Still strolling and whistling in the rain

Since last time....

Went to Gorizia, Italy with a group of people two weeks ago on Saturday. Gorizia is a small northern town with not much to see except for a magnificent castle. It was so awesome to climb up the hill that led to the castle and look over the city and landscape. Gorizia also extends into Slovenia. So we walked across the border and stopped for some good ole Slovenian coffee. 

Last week we had our first Bryan professor come. Dr. Legg taught the New Testament Literature and Interpretation class. The class was similar to a survey of the New Testament only crammed into one week. It was a really great class and the research papers were interesting. The topic of my paper was the varioius theories on Revelation 2 and 3 - were the letters to the churches literal or were they meant for the furture universal church? Or perhaps are the letters a timeline of the church and its progress/degression? I answered that question...only not really.

=)

This past Saturday Lauren and I went on a shopping date to the Udine mall. That mall is MASSIVE! =O It is like it ate three other malls and a super Wal-mart! We browesed a LOT of shops...and we walked out of there with one english (inglese) to italian (italiano) dictionary, one postcard and a cup of gellato. 

This week for class we are in Intro to Fine Arts. And art is not really my thing...but we've looked at some ancient history which I like so that has made yesterday managable. The rest of the week could get long and complicated.

Either way...next week we travel to see some of the things we've discussed in class - in Florence, Rome and Venice! ROAD TRIP!

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.

Camp is now over

Alright all, camp has now ended. Friday was the very last day of camp. The last week went really well and surprisingly quick. We tried to mix up all the games and do some new stuff so that on the last week of camp it didn't feel like we were just trying to fill in game times with old games we've played before or those games that are so lame that no one really likes to play. We made boats out of aluminum foil and raced them (pushing them with our breath) and throwing pennies at the other cabin's foil boats to see who's boats could stay afloat while being attacked by a barrage of copper!

We also had a paper airplane flying contest on one of the rainy afternoons. Its amazing how many of the kids had never made a paper airplane! The activity director and I quickly realized that these kids today do not play the same games that we did when we were kids. Hide-and-go-seek is boring to them, tag takes to much energy and it is to hot to play outside, no idea how to fold aluminum foil to make a boat-like shape, and paper airplanes were a new concept to them. 

It really is sad how lazy we Americans have come to be. And its no longer just the older adults...the children have now adopted the lazy, passive mindset that has engulfed our culture.

In chapel this past week the campers learned about Noah and the Flood. They learned how all of mankind had become wicked and separated from God, that Noah was a  preacher of righteousness and that people laughed at him as he built the ark - and yet Noah continued to do what God wanted him to do despite being mocked and ridiculed. Keith Walsworth, the camp bible teacher, explained that the ark was not a cute little boat where all the animals were sticking out of the ark because it was too small but rather that it was huge enough to fit all the animals without their heads popping out side the boat.

Camp this summer has been great! It was such an awesome experience and I'm glad I got to share it with the staff at Bancroft Bible Camp. The camp is already looking for counselors for next year, so all you highschool graduates and college students who are interested in serving God at a biblically solid ministry, please check out Bancroft. On the website is contact information or you can contact me and I will set you  up with contact information for the camp director. 

Thank you all for your prayers, support and encouragement this summer!

Second to last week of camp - learning about The Fall.

Greetings to all! Hope this update finds you quite well! At the moment...I'm feeling a little sick (stomach mostly) but I shall persevere! 

So this past week was the second to last week of camp and it went rather well! We had about 18 campers, several of whom had been here previous weeks. It was good to see campers return, not just because we already knew the campers but because that meant they enjoyed being here enough to come back! 

This week in chapel the campers learned about The Fall - how Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil then how they were kicked out of Eden. We even looked at Cain and Abel and how not all acts of worship are acceptable to God.

Thursday night for the evening chapel during the over-night stay, I got to lead the chapel lesson time. I shared the story about Saul's life as a persecutor of the church and how an encounter with Christ completely changed his life in a tremendous way. It was really good to get to teach again, its something I enjoy doing.

Another update I'd like to share is something I am rather pleased to have experienced. This year at Bancroft Bible Camp - the songs and chapel presentations have been moved from an over-head projector to PowerPoint! We've had some issues with the computers working right with the projector but I think we have those mostly fixed. Praise God for this technology! Now for the lessons, the power points can have clear, colorful pictures and sounds! It makes the whole chapel lesson more interesting and eye catching. 

With this last week of camp coming up fast - please be praying for strength for all the staff and counselors so that we can make this week the best one yet! Also be praying for Matthew, Lucas and Sarah Walsworth who are leaving from camp on Thursday morning to travel to Michigan from where they will meet a missions group and fly to the Dominican Republic for a missions trip. 

"Its by God's grace alone..." (currently listening to Steven Curtis Chapman - "Declaration of Dependence") that this summer has been such a blessing and has led me to lean on Him more.

"Lord, make me a sanctuary"

The week is done - camp is over and the campers have gone home. This past week was day camp, where the campers go home around five. In chapel they learned about the creation week. We broke each day up and really looked at what God did in each of the six days of creation. The funniest part was that the girls wanted Pastor Keith to get to the part where Eve was created! It was fun to listen to them ask when Eve would enter the scene. But we learned about each day individually (and got to do a LOT of great color and work sheets!)

Day One - God created the heavens, the earth and separated the light from the darkness.

Day Two - God separated the lower water from the upper water ( creating the atmosphere).

Day Three - God separated the water and brought up dry land and created all the plants.

Day Four - God created the sun, moon, planets and day and night.

Day Five - God created all the flying and swimming creatures.

Day Six - God created the land animals and Adam, the first man.

The kids loved learning about creation and the 'very goodness' that was the earth and the Garden of Eden. 

I count it a blessing that no one was hurt this week, sure we had some scraps and cuts but thankfully no serious injury. The campers continue to LOVE the zip-line on the hill and, of course, swimming in the pool. It rained several days this week, quite hard I might add, but we were able to play games in the rec building and the campers seemed to enjoy them pretty well. 

I had three returning campers and several of the girls were returning campers - a total of twenty campers in all this week. So hopefully they will continue to tell their friends about Bancroft and will continue to keep coming back every week. 

Please be praying for those campers who don't know Jesus as savior, for safety for the them, for wisdom as the counselors and staff seek to make the camp better and glorify God as well as for God to speak to the campers' hearts as they are in chapel and learn about the Bible, God and what God has created and has done.