Pizza, Parades and a Party

Party - End of the year
The month of April had 5 Fridays and since that is our night to have a planned activity for all of our students, we decided that would be a great time to have our end of the year party. We had around 50 of our students come and several of their family members. Since we're so good at cookouts and it shares a little bit of American culture with our students, that's what we did for them, hot dogs, hamburgers, baked beans, and Debbie's Potato Salad. Delicious! We had a slide show playing of pictures from different events throughout the semester and we all stood around and talked the entire night. I was sad that it was (almost) the end of the school year but it was great to see all of our students together talking and getting to know one another.


I can't wait to see all of the students again in September and we've had atleast 10 more people come by this summer asking when our classes start.



Parades
I am part of the Scandicci Filarmonica and the Scandicci Big Band(Jazz Band). Both are very active in the summers because in every town, it seems, in the main piazza, there is a concert or event of some kind going on every night. The Scandicci Band played 2 or 3 times in Piazza Matteoti here in Scandicci, 2 parades, and the Big Band played in Porciano one night, about an hour away. Something you should know about parades in Italy is that you don't have to necessarily all march in time with the music or with the people around you...that was a very new thing for me. I'm so glad they allow me to be a part of the group and that I get to play trombone while I'm here.

Parade

Band Day in Scandicci
(Another band from close by came and played with us and we all had dinner together after the performance.)

Pizza in Empoli

Our good friend, Lorenzo Guiducci invited all of us to go have pizza with him in Empoli. He is a student at the Bible School but has been here since he was a kid. He went to Harding for the Fall semester last year and came back speaking English even better than he did before...probably better than I do. Another side note on Lorenzo is that his father grew up with Robbie Shackleford, the director of the HUF program, because Robbie's parents were missionaries in Scandicci when Robbie was young. Anyway, Lorenzo is a great friend and always helps when he can.

In Empoli, there is a pizza place where you can eat and drink as much as you want for about 10 dollars. That is a great deal because each pizza is hand made from scratch! It was so good and great opportunity to spend some time with Lorenzo and his girlfriend Giulia(Julia). There were also several visitors that came with us, 2 students from Harding and a Jeremy and Katie Daggett, who were here getting everything ready for the Harding group that stayed at the Bible School for a month. We had a little contest to see who could eat the most pieces of pizza and Jeremy won with 28 pieces. Wow. I will say I ate 22 but that's almost a whole pizza less than him...maybe next time. Hooray good pizza!

Pizzeria from Ryan's iPad. Awesome app called Auto Stitch.

Pre-Summer Events

Fabio e Viviana's Baptism

This is Fabio and Viviana. Originally from Catania(in Sicily) and now they live in the northern part of Italy, close to the border of Italy and Slovania. I met Viviana and Fabio this past winter in January or February, when they came to several services at the church in Florence. Alfredo, an Italian at the Florence church, does Bible Studies with people online and corresponds mostly via email at first and that is where Fabio and Viviana met him and got involved with the Florence church.
Alfredo continued to study with them and Viviana even came to the Women's retreat in February. I can't remember the exact date, but in Spring this year, they both got baptized at the Florence church and it was a blessed day. They have continued to grow and become leaders in the church. One of the things they started and have asked all of the churches in Italy to do is an Evangelizing Day in Italy. Meaning all the churches in Italy, on the same day, do some sort of evangelizing in each one's town. It's still in the planning stages but I'm excited to see what will happen and watch as they grow.

Easter Weekend
Easter weekend was the weekend of the Bologna Retreat but we came back on Saturday so we could be in Florence on Easter. Easter weekend was great and as most families do, our American-Italian family got together for dinner and had a cookout and painted eggs. Not that we didn't want any Italians there, it's just they were all with their families. Debbie and all the other cooks out did themselves and the guys did a great job with the meat. Thank you Lord for a wonderful day of fellowship and food.

Aquarium Trip

Last year, around April, the Bible School invited everyone at the church in Florence to go to the zoo and they had a great time. This year, we thought it would be nice to go to the aquarium as a group. So April 17, 40ish of us set out to Livorno to see their aquarium. We made sack lunches and stopped at a park on the way and then once we made it to Livorno explored the aquarium and the sea, right next to it. It was a great day and we all got to know each other better. The group picture was a little disorganized but I think we eventually all got together for one of the cameras. Overall, it was a great day and the kids really seemed to enjoy it.

Una fine settimana per i giovani(A weekend for the youth)

In September last year, the weekend after I arrived, we had a youth weekend here at the Bible School and 5 Italians were here and had a great time and so we thought we should do it again. SO, April 20-22 we had another one!

Friday night was the last Game Night of the semester for our students and the first night of our youth weekend so we did both of them together. Since it was the last one, we decided to do Real Live Clue! It was so fun(and I think the students enjoyed it as well.) The Bible School was the board and some of the Avanti workers dressed up as the characters.

It was Colonel Mustard in the Library with the Candle Stick...
somthing like that...for sure Colonel Mustard

Erme was Miss Scarlett, Andrea was Mrs. Peacock, Laura was Mrs. White, Peter was Mr. Green, Ryan was Professor Plum, David was Colonel Mustard and I was "The Nanny". I was the mediator/host so I didn't have a character from the game. Eric graciously played Mr. Body at the beginning but still got to play the game. Great fun!

After the Game night part was over, one of the Italians gave a devo thought, Joele. He did a great job and we were all so proud of him(it was his first time).

Saturday we had American Breakfast, pancakes! and then we headed off for a town in the hills called Vallombrosa about an hour away. We translated "There's a stirring" into Italian and played volleyball for a good while. It's so gorgeous up there! Saturday night was a cookout, a devo, singing, and a game.

Sunday morning we all went to church in Florence and it was an amazing Sunday. Not only were the youth from Italy there for the youth weekend but there was also the new Harding students and we had invited our English students to come so it was packed!! It was so encouraging to see everyone there. As a preface to this next part, last year at camp several people translated the song "He is faithful" and the youth really like it so...Sunday morning as one of our songs to sing for the church we sang "Lui é fedele"(He is faithful) and right as we started singing that song, our cook, Rosa, walked in with her husband. It seriously brought me to tears the combination of the words to the song and her walking in at that moment. There have been so many people praying for her and her family for the 25ish years she's worked for Avanti and I just know prayer works. Anyway, there were lots of other people there as well that we have been praying for and I got to see God working especially that day. Jim Woodroof brought the lesson to us and I heard he did a great job! I was upstairs helping with the kids class.

After church we went to lunch and everybody headed back to there own towns. But...there was a strike for the trains so everyone that was from Rome stayed an extra night and went with us to the Harding Devo at the Villa and it was such a blessing to spend that extra time with them.

Here is a video that Laura put together of the weekend. Enjoy. Thank you for reading and more to come soon. In this case, it will be a feast or famine kind of thing...you've experienced the famine of no news and now you will get to feast on everything that has been going on. Sorry for the delay.