The God of the weather created an exquisite panorama ten days ago. And we worshipped Him outdoors with praise and truth and baptized those who have turned to Him through His Son, Jesus Christ.
In the “Newsletters” section of our site, there’s a new one. Feel free to download and read it. More than that, partner with us in the advance of the Gospel through prayer. If you’d like to give financially, send us an email and we’ll let you know a number of convenient ways you can do that.
The dollar hit its all-time record low this week against the Euro. European vacations and living costs 40% more than it did about six years ago.
Ever move houses? Ever build your own home? Ever do either in Italy? We’re on the last stretch of finishing up phase 1 of our construction project with our Ministry Center (that’s a “Church Facility” for those who are afraid of the words “Ministry Center”). Yesterday, the electrician stopped in his tracks and asked me, “Have you ever studied architecture professionally because you sure have an eye for it…” I replied, “Only with you guys…” knowing that we have to watch what they’re doing like a hawk to prevent mistakes (we’ve caught some big ones). And I definitely feel that we’ve gotten a degree without the certificate. If we did receive the diploma, our major would be something like, ”How the World Works — Slowly.”
I know you’re a faithful reader if you get to the fifth paragraph. I’m pausing here to give you an e-high-five of thanks for keeping up with us.
FUNNY: Another American girl has started attending Reilly’s school. She’s in the 2nd grade too. Well, the two of them have really hit it off and all of the other boys are starting to tease Reilly that he has a girlfriend and Reilly really doesn’t know what that means (thank Heaven). So Reilly came home the other day and put an awkward question to us. He told us that the boys were teasing him and then asked, “What’s an amarosa?” Literally, the Italian word is used to mean “Lover”. You’ve gotta’ be in Italy when you have an amarosa in the 2nd grade.
I’ve been teaching through the first chapter of Philippians and digging deep into each word that Paul pens from prison. One word: wow.
We’re developing and organizing a ministry function called an International Prayer Coordinator. The coordinator will collect and collate the many various requests that we have and make them available to our prayer partners. This is something you can be a part of. I’ll post something about it in the future when we have more information available.
My Dad, Jon, turns 60 today on May 15th. What a milestone!
For those of you who actively follow our ministry, my Dad has been a huge help and active part in the organization, establishment, and foundation of the Serenissima Ministry Group International. With the team of directors and all of the details, Dad’s assistance has been invaluable. Starting this year and for the first time in our lives and ministries, we’ve been able to work on Kingdom projects together. It’s a thrill to see Dad’s gifts in administration flourishing again where they can be valued and appreciated.
Happy Birthday Dad — from all your kids, grandkids, ministry partners, supporting Churches, and multi-national brothers and sisters who are being impacted by your good work and investment.
What a catchy title! Wouldn’t you say? Over the last eleven years of pastoral ministry, there have been times where I discovered that I’m human. I hate it when that happens, too. But I have to give credit to pastors because until you wear the shoes and drink the punch, you can’t know the depth of exasperation that comes in the phrase, “I’m killing myself for these people…” That’s a very human moment. It means we see the reality that we have one life to live and that life is passing — many times faster than we had hoped. Pastors are real people too (start playing nice music here).
I remember thinking about five years ago how fast “ministry” would come at me and saying, “Don’t answer the phone, I haven’t had time to nurse my wounds from the last battle.” Often, this struggle has been magnified and multiplied by the speed of the information age. In other words, somebody fires-off an “offended email” at you and if you don’t respond within the day, they’re offended all over again because you’re ignoring them and their problem. This usually isn’t the case, it’s that you need a couple days to just think through how to honor the Lord in the situation and respond to them in a good way. But, if you do that, you start receiving calls from other people who they’ve called or Skyped all over the world about their issue. Technology and speed are great - sometimes.
Please understand that this is just one illustration of the many pressures that we face that come with the Calling. And, please know that I know that everybody has stress and pressure wherever they work and live — because that’s life. Ok, with that concession, I’m referencing life from the special role that I’ve been able to play in it. The point is that in this line of life-work, there can be a great build-up of continuous pressure to accomplish, complete, and please both projects and people. As one author put it, we get the incredible feeling of “hyper-responsibility”. And for some time, I lived under that immense load…
Until I discovered the gift of the Sabbath. Don’t miss the p
oint here — I knew the command of the Sabbath was in the Bible. But sadly, I had been taught or the Sabbath had been portrayed in a “secondary/non-important” light. “It was for the Jews, you know, pre-Jesus.” Oh, how much life-joy was missing in the years that it was “ok” to ignore the Sabbath. What many Christians don’t see today is that the Sabbath was a Creation thing of time. It was placed into the Creation-order. This means it was given to mankind to know his Creator. Man was created Friday. On Saturday, he rested — very first thing to do opportunity to know.
