Day 46 – July 18th, Wednesday

Day 46 – July 18^th, Wednesday

Today, woke up, took a lot of time to be in the word, cleaned up and went and got coffee at Caffe Viale, and talked with Andrea and Sognia for a bit and then headed to the church and got lunch at Golden Pizza, which is right across from the church. After that we went back upstairs to the church and started writing. We had letters to write to people, a lesson to write for our last weekend here, and I had to catch up on this journal. So this is what I’ll be doing till church later tonight at 7. Oh and we’re going to Rome on Monday for Three days.

Day 45 – July 17th, Tuesday

Day 45 – July 17^th, Tuesday

Today we had language route, but I had to go get groceries for lunch, and I also needed to study some new verbs and pronouns. So I spent about 40 minutes doing that, then I bought lunch and a few extra groceries and dropped off

Day 44 – July 16th, Monday

Day 44 – July 16^th, Monday

Today, we woke up and had a bible study at Cardeto, which is a park/nature walk area on the ridge of the southern hill in Ancona. We had lunch, I went and took a nap. Got up and 

Day 43 – July 15th, Sunday

Day 43 – July 15^th, Sunday

Woke up very early to go clean the church up for the Phillipino church that meets at our church. And I skyped with a good friend, Ryan Bartnick. Then I went back and took a nap before we headed to the beach later. Hopped a train, headed to Senegallia, then…

Spiaggia Chiesa! (BEACH CHURCH!) it was fun, and awesome. 

Day 42 – July 14th, Saturday

Day 42 – July 14^th, Saturday

Long Day. We had the Evangelistic Outreach with a ton of other churches. All the other churches were either Pentecostal or like Jews for Jesus, with that strange Dispensational doctrine. It was a chaotic day, with all sorts of issues with the sound board. We had some time to practice before, but things weren’t going well, so I made the call to say that we should just do grazie in Accappella, and I would play “Always” by myself. We watched the African Pentecostal church sing, and they did kind of well. Some of their songs sounded great, but others seemed as though key wasn’t a focus. Nonetheless, it was good. They even sang “Because He Lives”, which was awesome. Then it was our turn, we sang grazie, and I was surprised, because it sounded fantastic. Then It was my turn, I was nervous for about thirty seconds, then I didn’t really care. I played through most of the song and then the speakers shut off and they came to fix stuff. I was pretty frustrated because I do have training in sound engineering, but I shrugged it off, not worth getting upset about. But they said “Anche! Anche!”. Which means Again, again. Apparently most of what I had played didn’t play on the speakers, so they wanted me to start over. The guitar didn’t have a pick up, it was just a regular acoustic, so we had to Mic it. In the back of my head I was thanking Mike Bowers (my Sound Engineering Teacher from Tulsa Technology Center) for teaching us how to Mic different instruments. So I started over, played all the way through and everybody loved it. So we stuck around to watch everyone else, and we had a drama or a “Mimo” to do. It was really good and went really well. We had to dress all in black, and have black and white make up on our faces. We ending up being there till 11pm. At the very end, I stepped up on a small wall, and my shorts ripped, the ones that I had bought in the market in Ancona. So the rest of the night I had to walk around with ripped pants. It wasn’t that bad though, you couldn’t see that they had ripped. No reason to freak out though, learned not to buy anything in the market, the quality might not be great. We had to take the girls home, and we had Brian drop us off at TaTaruga for a late dinner. We hadn’t eaten since early that morning, so we got some pizza and walked home.

Day 41 – July 13th, Friday

Day 41 – July 13^th, Friday

Today we woke up and had a prayer time for Marcus. Heidi, Lindsay and Kelley came over and we all prayed for Marcus for a good hour and a half or so, then we talked for a bit and headed up to Brian and Heidi’s house for Accountability. It was a great day. God used our talk to really teach me some things. Brian had told us that the main focus and prayer for the interns was that we would be changed by coming here, and that much of the internship was constructed to frustrate us, to show us the difficulties of the field and let God use those things to reveal issues in our own lives and to be changed by that. It was sobering and liberating to learn that. I still don’t understand what God is changing in me, but I’m sure it will make sense in due time. Brian also told us that we were asked to present some music to represent the church at the outreach on Saturday. We had nothing ready, so I started practicing some songs and decided on two. One is called “Grazie” which is an Italian worship song, and then I did “Always” by Kristian Stanfill. We practiced a little bit later on during the coffee house, and we also watched birds, by Alfred Hitchcock.

