I have officially written about everything on that list that I posted a while ago. NOW, there's still more! Of course, that has happened even since then.

In the month of July, Peter stayed home and didn't go to camp and helped David with completely redoing the kitchen. They took a mini-jackhammer and evened out the walls, re-tiled the floor, put new tiles on the wall, added more electrical outlets(because there were only 3 in the entire kitchen before, one for the fridge, one for the mixer, and one for the coffeemakers(American and Italian). So yes, there were times we needed a few more and now there are at least 8...hooray! They also painted the rest of the wall and the ceiling, moved the new furniture in and put in new faucets...it was a job, let me tell you.

They weren't the only ones that helped though, everyone chipped in and even visitors helped out. There was a mother and daughter that was passing through and they helped for several days, Derrick and Jay, Emily's friends, helped for several weeks. They were supposed to do a work exchange with someone else in Florence and once they got here, in Florence, these people cancelled! yikes, so they did a work exchange with us instead, they worked on the kitchen and got room and board. Once we got back from camp, Ryan came over everyday and helped until it was time to stop. Everyone else helped as well, but I can't name everybody.

The furniture is actually used but it's new to us. Pepperdine University in Florence was redoing their kitchen and getting rid of the old kitchen stuff, so Elizabeth Watley knew we were doing our kitchen and gave us their old stuff. Awesome! All stainless steel and the kitchen looks great and is so much better than before. It will be so much easier to work and prepare big meals now. Thank you so much to everyone that helped with that!

I'll post some pictures of that soon.

VBS!!!

Ryan and Laura organized VBS at the Florence church this summer in June. The kids loved it and so did everyone that helped.  The theme was "The armor of God". There were kids from Prato, Florence, and Pistoia. Here's the video Laura made and there is a clip of the skit the guys did that you have to see...they really put on their actor faces. VBS video You'll have to be logged in to see the video and if you still can't see the video let me know and I'll ask Laura for a copy of it or something. Here are pictures even if you can't see the video...

Emily really took her job seriously, making the armor.

Tested and Approved by Emily Woodroof

Zoey is sporting her name tag

First and Second Campeggio

Campeggio is the Italian word for Camp. Every summer at the end of June and beginning of July, the first week is for the younger kids(7-12) and the second week is for the older kids(13-18ish). It was a marathon of speaking in Italian but I loved it! Different in several ways from American Summer Camp, like every meal there was a full italian meal, pasta, meat, a side of some kind, bread, and fruit w/ nutella. I think I gained 10 pounds at camp(not really but there was always plenty of food to eat.)

Great news as well, 3 girls were baptized at camp! There is no baptistery or body of water so the decision was made to empty the freezer and fill it with water...and then we had a baptistery.

Laura made an awesome video, as usual, showing all the different aspects of camp and that will tell you more than I ever could about what a great time we all had those 2 weeks. Camp Video

Thanks for reading everybody!

Ferrara Agape

Also in the month of July, the church in Bondeno(close to Ferrara), where Andrea is working, invited the Bible School people to come worship with them and enjoy a meal and "show" afterwards. Andrea and the kids there had been working on a play about Lazarus rising from the dead. It was amazing! There were props and costumes and the kids did all of their lines from memory. They did a great job and we really enjoyed seeing everyone from Bodeno again.

After lunch, we were all talking outside and someone came by and gave Umberto, the older man in this picture, a huge fish! atleast 4 feet long. Apparently, the person that brought it already had too much so he gave it to Umberto. I wish I had taken a picture of it, because it was one of the biggest fish I have ever seen. Maybe next time.

Women's Day

Women's Day
Every year, around April, there is a Nationwide Women's Retreat near Rome. The women here love to get together and see their friends this weekend every year but last year the women in the Tuscany area decided they wanted to get together more often. It was great to see everyone once a year, but we all live so close, why shouldn't we get together more? So, everyone decided there would be days throughout the year that all the Tuscan women would get together and share a day of fellowship.

Since then, there have been 3 "Women's Days". The first meeting was just for organizational purposes and that was hosted at the Bible School. The first real meeting was in Pistoia in July and there were over 20 women! Laura, Ermenita and I took the train to Prato and then some of the ladies from Prato took us to the meeting because it was at one of the church member's houses. We had a great time of fellowship and singing and sharing.

The second meeting was just recently in Prato and there were over 20 women again with games and singing, and this time, we all came prepared with a written out "speech" about who is someone that has influenced your faith, in the Bible or otherwise. There were tears and there was laughter, which makes for a great day! I look forward to the next time we all get together again.

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.