Women's Convegno and Youth Convegno

Margherita Pizza from Pizzaiulo (our fav place)
Two weekends ago we had a Women's Convegno for all the ladies from the churches in Italy.  It was held in Prato, which is only a half hour away from us.  The whole convegno was conducted in Italian.  The topic was spiritual gifts.  While it was fun and encouraging to meet so many women from so many different churches, it was exhausting.  You find that at certain points in the day, your brain just shuts off from all of the translating you're doing.  However, it's really exciting to realize how much we are understanding and how much better we are getting at communicating.  I met ladies from all over Italy: Milano, Sicily, Ancona, Roma, and several other places.  Through meeting several members from the church in Milano at this convegno, Alan and I are now invited to go up to Milano to visit their church.  So we will probably be doing that some weekend this month.

The kids put on a skit
Last week was our final week of language class.  We are still practicing with Melissa and studying on our own in the mornings when we have time.  Our classes continue to go well.  Again, Alan and I have picked up some new students even though we have only about one more month of classes for this semester.  Please continue to pray for our students, that their hearts will open to the gospel of Christ. 



Last weekend, Lindsey, Peter, Alan, and I traveled by train up to Bondeno (near Ferrara) for a youth convegno.  We saw several people that we had met back in January when we went to Padua for the very first convegno we ever went to.  It was nice to see them again.  We had a lessons on the familiy and marriage.  I'm not really sure why it was called a youth congegno because there were people there of all ages.  Alan and Peter played soccer with the kids.  Only one soccer ball got lost in the river. :) We ate tons of food and celebrated Easter there with them.  One day we went into Ferrara when we had some down time.  It is called the city of bikes, which is understandable because there were bikes everywhere, and I got ran into twice.

Alan and I got to talk with Jeff, who is a missionary here with his wife in Padua.  He will actually be going to Harding this coming fall to be their visiting missionary.  So, if any of you get a chance, I would recommend getting to know them and attending their studies that they will have. 




We hope you all had a great Easter!  Here, they celebrate Easter by getting together with families for big meals.  The typical food seems to be lasagna, lamb, other meats, and a colomba (dove-shaped cake).  Alan was really sweet and got me a couple of little chocolate eggs from the "famous" pastry shops in Florence. 

Today, we worked in the rain while we cleared out some tree branches and did some other yard work.  We're supposed to be doing some prep work for our traveling VBS that we will be doing this summer. 

Last update for this blog: Alan and I have been invited to visit the church in Catania and the church in Milano.  As you know, we already visited the one in Rome.  So we would, of course, appreciate prayers for direction on what God's will is for us here in Italy and for Him to make it clear to us where we should go work for His church. 

There were dogs all over Ferrara


This is the view from Piazza Michelangelo.  Have to back there one day with my good camera!
Yeah, we live here....
These were just taken with my little point and shoot camera, but I had to share. 

 
The bells in Ferrara on Easter Day

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