Prayer Request 6/28/12

Prayer Request 6/28/12

·         I have been sick this past week. Not too bad, just like a cold of some sort, I had a really bad day with it a week ago Friday. Its going away slowly

·         I will be helping with Sunday morning worship. Pray that I get some practice in and do well so as not to be a distraction.

·         God is doing a lot in me.

·         I got to talk to a friend of mine from OCC, Scott Reed, who is in Jena, Germany right now. Pray for him and his girlfriend Kendra. Him and the ministry there, and their relationship while he is overseas for the summer.

·         God is doing a lot. It seems as though he has been setting up a lot of things, giving me a lot of internal and external conflict. So It seems as though he is setting up to teach me a lot about him, about life, about myself, and about where he is leading. Pray that I don’t miss it, and that I gain understanding. Pray that I will see God’s will as he sees it, that I understand his will when he reveals it, and not struggle and fight.

·         Pray that God helps me shape my language route, still trying to figure a way out to have it be as beneficial in learning the language as possible.

·         Pray that God will help me balance everything, responsibilities with school, here as an intern, and in my own devotional life.

·         I’ve fallen behind on my journal, and I need time to catch up. Pray that God opens up some time to write.

Day 23 – June 25th, Monday

Day 23 – June 25^th, Monday

Today was a surprise trip. I kind of ruined the surprise because I had hunch and asked, and was apparently close. I said Perugia which is where they lived for language learning for a while. We didn't go to Perugia but we did go to that region and to some beautiful places. We went to the region of Umbria, which is the region where the city of Assisi is. We went to Assisi and Spello. Asissi has tons of history, as with St. Francis of Assisi was from there, and he is the Patron Saint of all of Italy. It was beautiful, the Basilica was interesting, there were catholics prayer to Mary, and praying to St. Francis. It was like going back in time; there were monks and friars in their traditional garbs. It was kind of eery how much Mary is venerated, at one point there was a shrine with Jesus on the cross behind a sculpture of Mary that was much bigger than the Jesus Crucifixion sculpture. She was overshadowing Jesus, which seems to be a good physical metaphor for Catholicism. We were in a bit of a hurry it seemed, I was really hoping to read up on the history, but most everything was in Italian anyway. Oh, and Francis’ Tomb was below the church, who knows if he really was down there but, they say he was, along with some other saints. After that we went to Spello for a long hike. It was a beautiful sleepy little city on a hill, a very big hill.

Day 22 – June 24th, Sunday

Day 22 – June 24^th, Sunday

Sunday, I read and Erik, Aaron and I watched Batman: The Dark Night before Church. We have been moving church back to 4:30 so that Valentina can come, so this time they had the sermon first, then communion and then we had worship. Dinner and then home.

Day 8 - June 10th , Sunday, 2012

Day 8 - June 10^th , Sunday, 2012

Haven’t wrote in a while so I had to back track on the days. Sunday was a simple yet encouraging day. I woke up pretty late, around 12, since we got back around 2 a.m. that night. I studied and read for several hours before Church, doing my Greek, reading for the internship, and reading up on my Greek textbook. Then I headed to Church, everyone else had left already to go run errands. Got to church helped to set up and we started real early, and while service was going, Heidi whispered about a lady that was there that I had not met before. She is a Romanian lady named “ “, and she works as a live in nurse for an old couple, so she only has a few hours off on Sunday, so we moved Church time just so she could just come worship with us, and we had pulled out several songs in Romanian to sing to, and Thursday, Heidi and some of the other women from the Church are going to go talk to her where she works/lives in Senegalia, because she has asked about baptism (I guess she was Eastern Orthodox before), and would like to know more. She has a strong passion for the Lord apparently, and never knew much about scripture or that there is more being a Christian than just religiousity.  So we worshipped with her and she was crying because she was so happy, at this moment I knew my question was answered. When I got here I have been wondering, how relevant, how useful, and how necessary is it for a church plant in Italy, and Ancona of all places. I believe in the work going on here, I have asked the Lord to show me what he is doing here, and I am full and confident in the work here. God gives good gifts indeed.

