Movie Night, Aprilia, Spa Day, and Sunshine

Ciao from sunny (finally) Italy! The sun has arrived.  In fact, while I'm writing this, I'm sitting outside on our new swing that someone donated to us.  We just finished putting it together this morning. :) We have been taking advantage of this beautiful weather.

Two Saturday's ago we had park day for the kids at church.  Several of the kids and some of their parents came.  I was sick again that weekend so I did not go, but everyone tells me that it was fun.  It sounded like the day involved a lot of soccer playing.  

Last week was a pretty typical week for here.  Our classes went well.  On Thursday, we took the kids from church to Cascine park here in Florence.  It's a nice park alongside the Arno river.  They have a small fair that is there all the time.  Only two boys from church were able to come, Marco and Moreno, but we had a lot of fun.  Actually, I think us adults might have had just as much if not more fun than the kids. :) They rode the swings, which is way more fun here.  Here on the swings, not only can you touch each other and grab onto each others' chairs - it's encouraged!  They hang a flag way up high on this poll, and couples work together to try to catch it.  We saw this boy and girl pair get it.  It was awesome!  This boy was hanging on to the girls chair for several rounds on the swings, then one time as they rounded the corner near the flag, he started pumping his legs like crazy in the air to get some power, and he flung her seat HIGH in the air and she snatched the flag from the poll!  Talk about exciting.  I'm going to get Alan to do that with me one day.  All of the people from our group didn't try to get the flag, they just enjoyed shoving each other's chairs into one another. :) Brotherly love and all that. Then Kelly and I did the big trampolines with the two boys from church.  That was interesting.  We all practiced our flips, and Kelly and I both got bruises from the harneses.  But it was fun.  I think everyone's favorite though was the bumper car/motercycles.  They gave us a free round after paying for two, so we did it a lot.  All of us adults got bruises on our shins because we didn't really fit in the bumper cars.

 Last Wednesday, Elizabeth took me on a ride on her scooter.  We drove around the hills of Tuscany for a couple of hours, got some gelato, and took pictures of the view and vineyards.  It was really enjoyable to get out and to get to spend some time with Elizabeth! 

Last Friday, we had movie night here at the school for our students.  After much debate and discussion we finally decided to watch Emperor's New Groove. We had 12 students show up, and it seemed like everyone really enjoyed the film.  Pretty sure I laughed more than everyone else though....I just love that movie.


Alan and Peter went to Aprilia, which is a city near Roma.  They visited the church there just to meet new people (for Alan), visit with friends, and be an encouragment.  They left early Saturday morning and came back Monday afternoon.  It sounds like they had a lot of fun.  They had church outside, played a game of soccer afterwards (naturally), and had fun with everyone down there.  They both came back sunburned and grinning.

So while the boys were gone, all of us girls decided to have a spa day on Saturday.  We were total bums, and we enjoyed it.  We watched movies and tanned in the sunshine.  I rode my bike to the COOP (grocery store) and bought some stuff to make scones, clotted cream, and meat pies.  I guess I was on an English-theme that day.  It was so nice to just
relax and laugh together.

We've also spent some of our free time walking to the river (just a few blocks away) and sitting by the "falls" (dam) to soak up the sun.  Kelly often brings her guitar, and occassionally we break out into some type of workout pose since we are all working out every morning now.  We often like to share our moves or favorite or difficult exercies that we did that morning.  One day we were practicing an exercise move by the river and criticing each other's form, when we realized that there's a school across the street and several students were hanging out the window watching us. Guess we were their American entertainment that day.

We've been getting ready for VBS.  Right now we're making the intro video.  It's going to be awesome, and I will definitely be sharing it on this blog when it's done.

Movie Night

Classes are going well this week.  Since the weather is so nice, many of us are having our classes outside now.  It's one of the neatest things to do - to get to have in depth conversations with others about God, the Bible, and religion in general.  It's so amazing to see each of our students learn and grow each week.  I wish you all could see it too.  For me, it's the most uplifting, encouraging thing that we do here. 

We have been working a lot on the yard lately too.  Getting ready to plant a garden and clearning the yard of trees and branches.  David chopped down so many branches, that the ongoing thing that we give him a hard time about right now is that there will be no shade this summer.

Again, Alan and I appreciate all the prayers and support your are sending our way.  We are visiting both Catania and Milano at the beginning of May.  We just continue to ask for prayers for this work here in Italy, for our students, and for guidance.  We love you all!