Day 37 – July 9th, Monday

Day 37 – July 9^th, Monday

We went to Grotto Di Frassasi, which is a huge cave in a mountain. The first room of the cave is big enough to fit the entire basilica of Milano in it. MASSIVE. They wouldn’t let us touch any of the stalactite or stalagmite. But we didn’t care, it was like a giant air conditioner down there and it was the coolest cave I’ve ever seen.

Day 36 – July 8th, Sunday

Day 36 – July 8^th, Sunday

Today was the day for the kids to coordinate worship. I think they did a good job, just need a little more self confidence. Everything went well and was awesome.

Day 35 – July 7th, Saturday

Day 35 – July 7^th, Saturday

Today we got lost. We got on the wrong bus that took us way out into nowhere, a town called Macerata. We wasted 5 hours getting lost, and finding out way from Macerata to Numana. Lesson Learned: Always ask the bus driver what bus your on, and where its going. But we had fun, and Simone got off of his last day at work of his second job and was excited. He immediately jumped in the ocean and started swimming. We all jumped out and swam while it was getting dark. Aside from wasting so much time and getting lost, it was a great day. When we got back, we went with Marcus and walked about town, apparently it was the first day of a sale that almost every store participates in.

Day 33 – July 5th, Thursday

Day 33 – July 5^th, Thursday

Internet day. But I had some cleaning to do so I left early and went back to marcus to do some cleaning. I had to finish the floors. I was working on the floors and Aaron invited all of the guys out to get something to eat at “La Tataruga” (The Turtle). It took me a while to finish cleaning the marble floors, and as soon as I was done I went and hopped on the 1/4 bus to take me to the restaurant. I got there just as they were finishing their main course. I wasn’t too hungry so I ate some small left overs, but then we had dessert. It was a small cake type thing, filled with pudding like chocolate and covered in Nocciola and cioccolato crema. So good, probably the best desert that I’ve ever had. Afterward we talked Brian into sticking with us to go to the “Mole” to see a jazz concert, with “Scott Robinson”. He had and played an instrument that belonged to a friend of his, who was in Louie Armstrong’s band. It was a good night, then Eric and I went to go get his bag that he left at Tataruga, and we were tired so we hopped on a 1/4 back to the apartment while Aaron and Marcus finished watching the concert.

Prayer Request: 7/5/12

Prayer Request: 7/5/12

·         The heat has been making several of us really tired. Pray that we will have energy, or find time for naps or something. The sun just beats you down here from like 1-4 everyday.

·         Woke up and it was cool in the house! There were clouds and it was fantastic! But the sun soon came out and ruined that, but praise that it was nice this morning!

·         I have caught up on almost all of the journal. There were a few days that I could not remember, aside from that I still have lots of Greek studying to do, and reading. Pray that I can get caught up on all of that and have it done on time.

·         Praise for language learning! I’m doing pretty good with the language, I just wish I had more chances to use it everyday. The language route doesn’t always work out well, mainly because businesses get busy, but today was great I had quite a bit of time to talk with the bariste

·         Pray for the church, for the people rising in leadership, for the team’s leading, and for Matteo and Silvia to repent and the relationships be restored and that God’s will be done.

·         Pray for me. God is using this to really teach me some stuff, some difficult stuff about life, about following him. I feel the urge to rebel and control more than ever here. I’m Trying to submit, trying to learn. Right now is a time that I wrestle with God, but soon I hope that I can simply walk alongside him again soon, I miss that.

·         Pray for my job situation. I’m pretty low on money and I’ve put a lot of my energy, time and money into this internship. Pray that God can help me get a good job when I get back, and while trying to pay my school bill down to a certain amount, I was unable to pay someone back for something.

·         Pray that God will provide for my school bill. I have roughly 800 left to pay off and it has to be payed off by the 8^th of August for me to enroll on time, and if Its much later than that I very well may not be able to continue school in the fall.