After this she gave us all a classic Italian greeting as she left (Kiss to the right and to the left of the cheeks). We set up for dinner, had several good talks, cleaned up, broke down, and I had a good talk with Daniel about the great need in the world, we spoke mostly about food and money, but I wanted to get around to the goodness of God that comes through planting Churches. We will have many more talks, and I’m confident that God is raising Daniel up as a leader. So the night was over and we headed back.

Day 7 - June 9th, Saturday, 2012

Day 7 - June 9^th, Saturday, 2012

Woke up around 10, and it was our Sabbath. We had just had a crazy week, so we were by no means going to rush around. So we sat around the house reading till about 12:30 and then went to La Via, to eat some leftovers that we had in the fridge there for lunch (save some money). Then we headed down to the Passetto to relax down by the beach. We laid out some towels and were there for about four hours. Took a nap in the sun, tanned, I went and skipped rocks, climbed out on the rocks (these giant wave breaker rocks are everywhere to protect the Pasetto and the rest of the beach from being destroyed), people watched, got in the freezing cold water for a bit, and the waves got really choppy, so I went to watch the waves on one side, until the waves got so crazy that they would crash over and get me soaking wet with cold salty water. Kelley was with us guys and she was going to go with her host parents to their daughters volleyball game, so we went up and waited on the steps of the Pasetto for them to arrive. We were going to go with her too but there wasn’t enough room for us in the car, so we went back to Marcus’ to think of what to do. Well Marcus was there and he reminded us that there was a fireworks show in a town to the north called “Senegalia”, which is right on the coast as well, so the beach is visible there too. We didn’t have anything planned so we decided to go. So we had some downtime before the show then we headed out. We had to take a bus to the train station, and the bus we were supposed to catch came earlier than it was supposed to, so when we go to the train station we had to hurry. Next we were buying the tickets and had about 8 minutes to spare. We turned and went down some stairs that go below the tracks and come up on all sides of each track. It was a long hallway that goes down quite a ways and had tracks 12 to the right 11 on the left then about 20 feet down 10 to the right and 9 to the left, and so on. We got to the end and realized that we had gone down the wrong one and had only a few minutes to spare! So we started walking fast, the jogging, then running, then sprinting! Up the stairs across the platform, and down some other stairs, down another set of stairs and to the end and then over and up some other stairs and we found out train waiting there. It was a close one, but we boarded and they said they had 6 minutes before departure! Nothing ever leaves on time in Italy, good for us though. So we were on our way to Senegalia. There were three towns in between Ancona and Senegalia, which, for this train, meant three stops. We were at one stop when another train from the other direction came zooming by and scared us, and I was in the seat right by the window, so I nearly jumped out of my seat. The thing went by in less than half a second, and it was crazy loud. After that we just chatted until we arrived in Senegalia. We got off the “Treno” and walked through Senegalia which was teeming with people, thousands, literally. So we followed Marcus through the city to a restaurant, but the restaurant was so busy that we just waited outside while Marcus ordered and waiting for take out Pizzas, which were delicious. We sat on a low wall near where the fireworks were to go off and ate before the fireworks show. We walked back to the main Piazza. By this time there was already a huge crowd, probably close to 8,000 people were there. In front of the Piazza there was a dome shaped building with a  balcony encircling it toward the top. On the balcony were all pyrotechnics. The lights in all the city shut off and the show began. The first song was Frank Sinatra’s “Luck, be a lady” with fireworks synced to the song in special parts, shooting all sorts of colors in all different directions, this song and show was my favorite by far. Then they played a song by “Queen” and another song that I’m not sure, all syncopated with fireworks. I found out that they were all companies that were putting on the display and it was a competition to show off who had the best show, and it was two days of fireworks each set from a different companies. So all the songs with displays that we had just seen were from just one company, at about €400 per shell, which is about 500 U.S. Dollars. Basically it was a very expensive show. The next company was about to start so we went down by the beach which is a sand beach, not a stone one like the one in Ancona below the Pasetto. So I took my flip flops off to enjoy the sand and chilled and chatted for a bit before the next show which went off on one of the large concrete piers. They were shooting the fireworks from back where they were originally, everything was done through some sort of switchboard so they shot three test shots that simply exploded, very loudly, you could feel it in your chest. Then the show started, no music this time, but it was still great. They had special shells that they shot into the water and they exploded from out of the water and looked amazing. They had several more that were great and for the end they just barraged the sky with as much as possible, it was amazing, better than any show I’ve seen in the U.S. After that we went around town for about forty minutes looking at a fort built some 300 or 400 years ago. After that we boarded our train and headed home, this train was a bit different, and it just sped straight to Ancona, no stops. After we got off the train Marcus let us know that we had a bit of a walk ahead of us. It took about 40-50 minutes to get back to his apartment, so we chatted as we walked back. And we all crashed as soon as we got there. Not a bad end to a week if you ask me.

