Kirbys in Catania

Yesterday started off with a break-in at the church, and ended with a baptism. Alan and I walked into the church building yesterday morning to find furniture moved around, a broken window, and glass on the floor.  Luckily for us, Stephano was already there.  Apparently a man broke into the church by lifting up the blinds, and forcing open one of the doors.  However, a cop was nearby and saw him breaking in, and quickly picked him up and took him to the police station.  Thankfully, nothing was stolen or damaged other than the window. We had a good lesson with one of our students, a girl from church (Giorgia) brought her friend from school to have an English lesson (this was her first time), and then we got a phone call from a person who wants to start classes this week.  So it was an eventful first half of the day, and we have some new students (yay!).  Alan and I had granita and brioche with Giorgia and her friend Francesca.  Then we hiked it back ...

I apologize for how far behind I am on this blog.  This is my attempt to catch everyone up to what we are doing here in Italy lately. The day after we came back from our camp trip to Albania, Alan and I packed up again and returned to Florence for a week of Convegno.  The first half of the week (Aug 18-21) was a youth convegno.  We had so many kids there! We were expecting somewhere around 25 since that's all that registered, but we had somewhere around 45 teenagers and young adults come to the Bible School for the youth convegno. It was an amazing experience.  Though we were in the kitchen a lot preparing their meals or busy preparing other activities for them, we enjoyed the time we got to spend with the youth.  Alan and I were burnt out with photography that week, so we took hardly any photos.  I will be stealing some photos from my fellow Avanti Workers for this blog (thanks guys!). puppet show The theme for the youth convegno was "Like Childre...

I can’t even begin to tell you what an amazing experience Albania was.   First, I want to say thank you for the prayers and the support that you sent! It’s amazing to get to meet the family of God all around the world, and I wish I could share this experience with each of you that read this.   But I don’t think words will be enough. Disclaimer: I am not a singer, and I am not a drummer. So, yes, I know I can't keep beat with this song. :) We're just having fun.  So, Thursday, August 1 st, the Spinas (Stephano, Rina, and Giulia) picked us up, we crammed all of our luggage in their car, crammed ourselves into their car, and headed off to Albania.   It was hot, long, but fun! We took a ferry from Sicily to mainland Italy, drove across the bottom of the boot, and stopped in Taranto for a Bible study at the church.   This church in Taranto was the church the Spina’s used to worship with when they lived there.   Then, some members from the church ...

Sitting here in my living room in Catania Sicily, I can’t help but wonder how life can change so drastically in so short a time.   My husband has collapsed from exhaustion rather early this evening, and I’m sitting here waiting until my parents get off work so I can skype with them tonight.   As I was sitting here, I glanced over at my husband’s computer, which he left open on some photos he was working on.   Naturally, I started skimming through all the photos that we have on this computer.   I guess I was in a sentimental mood, because I went to see if we saved any photos from our wedding on here, but we didn’t.   They are all on a hardrive in Maryland with our other pre-Italy photos.   Then, I had a thought.   I wondered if we’d remembered to delete our home videos too or if they were still taking up storage space on this computer.   I was in luck.   All of our videos are still stored here.   I started looking through ones that w...