As our family has weekly received the gift of the Sabbath from the Father for some time now, it’s been on my heart to write about different nuggets and treasures that we’ve gathered from its joy and study. So, I think I’ll start the series, “I Refuse to Kill Myself” as a Shabat-joy series to share what I’ve learned about my Creator. Thank Goodness that Italy is a “slow” country where that slow-ness actually helps us in this journey of discovery. I feel bad for those of you in the States who will have to work stop extra hard.
Today is our day-off or Sabbath and I wanted to take just a few minutes to catch you up on some of our family happenings. I’ll work backwards from yesterday for a couple weeks.
Yesterday, Reilly rode his bike without training wheels for the first time. Dad was so proud and relieved to not have to run beside him any more while trying to wheeze encouragement. Some dads reading this are smiling right now at the thought.
On Resurrection Sunday, our Church celebrated the Living King with praise, Word, and beauty. A number of fellows (our assistants — I actually have a ministry staff now which has been a great treat) worked for a couple of weeks prior to prepare for this wonderful day. The grounds at our Church property were fantastic. The guys helped contractors put in a whole new fence to secure the property (moving tons of dirt, trees, and roots in the process), manicured the lawn and grounds, setup tents and tables for a fantastic outdoor family picnic, and painted the nursery. They did a great job. We had a number of visitors from all different nationalities, and we shared a ton of food together. It really turned-out well. My favorite part was the opportunity to teach on the doctrine of the Resurrection. In other words, I reveled in the opportunity to lay-out the Gospel and its power to change lives forever. The Resurrection brings meaning and significance to the Cross. They are fully dependent on each other. Without the Resurrection, the Cross becomes a hollow hate-crime of history and without the Cross, the Resurrection becomes completely selfish — only accomplishing life over death for one. Praise God He knows how to fulfill His promises — all of them.
Last week, we flew to Germany on Tuesday and returned on Saturday evening just before Resurrection Sunday. You can imagine the preparation that went in to making that happen smoothly. We went to Germany for a few reasons. First, we went to see our great friends, Paul and Jana Shankle. These guys were our support-network for the week ahead and we are very grateful for their help and care.
We also went to partake in a memorial service dedicated to our good friend and Church member, Troy Gilbert (see my “Tribute to Troy” post about his life and death in combat over Iraq). That happened at the high school in Bitburg, Germany where Troy graduated. We prepared for the official ceremony on Wednesday and then conducted it on Thursday. It was an outdoor ceremony and the weather was beautiful with a light breeze and cotton-ball clouds seemingly bouncing off of the rolling green hills in front of us. Our close friends Allan and Lenora Woodcock participated in the memorial and also asked me to make a speech. My Church members were in awe when they heard my speech was only 4 minutes, but I won’t waste more space about that here. 
The real blessing was that I was able to share the Truth of Jesus Christ evident in Troy’s life throughout my whole speech. If you’re interested in reading a copy of it — send me an email and I’ll drop it in your inbox. It should take you about 4 minutes to read.
Lenora gave a wonderful speech just before mine and Allan (call-sign = Woody) led the formation of F-16’s in the missing-man formation above us at the final note of Taps. Woody, Lenora, and Troy were all active members of our Church. In fact, Woody and Lenora were the leaders of the small group that Troy & Ginger were a part of while here. Another special point is that the missing-man fly-by was part of Woody’s fini-flight which was his last operational flight as commander of the 23rd Flying Hawks fighter-squadron. The Lord has kept Woody safe through two wars and many deployments in his 20 years of flying for the Air Force.
The next day (Friday), we attended and celebrated Woody’s change-of-command ceremony and then went to lunch together overlooking a beautiful valley on the Rhine river. These are special memories for us. I’ll try to upload some pictures of these events and friends in the gallery soon.
In the weeks prior, we’ve been very active in the teaching and administration of the ministries in the Church. Also, construction on our Church property began in March which gave us yet another hat to wear - general contractor. In high school, my pastor often said, “The mission field is where the adventure is…”
Tonight, Dad and the kids were all in the room praying before it was time to go to sleep. Our LifeTeam (small group that meets in our home) is currently praying for the country of Taiwan. So, we started talking all about Taiwan, missions, and our good buddy Mark Lehman on mission there. The kids were really getting into prayers for Taiwan and Dad was so proud.
In those moments, a parent can experience some of the most special insights into a child’s life — or some of the most bizarre. Dad thought that this prayer time would be one of those most special and insightful times … oh, sul contrario…
“Dad -”
“Ya buddy.”
“One day I’m going to be a dad too, right?”
“Yup, I’m sure the Lord will let you be a daddy someday too.”
“And I can have a kid?”
“You bet, even more than one if you promise me that you’ll all live at your own house…”
“I can have a boy-kid?”
“Yes, if that’s what Jesus gives you.”
“But I can’t name him Wicked can I? Or how about Han Solo?” . . .
