HUF, Harvest and Halloween

As you know, the HUF program here in Florence is very active and invites us and our students to many activities. There are three that I have personally participated in most recently.

The first would be the grape harvest in the beginning of October. I did this last year as well and man, it was so interesting and gross last year. It had rained for several weeks and the grapes were moldy and the ground was really muddy. This year on the other hand it was perfect. There had been just enough rain but the ground wasn't too muddy and the grapes were gorgeous and not so low to the ground. Awesome! It went much quicker and we would fill up the buckets before they could empty a load so we could continue to harvest more grapes. Afterwards, there was a cookout with big slabs of bacon, ribs and garlic bread. It was so delicious!

The next event was the olive harvest, which was only last week. Harding has probably 50-100 olive trees around it's property and each Fall, the HUF students help harvest them. I went up for an hour or so since things are staying so busy at the Bible School and helped with the harvest. It's very different than harvesting grapes and makes you appreciate olive oil a lot more.

That night was the Halloween party at the villa. Kyle asked the Avanti workers to play a part in the Haunted Walk they do for the students. How it works is, Kyle or Mona take a few students at a time around the grounds of the villa telling scary stories about Scandicci or the villa. My role was to be a ghost of a girl that was always late and one day she got left and now, on Halloween every year, she comes back to haunt the villa. It was fun and if you've ever been to the villa, you know it's pretty easy to make it scary.

This next part has nothing to do with HUF but happened the weekend before the olive harvest and Halloween party. The church where Andrea is working hosted an area wide retreat and invited us to come and be a part of it. So, we left Saturday afternoon and arrived in Bondeno a few hours later. There was one speaker that evening and then we all went out for a pizza, stayed in homes, and the next morning came back to the church building for worship and a meal. I stayed with a girl named Esmeralda...I say a girl but she is actually somewhere around my age. She was very sweet and even though it was just for one night, it was nice to get to meet her.

Me and our newest Avanti Member, Kelli

It was great to see Andrea again and all the work she has been doing. She and some of the other young people have been painting the building and she worked very hard in helping organize this weekend. Great job Andrea!

Thursday visits

In honor of tomorrow being Thursday, I've decided to write about "visitation". Visitation is not what you might think, we do not go every Thursday for what we call visitation in the States. Visitation is where we go visit a member from the church, or a student, or someone that we would like to get to know better.

Here are a few of the people we've visited:

Maria Teresa and Emma and their kids. They are all from Honduras and just recently started coming to the church in Florence because they were taking the bus to the Prato church but it was too difficult with all of the kids so now they are here! Hooray. We went to the park and played and had a "merenda"(snack) with them after the kids got out of school.

Mario is a retired man from church and with out him, things would fall apart. He is a true Florentine and has been here forever. He came to the Bible School for lunch and each of us had a question to ask him. We found out so many interesting things about him. He has literally been in Florence since the flood...the one in 1966 and he also has pictures of Florence during World War 2 and the flood. Really interesting stuff.

Niccolo is another retired man from church and he came to the Bible School and we celebrated his birthday. Sadly, I didn't get to talk to him as much, but he is a firecracker, let me tell you. I'm sure we'll have him over again sometime and I will get to talk to him a little bit more.

Christina is from Brazil and she works at a nursing home in the Alzheimer's ward. As you know, Laura and I are at the building Thursday morning to do the weaving class and Erme comes a little later to have a Bible study with the mother, Maria. So, if we do something for lunch for visitation, usually it is around the church building. There is a pretty good pizza place close by and that is where we went with Christina. Once again, I was at the other end of the table so I didn't hear all of what she said but afterwards, Laura and I went back to the church building to weave some more and Christina came and we talked until it was time for the Conversation Class that night.

Last Thursday, we decided to visit Elizabeth Whatley, the director of the Pepperdine Program here in Florence. She is always doing something and this Thursday her plan was to plant 700+ tulip bulbs in her garden at her house! So, instead of cancelling the visit, we went and helped and I know she appreciated it. We brought a picnic lunch and drinks and after we ate, we started to work. There were 8 sections to be planted and only one of them didn't get planted and she said that was probably the easiest one so it wouldn't be a problem for her to do the next day. Success!

(Sorry, I don't have anymore pictures right now.)

These aren't in order and are just the most recent "visitees" but maybe you have an idea of what Thursday Visitation is now. I think this is one of the best things we do here and that it is part of what we're called to do as the church. I'm guilty of this as well, but I would go to church say hello and ask how they are and then never really found out about the person. Now, especially the people we've gone to visit, it's more meaningful to see them on Sunday mornings. I know it's a continuous thing to get to know people and be part of their lives but I know this is atleast a step in the right direction.

God Bless all of you and thank you for all of your encouragement!