Day 6 – June 8th, Friday, 2012

Day 6 – June 8^th, Friday, 2012

Today woke up had the usual breakfast of cereal and yogurt with a glass of juice.

We had Kebab’s together for lunch which was an interesting meal. Brian had me pay the guy, I said a few phrases in Italian and he thought that I knew Italian very well, so he started asking me questions so I told him, “Io Parlo Poco Italiano. Inglese” (I speak little Italian. English), and then he asked me in English where I was from and I told him America.

We had a time of accountability for the guys over by the port, under Trajan’s arch, which is almost 2,000 years old. We were asked questions about how were holding up, are we stressed, are we liking the culture, are we liking our team, purity, etc. After that we all met up again and started our next 30 days of excellence challenge. I’ll have more written about it later, it was the lighthouse challenge. Lindsay wasn’t feeling well so she went home. After that we went and ate an early dinner (here that’s about 7 or 8 pm.), and finished the night by getting some Gelato and heading back to Marcus’ to crash.

A Request for Prayer: 6/14/2012

Prayer Request: 6/14/2012

It has been challenging, but less and less. God is definitely using this to change and challenge me, the more that I submit, the more that I understand what God is doing. So I am trying to continue in this trend.

The other night I had some spiritual warfare going on. This is all relatively new to me. I have had it happen twice in the past month. I have more written on it in my daily journal for Wed. 6/13/2012. Regardless to say I need prayer.

Here are my requests with prayer:

• ·         Pray that I can understand my team members and what they bring to the table, their strengths and weaknesses
• ·         Pray for harmony, it feels at times that I am misunderstood most of the time
• ·         Pray that I can communicate my point of view when we discuss important matters
• ·         Pray that I know will know and began to see when to speak, and when to be silent
• ·         Pray that I don’t offend people unnecessarily
• ·         Pray that I can work well with people from different theological/doctrinal/denominational backgrounds
• ·         Pray that God helps me understand how and the importance of working with people from different doctrinal backgrounds.
• ·         Pray for Brian and his family, his grandmother has just passed and he will be back in the states from now till next Saturday
• ·         Pray that I would understand how to use my time very wisely. I have a lot of responsibilities and not a lot of margin.
• ·         Pray that my responsibilities for Greek, school internship, and the responsibilities on the field won’t get in the way of going out and building relationships with people in the city.
• ·         Pray that I would be able to focus on the Father, and to keep constant communication with him open through the day. As well as focused times of prayer.
• ·         Pray that I would be able to stay in the word daily.
• ·         Pray that God would protect me and my team as well as the missionaries from evil forces as I have been experiencing as of late.
• ·         Pray that I will have times of rest, and that they would be used well.

A Request for Prayer: 6/7/12

A Request for Prayer

I am asking for prayer. You hear about how prayer is the most important thing for missions back at school but when you’re out here you realize how incredibly true it is.