Fans, short-sleeve shirts, & mosquitos made it feel more like June than October on the third of this month. We just completed our second annual discipleship conference and we were running the air conditioner with fans the entire time. By this time, we’ve already experienced our “seasonal-shift.” What I mean by seasonal-shift is that the seasons are so full and so pronounced here in the North that there are a few days a year where you can actually feel the dividing-time as one season overtakes another. Strangely later than usual, a beautiful lightning storm rolled in on Tuesday night. By Wednesday morning, the smell of the air was different, the color of the light had changed, and the weather had a crispness to it. Fall had arrived and Summer wasn’t coming back.
To digress for a moment, the discipleship conference was a lot of work and a great success. We had around 32 people training to be one-to-one disciplers. Also, after a year of effort, we were able to announce that we have completed the translation of all of the discipleship material into Italian. With this, we can assist many churches across Italy to care for their new believers and preserve a legacy within an embattled nation. There’s still a fair amount of work to accomplish before we’re able to assist Italy on a larger scale, but we reached our first milestone.
With the arrival of Fall comes the harvest and the many culinary tastes that accompany it. Pumpkin is often mixed into the sauces on pastas and two long-anticipated delights are reaped: chestnuts and pomegranates. Italy has wonderful pomegranates, second only to Israel in my opinion. We’ll devour a couple of these tomorrow. By the way, there is a lot easier way to eat this great fruit than picking at it seed by seed. If you would like to have this “fruit-hack,” just let me know and I’ll be glad to share it with you.
The joy of chestnuts, on the other hand, is when we roast them over our stove here at the house. The fragrant smoke they emit fills the entire house. Couple the roasted chestnuts with ice-cold Vanilla Coke and you’ve got an unbeatable combination that makes it worth living in Italy the whole year. Tonight, I was able to re-acquaint the kiddos with this harvest tradition. What a blast! Reilly’s quickly picked up the intricacies of shelling them well and eating them quick. Things like this make for great memories.
Tonight, Sandy is up in the Dolomites with a group of women from our Church. This weekend is our Women’s Breakthrough Weekend. The Men’s will follow in a couple weeks. These are also times of great memories as many men and women have their lives changed through the work of the Holy Spirit. All of these great things happen in the Fall.
I recently needed to write an article for one of our supporting churches and their missions conference. The requested theme of the article dealt with how we responded to the call to go to the mission field. While this is a brief summary and the whole story contains many more details, I thought I’d post it here on our blog for many of our churches’ benefit.
The call to “go in Jesus’ name” brought me to a fork-in-the-road moment. I was considering leaving Bible college and pursuing a degree in business and business leadership. For many years, the Lord had pressed upon my life that He wanted me to serve Him for His glory in a full-time ministry capacity. But the world and all of its opportunities were wide open to me at twenty years old. I was making good money — more than I had ever had control over before. And, I had aspirations upon a certain title and office in a company that I was working for at the time. I knew that if I put my mind to it that sheer will-power would get me that position and the pay associated with it.
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High Carbs
They’re not exactly like your state troopers back home. They’re also not your normal traffic police. These guys are “above” the traffic. They’re federal-para-military-city-provincial-police and they deal in high crime like bank robberies, pedophilia, extortion, mafia, terrorism, and all kinds of bad ragu.
Whatta’ u’ guys want?
So, it surprised me when I came back from the States and received notice to appear before the Carabinieri as soon as possible for atti di giustizia. Now, atti di giustizia can mean a couple things. First, it can mean acts of justice like somebody is suing us, there’s a citation against me, or they caught me putting too much sugar in my coffee. Or second, however, the word giustizia is also the biblical word for righteousness. They could’ve been asking for me to appear to preform acts of righteousness — WHICH I’M MORE THAN WILLING TO DO.
I couldn’t figure it out. I was racking my brain. I was wondering what Andrew (our summer assistant) had done with my car or my house or how he had illegally extorted my chihuahua. I had nothin’.
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Travels Completed (for now)
(warning: this post is a wee bit sarcastic and moderately funny due to intense jet-lag. Read at your own risk)
We touched down on a beautiful Venetian morning at 8:30 a.m. Wednesday. When you fly into Venice, the old city is just outside the right passenger window where one can easily discern buildings, squares, and canals. It was a balmy 72 degrees which was quite a beautiful change from our Phoenician departure of 265 149. We had 8 suitcases (each weighing 50 pounds) and 4 carry-ons (Another 500 lbs. — ok, I’m exaggerating a little — about my carry-on).
We were delayed in Philly an hour and a half after pushing back from the gate early. It so happened that when we were 5th to take-off, a man fainted in the airplane and caused a medical emergency. We had to pull out of line and head back to the gate. This was an interesting experience to watch unfold. The man had taken a couple sleeping pills and decided to wash them down with a couple cocktails at the bar (must’ve hated flying more than I do — try it with children!). With his personalized and customized drug-induced coma, the man couldn’t buckle his seat belt and the flight attendants couldn’t find a pulse on the guy. One burly attendant picked the guy up and suplexed him to the floor which began to revive the man. The EMT’s came. The pilot kicked the guy off the plane. A depressed baggage handler had to find the guy’s luggage (which was probably the most work). The police visited our plane too. Fuel and oxygen had to be replenished… yada yada…
The second to the worst part of this ordeal was that the man was sitting on the emergency exit aisle. The incident happened just after the attendants announced, “If you’re seated on an emergency exit aisle and do not feel that you can adequately handle the responsibility of the exit doors, please inform a flight attendant immediately.” Oh, and the worst part about this ordeal was that our children were sleeping while we were still on the ground consuming up valuable sleep-time. All parents know that you want sleeping kids while in the air! Jessi was a maniac for the first four-hour flight to Philly and one of the men near us saw how exhaused we were and decided that we needed to be patronized. Getting Jessi’s attention he says, “How do you have so much energy? You haven’t stopped yet. Where do you get all of that energy?” So I shared one of Jessi’s strawberry PowerBars with him — ya, right.