·         I made a lot of sacrifices to be here. I’m not for health and wealth Gospel, but Pray that God will bless me financially, to take care of what I need, and so that I can be a blessing to others again financially. Pray that God will provide. The father provides, and he gives good gifts.

·         My sister is having a baby, pray that I will be able to go to Tulsa and be with family during that time right before school starts.

·         Pray that God will help me understand some difficult things about life that I’m trying face and understand.

·         Pray for Ancona, Verona, Rome and all of Italy

·         Pray for the world

·         Pray for the Kingdom of God to expand.

·         Pray for workers to go to the harvest field.

Day 32 – July 4th, Wednesday

Day 32 – July 4^th, Wednesday

Marcus went out of town Sunday and got back this morning.

Regular day, but it was the fourth and Wednesday, so we set up for church had a bible study over John 4. Daniel made it late because his son Emmanuel got sick and Simona had to stay with him. He's a good man, I can't wait to see what kind of a leader he will be. Then we had dinner and cleaned up and went and chilled out front a bar in Piazza di Papa right by the stage where Mumford and Sons was playing. The tickets sold out so we couldn't get in front of the stage and watch the performance, but it was loud enough and we enjoyed it anyway.

Day 31 – July 3rd, Tuesday

Day 31 – July 3^rd, Tuesday

We had a lot of free time today, and it was blazing hot, so we went and took a nap in the middle of the day. Well worth it, sometimes It gets so hot here that you can’t really do anything else. Marcus was telling us how that’s the natural thing that most people do, is get up earlier, run errands, and around 1 to 4 shops close up and people take naps during that time, then they come back out and finish the day and spend time with people have dinner, call it a night around midnight.

Day 29 – July 1st, Sunday

Day 29 – July 1^st, Sunday

No sermon today. Today was a bit of a solemn day. Instead of a sermon, brian had to explain the descision for Matteo and Silvia and explain the whole situation and the descision and do a bible study walk through on authority and a divisive brother. So we prayed, had worship, and today was Kyle’s last day in Italy. So we had a time of prayer for him before he had to get to the train station and make it to his flight. We said our goodbyes sang out last song “Grazie” (Thank You), which I intend to learn to play and share with everyone when I get back. Also, after that we went to the roterts to watch the game (Spain Vs. Italy). It was shameful and sad, Italy lost. 5-0. We were going to go get Ice Cream, but apparently when Italy loses, everyone gets ice cream, because there were hundreds of people at Piazza Diaz, so we stayed up late watching T.V. instead.

Day 28 – June 30th, Saturday

Day 28 – June 30^th, Saturday

Saturday was busy, I went to the Pasetto to get some sun and swim a bit. Got my first sunburn since I’ve been here. Then we went to practice worship, ran into several problems with the songs that would take quite a while to correct, so I decided not to play on Sunday. Then we went with Marcus to Andrea's and had dinner with two more couples and had a great time. Spending about three hours just talking back in forth was a great exercise in Italian. If you go overseas, try to have dinner as much as possible with the nationals, you'll learn a lot.

Day 27 – June 29th, Friday

Day 27 – June 29^th, Friday

Today we got bad news. Apparently there had been a lot of divisive talk among a couple in the church, talking poorly of leadership and wanting power and to take leadership. This apparently has been going on over the past several years, as they are Christians who have come from another denomination and wanted to change the doctrine of the church and the leadership. It was turning into a power struggle, so the missionaries got together and decided to ask them not to come back until they repented of what they were doing, which they answered back by saying that they were going to destroy the church. So we prayed, a lot. Be praying for this couple to repent, for God to open their eyes. 

Day 24 – June 26th, Tuesday

Day 24 – June 26^th, Tuesday

Marcus had his last English teaching lessons, and we prepared an Apperitivo for everyone. Not everyone showed up though. Andrea and a few others showed up, and Andrea invited us out to his house on Saturday for dinner. The English students left and then Marco and his family and friends showed up. Earlier Brian had asked us to help Marco with a drama they had coming up at an event. So they showed up to teach us part of the Drama. We learned and then called it a night.