Kirbys in Catania

Summer has arrived in Sicily. It is hot! There are actually lots of little fires popping up all over the city lately because of the hot winds. Also, unfortunately this year the sea around Catania is dirty from what they think are boat spills, so no going to the beach to cool off yet; unless we go out of town, which doesn't happen too often with two littles. So far this has been a very busy summer for us. Usually, summers slow down as most of our students decide to take a break because of vacations and such.  However, this year most of our students are still coming every week. That being said, next week we decided will be our last week to teach for the summer, as everyone (including us) is usually gone for the most part of August and it's just too hot to teach. In addition to our daily classes, we are staying busy just socializing really.  The majority of our work here involves building relationships with people.  There are a few students who are very receptive...

This year is flying for us! We loved getting to catch up with Laura and Sara at the convegno We started the year of right by going to Florence for the New Years to meet the new Avanti Directors and workers and to participate in the regional youth convegno held there.  It was a very uplifting and encouraging experience meeting with the new workers, and getting to spend time with some of our young Italian friends who we don't get to see very often in Sicily. This was the first convegno of it's kind in that the youth themselves organized it. They focused on the topic of evangelization. Daily devotionals covered topics such as "How to evangelize to friends," "How to evangelize to people different from us," and "How to evangelize to the foreigner." Each day there was an activity to help implicate the lesson/devotional from the day. One day they spent at the church building playing games and meeting students of the Avanti Workers. Another day was...