Forty minutes after our ascent and the sun’s descent, Reilly awoke and said for the first of a thousand times, “Daddy, are we almost to Italy?”
Things Not to Take on an Airplane
When traveling, I usually carry the most stuff. Well, the most threatening stuff that would require more searching & inspecting. (BTW, at the rate the world’s going, we’re only going to be able to travel in our underwear in men’s and women’s sections on the planes — and that may even be too dangerous b/c some guy will inevitably invent exploding boxers.) However, it’s Sandy that usually always gets searched. It must be her shifty eyes.
Yesterday, they pulled apart her purse in Phoenix and took away her Carmex and Hand Sanitizer. Chapped lips are a pain, but don’t take away the sanitizer when we’re travelling with kids. This can be a bio-medical threat! So now, I’m thinking that there’s some strange concoction of Carmex and sanitizer at 2 fluid ounces that can threaten a 767.
This is nothing like the guy we encountered when flying out of Denver a couple weeks ago. For 5 days, the news had been informing people, “No liquids, bottles, containers, lipstick, etc. etc.” When we got to DIA, the loud-speakers, big new signs, ticket agents, and security guards informed us of the same. Finally, we arrive at the security check-point and the guards selected the guy’s bag in front of us. They abruptly opened the bourse and pulled out a bottle of Wishbone Italian salad dressing. Sandy and I looked at each other in total disbelief. I wanted to see the authorities make the guy drink it to see if it was ok. What possessed this guy to think that a tube of lipstick wasn’t going to get on the airplane but his big ole’ bottle of lettuce flavoring would is beyond me. Hey, at least it was Italian (which, by the way, cannot be found in Italy because Italians don’t use bottled dressings — and is a funny look on American faces when they come here and discover this fact and are left with only olive oil and vinegar. We like that look; we’re a bit twisted.)
I received a great article about Italy and its culture that I’ll put in a separate post in a couple days. It’s worth the read (in contrast to this post). Also, I repaired the link to “Rob’s book wishlist”. Can one or two of you test it to see if the script is working right and let me know? Grazie.
Thanks to some great help from brothers Mike Rosowski and Brad Cairns, we were able to have a couple thousand new prayer cards made. If you would like to order some for your Church or have a couple for yourself personally, you can follow this link or click on “Request Prayer Cards” on the left hand menu of our site. The photo in this card was taken in April 2006.
The Last 5 Weeks
It’s really been tough to get something posted on any of our blogs this summer. We’ve been travelling and we haven’t been around much internet access. Also, my computer’s been giving me a lot of problems. We found it necessary to take about 6 weeks and travel to various churches that have supported us over the last 10 years to say thank you and report on the ministry.
Sandy returned from Italy with the kids on the 12th of June. She really needed a break away from all of the work and the kids really needed some family-time with grandparents and cousins. I returned on the 12th of July after completing a number of important steps in the ministry (i.e. a covenant renewal time in our Church, a baptism where 6 entered the waters, the care and ministry of a travelling musical group, and a load of preparation for the upcoming missions conferences and stops etc.)
Our travels have taken us to sites and Churches in San Diego, L.A., San Francisco, Columbus, Indianapolis, Chicago, Branson, & currently Denver. We have completed 5 flights and have 5 more to go. We’ve had 3 rental cars and borrowed 2 others. I think we’ve returned them all.
Overall, our kids have been travelling champs. I’m not quoting anybody we’ve visited though. 
We’re scheduled to return to life in Italia in a couple weeks.
Sandy Holds the Hill
Yesterday, August 7th, Sandy held another birthday at the top of “29″ hill. This year, we were in Denver participating in a missions’ conference. Last year, we were in Slovenia for her birthday. It’s a tradition for Sandy to be somewhere “different” each time she turns 29. Sandy is a wonderful wife, mother, and friend. We are so blessed to be in her life and we love her so much. Happy Birthday Sandy!
For my hundreds of many faithful readers, I owe you an apology for the lack of info on the blog this last month.
It’s true. I had to hold off on blogging for a month because the amount of work and priorities here on the field consumed me. I like what George Muller wrote and I’ve been chewing on this thought for a couple weeks now: “The Christian servant can be easily distracted by the work of the ministry for God while forgetting to commune with Him.” It’s happened to all pastors. It happened to Muller - that’s why he wrote it!