It is insanely challenging for me. Frustration of language learning, not knowing the language and not being able to communicate with people, being around people every hour of everyday, not having energy and needing to use energy, having energy but not being able to use it because of other priorities, not having any idea what the next day or even a few hours from now will look like, personality clashes, communication differences, differences in learning styles, irking habits, and simply not being in control.

It’s driving me crazy already. I’m not sure how I’m going to make it through the summer. I will have to take time to talk with people when we have the time, and get some of this figured out.

The main stressor is how much I am not in control, (a good lesson for me).

On top of all this, I have this for credit for class. Which means I have 500 pages to read, reports on whatever books I read for those 500 pages, A journal to write every day. AND, I have Greek to keep up with which I am almost three weeks behind on because I have not had time to do it yet, and the time I have had to do it, I’m exhausted.

Here is a list of things to pray for:

• ·         Pray that I can have time to talk with people to resolve some stuff, and figure out some solutions
• ·         Pray that God gives me strength to deal with things as they come
• ·         Pray that I can rest when its time to rest
• ·         Pray that I will find/make the time to fulfill all of my school responsibilities
• ·         Pray that I can work through my differences with everyone else’s personalities
• ·         Pray that I keep in contact with God throughout the day
• ·         Pray that I can get some time alone
• ·         Pray that I can find some ways to cope and relieve the stress of everything

Day 5 – June 7th, Thursday, 2012

Day 5 – June 7^th, Thursday, 2012

Time moves really slowly here, maybe its just that it’s a new place. So woke up, got ready, had breakfast. Aaron and Erik went to a store in the opposite direction, I felt like being alone for a while so I walked to the church alone, and dropped by a store up there to get some juice. Came up and we had language lessons while the missionaries had Diction lessons, which sounded really funny from the other room. We had lunch and now we have internet time… time to start the blog....

Day 4 – June 6th, Wednesday, 2012

Day 4 – June 6^th, Wednesday, 2012

Today I woke up a few minutes before ten and I went to wake the other guys because we were going to be late for language class at 10, but apparently the schedule got changed, that has happened a lot in the past several days, I don’t do very well without a calendar. But soon I will have some sort of calendar. So I had breakfast and read for quite a while, till about 12, and then we headed out to La Via and we made lunch, had our language lesson at 3 till 5, where we had about an hour, to clean and relax, and we went and played Frisbee in Piazza di pertini, which is basically a townsquare right by the Church. Then we went back inside and I talked with Lance about playing guitar, then I was able to play guitar for a few minutes (hallelujah!), which was nice because I did not get to take my guitar with me, it would’ve cost an extra $200 to take it here and back. While I was playing Daniel walked in, and complemented my playing. After that we just all socialized hung out and then we had a bible study, which was really fun, it was over John 2. Lots of translating being done. Then we ate dinner, laughed and had fun. After that we headed out with Marcus, and he showed us another Gelatria, we got some gelato and headed over to Piazza Di Papa, wherer there was a band playing some american songs, right in front of the stature of the Papa (pope). Apparently not sacreligious, because there was a priest out there too, in his priestly garbs (he must've been like 80), just chillin and listening to the band play (he must have lived in the catholic church right there in the Piazza. Then we headed back and went to bed.

Day 3 – June 5th, Tuesday, 2012

Day 3 – June 5^th, Tuesday, 2012

Today I woke up and we went to the church for language lesson from 10 – 12. After that we had lunch. Then we cleaned up the church and had about two hours and all of us interns went and got some gelato and went to the Passetto (monument) which is right by the beach, and we relaxed around there for a while, went down the Passetto steps (there are a lot of them) and to the beach, walked along the beach, and then back up the Passetto to look out on the Adriatico. Then we had what Brian calls the “Thirty Days of Excellence”, where for thirty days (not in a row, but over the summer) we have different “challenges” or “tasks”. This first one, we had to get on a few buses, basically to learn the routes of a few buses, and we got to see pretty much all of Ancona, and Brian wanted us to write down observations, so I wrote down everything, stuff about how people dress and interact, how the city is set up, where the bus routes go, what kinds of stores I saw, where the train station was, everything. Then we finished and went back and spent time with Marcus, watched some Italian T.V. and watched “The King’s Speech” in Italian. I learned a lot of words from watching that movie. Watching movies in whatever language you want to learn is a good exercise in language learning. I finished the night with reading and then went to bed.

