Venice and Carnival = fun for the whole family...until the sun goes down then its time for all good people to go home!

Facebook now has picture of both the Verona trip and the Venice trip from yesterday.

It was a lot of fun to don my mask on for a bit and walk around looking at everyone else who had a mask on (or a full on custom).

Just like a mime skit we're going to do, I wonder how many people used those masks to cover who they really are. Acting happy and joyful, bouncing around and posing for the cameras...eating up the pictures being taken but really they feel so lonely.

anyways, just a thought.

Minsitry week starts tomorrow. Training for mimes and other stuff, like chalk talks and stories to tell kids. Then we'll start handing out tracts tues-fri and performing and evangelizing. It'll be fun but also a bit intimidating.

But I have to keep reminding myself that my job is to give the good news and present the Gospel but the decision to accept Jesus as Lord and Savior is between the person and God, not my ability to persuade them.

Please pray as we gear up for this and other going ons happening here in Italy and at the school.

Quite simply an update =)

Ciao e buongiorno!

Last Saturday the students here at Saints Bible Institute went to Verona. It was Valentine's Day, in case you missed it, and the city was decked out with hearts and people in Carnival costumes. The city is quite lovely and I liked it better than Venice...Verona is less touristy.

While there we got to see Juliet's house. Pretty cool I think. That's the balcony and the courtyard.

We got to go up a clock tower and see a great view of the city!














The rest of the day we walked around and took pictures of the city and each other. Over all it was a fun day and I wouldn't mind going back and seeing some more of the "sights" like Juliet's grave and Romeo's spots and I think there is a museum, also the coliseum.

This past week has been Missions class which in reality has been church planting class. So this past week we split into groups and have come up with a fictional church that we have planted in a city in Italy. In our paper we had to come up with all the documents normally thought of for a new church: doctrine, constitution, leadership training and basically everything.

I am kinda disappointed that the class wasn't a class on broad study of missions I think it turned out alright.

My curiosity has been sparked to see if we could actually start our church and how it would unfold. Maybe that lays in my future? We'll see where God leads.

Tomorrow some of us are going back to Venice because it is Carnival - where people dress up and where masks. A lot of us got masks but I dunno if we'll wear them. We'll see! =)

And I'm looking forward to sleeping in this weekend when I can before next week when we start ministry week.

As the name may imply, a week of ministry in Udine and other local towns/cities.

Italia

Its over.

The first exam is done and the first class is over.

But that isn't really the most exciting news I suppose. I've been in Italy for a week and a half. Since I've been here I've taken a class on evangelism, washed laundry at a local laundrymat, eaten Italian pizza at an Italian pizzaria, eaten gelato twice, been to Venice for a day and went on a gondola ride. I have also been lost in the Italian country side after walking from one town and trying to find another (not really lost but it felt like it) and have experienced the drastic changes in northern Italian weather: really warm and sunny to cold and rainy.

And there was snow a couple times also.

and we may have a pretty amazing view from the class room:

To see all the pictures I've taken, look at facebook. There are a bunch there (i think, if not there will be).

For now, that is all. Going to Verona on Saturday.

Ciao.