What’s Up?
Sandy, Reilly, & Jessi headed back to the States on June 14th. I’ve been here in Italy as the inelligible bachelor for a month now. I’ll return to the States on the 12th of July to begin visiting a third of our supporting churches. So, we’ll be hitting the trails from Arizona to California to Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Colorado, & Nevada — all in 5 weeks. I could run for President with that kind of schedule.
Brother Andrew Maxwell (see the post Flight of the Apprentice) has returned to Italy for his 4th consecutive summer with us. Andrew keeps me company and I keep him working.
Last Sunday we had a beautiful baptism down at the river Livenza. The water is always around 43 degrees. We baptized 6 people. I’ll have some more pictures of that for you soon.
New Prayer Letter
We do have a new prayer-picture letter for you. You can view or download it by clicking here. Or, you can go to our newsletter section where I’ve uploaded it there too.
Signup for our Newsletter by Email
I did a little work on our email component. Those of you who have subcribed to our newsletter by email have hopefully received an email with a direct link to download the letter as well as a couple of other pieces of information.
If you haven’t subscribed — click here — to go to our subscription page, enter an email, submit, and whoa-la… you’ll get a notice about every blue moon.
I have another post coming in a couple days that I want to share about Memorial Day, but I thought I’d better share what’s been going on here over the past week or so.
We ran our second Italian Missions’ Sunday and some specific prayer requests were answered. Right in the middle of the lunch, my good ole’ friend Dr. Mark Lehman from Taiwan comes walking in to surprise me. I haven’t seen this guy in 5 years and he just shows up in Northeast Italy with his buddy Tim. I guess they were hungry or something. 
It was fabulous to spend time with Mark again. Wow, word spreads fast and far when we offer lasagna from scratch.
The kids are just getting over 6, 8, 9 days of chicken pocks. We have sequestered them. They have imprisoned us (Sandy). I’m going to kill those chickens.
Computer crashed twice. Bad memory. Must be getting old.
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Back on February 19th, I posted a few paragraphs entitled “Young Worshippers with Killer Hands.” Click on this link if you’d like to read the story.
So, my wife and I wrote down this specific prayer request into our discipleship journals. We could sense the Kingdom importance in the request and knew that time and money were both on someone else’s side.
The next day, my good buddy and almost blood-brother Brad Strable dropped an investment into our family’s worship. I said, “Wow, this is really happening.” Then in March, we had saved a couple hundred dollars for the project. In April, my Aunt & Uncle, Ron & Marge Carlson, wanted to “help our family with a project specifically for us.” Fully generous & always surprising, the Carlsons moved us closer to the mark. We knew right away what to place that seed toward — because we had already been praying about it.
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After laboring these many years in Italy, we were able to reach a milestone today (I began writing this on April 9th, 2006). Some might say “milestone” and others might say “starting line” depending on your point of view.
For the first time, we were able to host our full Italian Missions Sunday. It was beautiful. We held it with our folks, in our own place, in Italian, & permeated with Italian culture. It has taken us a number of years to arrive at this point and it was a real highlight of the year for us thus far.
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I read a wonderful article a couple years back about worship and the playing of musical instruments in worship. Here’s the skinny — because a true worshipper is a warrior in the spiritual realm, his/her instruments are weapons. When a worship-warrior begins to play on their instrument before the Lord, they begin to touch the things of the holy. They begin to practice the presence of God — Yeshua Shalom. This is one reason why I believe a lot of people in Churchianity who say they play musical instruments and are “called” to do music above making disciples are really nothing more than entertainers with Christian-oriented tunes. If one cannot discern the Body of Christ in the local, visible church properly (according to the Scripture), then they cannot lead those in that very Bride into Her ante-chamber. Their heart is not developed for battle in Word & intercession nor is it disciplined in the hard work of Christian-community service.
Sandy and I have been ruggedly digging those lessons out of these past years in shepherding a local Church. And, one of the common longings of our hearts is to train two young warriors in the proper preparation of worship. We want to guide them away from entertainment to the devoted love of God shown in service to His called out people. We want to show them how to capture the beautiful, turn it upward, and express it to Heaven with all of their skillful might.
So, we are setting out as a family to purchase a Clavinova. Reilly is ready to begin his training and Jessi touches the keys of the church’s keyboard every chance she gets (she’s our little music-lover). And, from what our entire city can tell, they’ve both been implanted with two strong instruments in their vocal chords. They love to sing and can keep in key and on pitch very well. So, our hearts are longing to train them and open the avenues for the future blessing of the Bride. We don’t have the money. Ok, no biggie. We’ve rarely ever had the money. So, we went out and found an instrument (pictured below) in the local area for a very good price. We’ve asked the Father for His goodness and help and we want to put it out on our blog. Often, people ask us what we need and we’re usually “all taken care of” and don’t have an answer. Now we do. Maybe you’ll want to help us save? I’ve included a button below if so. We rarely do something like this (in fact, this may be the first time) because we want this blog to be more information and reader oriented. Ok, that sounded like I was giving a presentation for Microsoft. We want — you — to enjoy — reading — here.