Day 2 – June 4th, Monday, 2012

Day 2 – June 4^th, Monday, 2012

Today woke up and walked to Poste Italiane to exchange our U.S. Dollars for Euros. The main post office is closed and will be closed for a while, so they opened a metal shack type thing for the city, but that one must have been busy so we went to another one right by the port. Which took an hour. Then we rushed over to La Via and had language learning for two hours. We did our budget, ran to get some groceries to make lunch, came back and made "aglio olio pepperoncino”, or oil, garlic and pepper pasta, which is a very simple pasta dish, with some salad, pear. After that we finished our budget, got bus passes, and then everyone else stayed at La Via while I went with Brian to the airport to get Kelley’s lost luggage which took about an hour and fifteen minutes to get there and back, so I had time to ask a lot of questions and he wanted to hear my background. So we got back and everyone was playing Euchre with some German cards they picked up at the airport in Munich. We packed up and headed out to look for a phone store and went to two and they were all closed. Then we did a practice run using a bus, went to a market, bought some food and then split for the evening and now we are back at Marcus’ house and Aaron and Erik are cooking dinner with him in the kitchen while I write this.

So If I didn’t mention before, you walk, everywhere. Lots of walking, hours of walking, its good for you, I kind of like it. We will have the option to ride the bus today.

We learned the alphabet, vowels and consonants and the sounds they make together, and we learned about masculine and feminine nouns and articles.

No one will probably see this for a week but I am asking for prayer.

I am using this summer to try and work over some things in my head about future ministry/occupation and whether or not I want to finish out my BTh at OCC or get a shorter degree or get another degree all together.

I really need prayer for patience, I am not kidding on this one, the entire city moves a lot slower than I am used to and it causes stress to force yourself to function differently.

I really need to use the remaining hours of the day to relax and vent. So, Buon Sera.

Day 1 – June 3rd, Sunday, 2012

 Day 1 – June 3^rd, Sunday, 2012

Passed out as Marcus was talking to me about something. Not sure what, probably stuff about the apartment. Woke up at 8 a.m. to some massive bee that wouldn’t leave through the windows, so after waiting for a while, I just killed it and went back to bed. Ended up sleeping till 2 p.m. after that. Fine with me after being awake for almost 41 hours straight. We had time to take showers, read straighten our stuff up. We left and went to the La Via (The Way (The Church)) where we met more families that were actually part of the church, we met Daniel and Simona and their son Emmanuel and we met Simone and Mariana and their son Alex, whose birthday it was. We ate lots of great food, (there is no such things as bad food here), pastas, tiny pizzas, salad, olives, chicken and onions, raviolis, cherries, a delicious cookie and a slice of cake for Alex’s birthday. I got to learn a ton of words and phrases today, and I spent a lot of time with Daniel, who is originally from Romania and was so joyful, energetic and happy, he told me his that God made him so happy and that he was happy to be God’s slave because it was not like being a slave of any man’s. He made a joke that God is the recipe for life, when he is in the mix that it will be good. Headed back to the house through Piazza Di Roma and Piazza Di courvre. Resting at home and about to read and go to bed. We have a big day tomorrow, we have to exchange cash for Euros, First language lesson with Francesca, lunch, and then I believe that we are going to a town about 40 minutes outside of Ancona, where many of the pastors from several congregations from the cities and towns are all meeting and discussing issues and strategies. I’ve been reading C.S. Lewis’, “The Weight of Glory”, so I will read some and then go to bed.

