least once a week, but now I've joined the ranks of what I hear happens to everyone the longer they're gone and a month later I'm trying to play catch up.  Although, if anyone could tell me what happened to February and if it even occurred this year, that'd be great...how we're already in March is beyond me!

February has been a wonderful month, full of the Lord's goodness.  The start of March has already been difficult, though full of the Lord's goodness.  Thankfully His goodness never depends on our circumstances, for He is always constant, always good, and always love.  Since it's been so eventful (hence the lapse in posts), I'll go for the brief recaps here:

• February started with a legendary snow for Rome.  For the first time in 26 years, Rome had snow that stuck to the ground in the first weekend.  Needless to say, the Italians were freaking out and it was quite amusing.  We didn't just get one weekend of snow, we went through the "crisi di neve" ("snow crisis", as quoted by the mayor of Rome) the second weekend too.

true to Italian style, of course this random
sidewalk snowman is smoking

• My language partner (a friend from the exchange) and I have started meeting for lunch fairly regularly.  At one of our more recent lunches, the Lord opened a door for a spiritual conversation and she started talking about what she believes, doesn't know, and how she wants to decide something for herself.  We are starting to read and discuss Matthew together, and as we made that decision she said "Maybe this will give me the answers I'm looking for."  Yes, Spirit, may that be!

Dad & I in Orvieto

• We had a few weeks off from classes and appointments since the semester at the university ended in early February.  The given break worked perfectly for me, because this month the two most important men in my life came to visit me and I took a mini-vacation.  My dad landed the weekend of the second snow, and we took a day trip to a small medieval town outside of Rome, Orvieto.  He also treated me to my first real burger since leaving the states (good ol' Hard Rock Cafe), and we had a great daddy-daughter weekend.  A couple days after he left, my boyfriend made the trip.  Long distance isn't the most fun thing, so it was wonderful to have a week actually together at my halfway point in Italy.  We had great time going around Rome, Florence, San Gimignano, and Bracciano. 

Jonathan & I in front of Castel Sant'Angelo

• The day before Jonathan left, my computer started dying that slow and painful Mac death.  This is the main reason I haven;'t been able to write in so long, I've spent a good deal of time trying to revive it.  Thankfully my team leader is a Mac guru and God will even perform technological miracles, so at the moment my computer is holding out!

• We finally had our sex trafficking awareness seminar last weekend.  Originally we had it scheduled for February 4th, but the Lord through the snow changed those plans.  We had a great turnout, and after giving basic info about sex trafficking and showing the Candy Shop (dubbed in Italian), the attendees engaged in a discussion about this problem and how we can help combat it.  Since the seminar we've had interest from a few of those who came about joining our outreaches to the women and transvestites, and we are so excited.  Even better, not all of those who want to help are believers, so we're praying the Lord will use this to bring freedom also to them!  

• March 1st brought some sad news from the home front.  After a long, full life, my Granddaddy passed away.  While ultimately I'm praising God for bringing him home, reuniting him with his wife, and giving him a new, restored body, being away from my family now is extremely difficult.  The last couple of days have really given me a picture of what it feels like for full-time missionaries...sometimes you just get so frustrated being so far away.  You can only go through trials and sadness with loved ones at home through prayer, same as you can only celebrate joyous occasions with a Skype call or email.  I'm thankful the Lord has given me this experience away, for now I have a better idea how to pray for missionaries who are geographically separated from family and friends indefinitely.