Here’s a neat picture sent to me by my Uncle Ron Carlson. He’s the older guy in this picture - HA! He’s also a new grandpa and another Packer fan has been brought into the world. Ron is an author and teacher extraordinaire. You can see his info here. The new DAD in this shot is my cousin Jason who visited us here last year and taught in our ministry. And may I add, Jason is another teacher extraordinaire! And the new baby is Caleb James Carlson and he’s just a “cute-guy extraordinaire”!
We also want to congratulate the mommy — Kim. She is a regular reader of this blog. We received no pictures of Kim to put on our blog and we don’t know why. Kim, congratulations, we know you’re out there.
I’ve been looking forward to pounding out this post for a few weeks now.
The Blue B’mer
Let’s start with the first picture. I’m featured in a rare appearance with sunglasses after having detailed my new ride (a 1988 BMW 7.30i) back in February of ‘98. What a great car! We put another 110,000 miles on it and saw it turn 300,000 kms before we sold it.
This car was our main family and ministry car for the past (almost) 8 years. It carried everything for the ministry and went everywhere. And, it has a lot of life left in it too.
Last September, we received our upcoming insurance rates for our vehicles for 2006. The insurance on the BMW was set to skyrocket 300% for the coming year. Instantly and sadly, we knew we had driven it for the last time. That weekend, we cancelled the policy, gave the car to the mechanic, my friend Brad cleaned her up nicely for me (what a great guy who loves his Pastor), and then entered the process to sell her.
Stay with the story! It’s a good one…
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Reilly is learning many Bible verses and many Scripture songs to go with them. This morning when I took him to school, I heard him humming the tune of “I Will Sing of the Mercies of the Lord Forever.” Just reading that line will put the tune in your head for hours to come. Get your ipod out — or you will be singing forever. So, I decided to sing with him and I added the words. Immediately, I was corrected by my young Bible & music hound who said, “No Dad, it’s not like that — I will sing of the groceries of the Lord forever.” So, we sang the song about Heaven’s groceries. I don’t know — does this count as a real Veggie Tales song or not?
He really wasn’t too far off. We find this verse in Psalm 89:1. The word mercies can be rendered as loving-kindnesses or steadfast love. And, is not our food that comes day by day and week by week an example of steadfast love? SO, sing of the groceries of the Lord and be glad for five-year-olds who catch the Hebrew worldview!
Just a little update to let you know we’re still out here. It has been an overwhelming month. Some of our strongest leaders have had to move back to the States. As strong leadership moves out and the ministry has grown more complex, this creates a vacuum effect and much of the work-load has fallen to our shoulders. This happens every-so-often, but this time has probably been the most gruelling occasion. Sadly, very few have stepped-up (or are even ready to) to help in crucial areas. In these times, the pastor and his wife stand in the gap and bear the load as “part of the work” — but even fewer people can comprehend the toll this extracts from the leadership. The cost is high but unpayable by the fainthearted.
One of our most seering burdens is the care of one of our dear sisters. Victoria is a mother of three and a wife to a husband fighting for the Army in Iraq. Victoria has been receiving mixed test results of whether she has the first stages of bone cancer. Some think she does; others think she doesn’t. She needs to get some other opinions. I don’t blame the docs, because things like this are tough calls - especially if its initial stages. Their bedside manner could use some seasoning though. In any case, the Source of help and healing is Who we’re going to. He’s the Great Doctor. And this is a test; an exam of spiritual health for a local Bride. This trial is a malignant case of intercession.
Brighter has been a special young man named Jeremy who I’ve had a number of opportunities to work with. Jeremy’s a fine airman, a good future husband, and an all-around nice guy. Jeremy has heard the Good News for the first time this last week. We’ve spent a number of hours together and I’m praying that I might be able to report good news myself about a new brother bound for Heaven in the coming days.
So many more notes to share but a little fun one is that we finally received our first order of chairs for our new worship center. This order contained seventy comfortable, stylish chairs manufactured just down the road from us in the Italian chair capital of the world - Manzano. We’re still saving up for fifty more. Each chair runs $89 which includes exchange rate, taxes (20%), and shipping. So, if you’re reading this and you’d like to help out — we’ll put you down for the rest and send you an honorary trophy . No really, we have no shame in letting others help out.
Back in a few days.
At dark and frosty 5:30 a.m., we (Rob, Sandy, & Reilly) walked hand-in-hand to the train station for Reilly’s big adventure o’-the-month — passport renewal. Three hours and forty-five minutes later, we boarded a subway train to take us to the US consulate in Milan. We’ve been there many times and we have the trip down to an art-form. We know exactly what train tickets, sub tickets, stops, photos, forms, envelopes, stamps, and procedures to follow. We even have our favorite restaurant picked out in Milan too.