….

Arrival - June 2nd, Saturday, 2012

Arrival - June 2^nd, Saturday, 2012

Well we had a week of training beforehand and it was the last day. The guys slept in the freedom barn at Team Expansion headquarters. We started the day early while some had already left: Andrew left at 3 a.m. and had a flight at about 5 a.m., while Rick and Rebecca left at 5:30 a.m. The rest of us woke up between 6 and 7 and packed up, weighed our suitcases and cleaned up where we had been staying and the downstairs room at Emerald Hills where we had been trained all week from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m., Saturday to Friday. Long Days.

We said farewell to everyone and headed to the airport. It was weird saying goodbye to people that you see for about 14 hours a day every day for just a week. A lot can happen in a week. Well we were well on our way and it had just hit me and a I got some weird feeling In my stomach that I wasn’t going to see any of my friends or family for two months,  I was fine with that before, didn’t even have a second thought really, and because of this I was surprised that I could have any feelings at all about it.

Well we got through the airport and I was trying to get through, there was a bit of anxiety getting through the security, I just didn’t want to create a hassle. Well I didn’t hear the part about laptops not being in a suitcase, so they took it out and checked it, and made me repack everything in that suitcase, I understand, they’re just doing their job.

So we had about an hour wait and I was people watching, learned a lot about people like that. We boarded the plane. I haven’t rode a plane in a long time and it wasn’t a long trip. This plane was tiny, three seats, two on one side, and one on the other. You could feel everything, makes for a very shaky and bumpy plane. Turbulence is no fun in something that size. So our plane took us from Louisville to D.C. airport. We were stuck in the D.C. airport for about four hours, two hours longer that we had to because of lightning storms. So we finally boarded and headed overseas. It was a very long and uncomfortable flight. No leg room, which was rough for being tall. They served us food, which was surprisingly decent portions, but it made me feel lazy, after a week of not being able to go for a run, not play ultimate Frisbee or anything else active, sitting on a plane being served food for 9 hours with a small television screen really got under my skin. Well I didn’t get any sleep, I think I passed out for small 5 to 10 minute increments about 2 or 3 times. Insufficient sleep basically. Well we finally arrived and I was just happy to use my legs again. Because of our first delay, our second plane left about 10 minutes before we had arrived. So we had to reschedule with Lufthansa, which is apparently one of the best airlines in the world, related to service anyways. So we tacked on an extra 6 hours to our trip, all to be spent in the airport. We were now in Munich and I wanted to take the time to learn some German and experience a little bit of that. Restaurants were set up so differently, they were hard to navigate, I ended up getting a small whole chicken and some fries, a muffin, and a German cola drink called “Mezzo”. It tasted like Coke or Dr. Pepper with some orange squeezed in it. It was much better than American soda because the carbonation content was down and it wasn’t near as acidic. Also did I mention that the Airport in Munich is massive? It had like a hundred gates. And the run way spanned like a four to five mile area, so they have plenty of space for the airplanes to land. So I people watched some more, read a newspaper and eavesdropped, all to try and learn some more German. We finally boarded, headed over, quick flight, flew over the alps, amazing. Then we came over the Adriatic and circled near Ancona, and went in for a landing. The guy was coming in too hot to the strip, but he still made it, after bumping off of the ground a few times. Scared me with all the tipping and bumping. We landed, got our luggage after about thirty minutes, talked with an Italian man, and met Francesa and Luca as well as Heidi’s husband Brian. We got in the cars and started the journey to the church, where we saw one of the best views of the city. We arrived at the church and met several Italian families, friends of the missionaries.

The missionaries are the Roterts: Hedi and Brian and their four children Lance, Cloe, Trey, Francesca (Oldest to youngest) , Marcus Van Dorn and Kyle Koval.

We met Francesca who will be our language teacher, Massimo and his wife, and Andrea and his wife and daughter.