One wonderful lunch later and we were back down the tracks by 1 p.m. The day passed without a glitch. We had an over-excited five year old who spent almost 8 hours on the train with us today. His first remarks in all sincerity when stepping off the train back in our town were, “Ok, I don’t think I want to ride the train for a little while.” Our first remarks were, “Thank you for coming with us today Reilly and making the trip exceptionally longer than it felt the last time.” He said, “Sure, you’re welcome.”
We had a wonderful Christmas Day. It was awesome to see what our church family did on Christmas morning. We did a Christmas Giving Project altogether and we bought a new washing machine for one of our families, jackets for our African brothers, and assistance to some of the immigrant sisters in our church. It was a good turnout of folks too. Some people missed it and, in turn, they missed out on a neat “church family” event. The spirit was so warm and joyful. We loved it.
Our family then had a great afternoon together. We opened presents, ate, and played together. Then we got on the phone and called friends and family in Arizona, Hawaii, Colorado, Texas, Iowa, Wisconsin, Florida, England, Germany, & Italy.
One of our supporting churches, Beth Eden Baptist of Denver, sent over packages for our children. They did a fantastic job. In fact, right now there’s a tent and lawn chair set up in our living room where our happy little camper will be sleeping for the night — and probably for the week!
As a family, we’d like to thank so many people for a wonderful day. So many folks in our church blessed us, our family blessed us, and our friends abroad blessed us. Most of all, Heaven blessed us.
For our Christmas Morning Service, one of our brothers read the following challenge to our congregation. The original writing came from a Gloria Gaither book. However, the theology was trash so I re-wrote it. About 30% comes from the original writing & I thought I should list my “idea-starter”. The reading speaks about important, intangible gifts — values & character that go so much farther than recreation and toys. Sadly, many young adults we encounter these days were never given these gifts. So, we thought it important to recall the high objectives of the parent. Enjoy and have a Happy Incarnation Day!
Gifts I Want to Give My Children at Christmas
I want to give my children the gift of solitude. I want for them to know the joy of silence; to know how to be alone and not feel uncomfortable. I want to make them restless with the artificial excesses of our culture and disenchanted with commercial distractions. I want them to pursue the quiet depths of God; to be still and know Him.
I want to give my children the gift of discernment. I want them to be seers. I long for them to grasp the meanings of things and decipher the subtleties of relationships, sermons, history, and nature. I also want them to be listeners. I look forward to the day when they can hear the cry of a person for help above the din of advertisement. I want to teach them to hear with Holy Spirit ears.
I want to give my children the gift of tears; to feel the pain that shatters the violated, to sense the emptiness of the deserted, to understand the weight of the confused, depressed, and lost. I would teach them to cry for the right things – for people who are locked away, broken, and trapped. I want them to cry for God, Who is the Desire of Nations and Lover of Men’s Souls but rejected by those same men again and again, every second of every minute of every day.
I want to give my children the gift of joy. I want them to dance! I would have them whirl to the rhythms of Heavenly blessing, embrace the lonely, sweep children into their arms, give wings to the elderly, and leap over the barriers of circumstances with humor and imagination and faith. I want them to live by the Divine axiom that declares, “You are always more happy when you give, than when you receive.”
I want to give my children the gift of gratitude. I would have them know where they have been, who brought them to where they are, and where they are going. I want them to arise in the morning with thanksgiving and sing a praise song upon their bed each evening. I would have them dwell on contentment – contented to live and breathe, contented to love and be loved, contented to have shelter and sustenance, contented to read God’s Word and pray above all other activity.
I want to give my children the gift of integrity. They must be truthful at any cost, bound by their word, make honest judgments even against themselves, be just, and have pure motives. I would have them realize that they’re accountable to God alone and then to His Bride – the Church. I want them to know that how they love and treat the Church is a reflection of what they think about God Himself. I want them to know what and where their hands and feet should do and go. I want them to know what their eyes should see, ears should hear, and mouths should say.
I want to give my children the gift of prayer. I want them to know that in the relationship with God there is much to be said – and He is the One who must say it. I would make them aware that prayer often has no words, but rather, a vulnerable access to God’s love, mercy, grace, and justice. I would have my children know that there’s nothing too insignificant to bring before our Great God. I would have them write down their prayers and then rejoice when they are answered. I want them to see how the God of Heaven is working in their world.
I want to give my children the gift of salvation. I want so badly to give my children the gift of holy salvation. I want them to have the confidence that transcends death and the peace that passes understanding. I long for them to explore the complexities of the greatest kindness toward mankind that God ever wrought and to rest in the simplicity of being a child of God. I want to see them come through the Cross, to our side, to Eternal Life.
But I can’t give that gift. I can’t buy it. I can’t wrap it. I can’t baptize it into them. And I can’t sign a religious document to get it. The gift has already been given. I can only lead the way. That gift is reserved to be given to my children by someone greater than myself. I can urge. I can plead. I can hope with all of my heart. But my children must want the greatest gift and turn away from all the fakes. Their hearts must turn to the Gift and that is the gift I want to receive from my children.
On Sunday, we came home from church and is customary in our house we asked Reilly what his lesson was all about. We found out that it was about a couple going on vacation because they were going to a hotel. Now, there was room for the baby but not for the adults so they had to go stay in a barn. We asked Reilly, “What did they do in the barn?” He answered, “Oh, they just stand there, but God saved the animals.” As our hands were hitting our foreheads and our eyes were rolling to the sky we pressed further. “Reilly, was there a baby in the story?” “Oh yes, there was a baby” he said. “What was the baby’s name?” we asked — thinking we were back on track. “Goliath” came the reply. “He was a Goliath of a baby.” At this point, I looked at Sandy and said, “He’s your son! Now what?”
Well, we’re hoping to develop Reilly’s theological training and discipleship plan into something a bit more robust in the coming year. However, we know we have to get past today’s big birthday party that Reilly’s been talking about for months now. The day has finally come. Reilly is 5 years old. He defended that to his friend Iliana last night, “It’s not your birthday Iliana — it’s mine!”
For months we’ve asked Reilly how old he is going to be and he’d reply, “Seven.” We’d quickly say, “No, you’re going to be five.” He was determined that he was going to be seven and disdain five. So, we would finally ask him why he’s going to be seven and not five. To this, Reilly would reply, “Seven is happy and five is sad because five lost his parents.” Where are the manuals for this kind of stuff? Do we walk out of the room? Can you Google Search for an answer to this stuff? What do we do here? Well, we decided to take the slow, stealthy, repetitive, brain-washing approach — whisper in his ear for an hour while he’s sleeping at night. About 10 days ago, Reilly finally accepted that five comes after four and before seven.
Tonight is Reilly’s big birthday party. It’s inevitable. We’re doing this! We are committed to nothing else. Parents of 5-year-olds understand what we’re talking about — and Reilly still has his rich, red hair which gives him staying power. Tonight’s pinata — Spongebob Squarepants — and if the kids don’t do it — I’m going to beat that nerf-head into a candy-pizza.
One thing great about throwing a party in Italy — pizza is easy to get. In fact, the pizzeria insisted that they deliver to us because the pizzas would remain at the right temperature that way. This is a fact I didn’t know about. I guess it depends on who drives the car that the pizzas are ported in whether you receive optimum quality cheese, sauce, and bread — for 5-year-olds!
On a final note, my mom Linda turns a number with a five in it today too! Happy Birthday Mom! It may be a good thing you’re there in AZ because I don’t think Reilly in Italy will be giving you any ground this year to celebrate this one. Oh, and if you get a box of Kinder-eggs with surprises in them, it’s a case of MGI (mistaken-gift-identity)… our bad.
Today, our church went through a difficult pain. We had to say good-bye to one of our dearest couples & life-friends. The more dear the couple the greater the pain we have to go through to practice this ministry. By far, this couple is a rare treasure that when a church discovers them, that church will be adorned with a most splendid gem of Jesus. But this gem is not for sale. Churches can’t entertain them into their midst. No, the Lord will place this gem into the crown of His Bride as a treat to His under-shepherds and the warrior-like expansion of His Kingdom.
Our personal lives and ministry have been sustained, nurtured, and cared for over these last 3 years by Brad & Heather. We have learned so much about Jesus from them. And Brad is one of my heroes. It has been a privilege to work with this passionate, holy brother who has been what every pastor could only wish for in a deacon.
In the years ahead by God’s gracious will, brother Brad will become Pastor Brad and maybe his newborn son will follow in his steps. We are so excited to play a small role in this. Brad & Heather’s hearts are to continue to serve with our ministry in the future as he shortly finishes his career in the USAF.
We opened the service to the congregation to share how their lives have been impacted and changed by the Strables. It was precious to see the many tears, hear the praises to God, and to see the whole Body just recognize before God what a blessing they had received through this couple. Brad’s boss testified in church how his life has changed to become fruitful for Jesus. Italians testified of thanksgiving to them. Africans stood and shared how they have been blessed. And many more. What a healthy hardship it is for the Church to say good-bye to its most precious. Parents pass through this valley when their children come of age. Sandy and I are getting regular practice and giving “valley-tours” now.
Yesterday, my (Rob’s) precious grandmother passed away. Her name was Kay Krause. As I’ve begun to mourn her passing I’ve had to deal with the acute loneliness that a person feels when incidents like this occur and we serve the Lord overseas. As I reflect back on my godly grandmother’s life, all I have of that special woman is good memories. Really, I can’t think of a bad memory or a “bad” occasion with my grandmother. It is such a wonderful thing to have someone so sweet in your life who is always always your cheerleader. So, I want to take this space to say, “What a wonderful woman, my grandma, Kay.”
In the morning, I’ll be flying out to Wisconsin for her funeral. It will be good to see family again and to remember family. Please remember us in prayer and Sandy with the children for this week.
It’s been a couple weeks since I’ve had the opportunity to update the blog. We’re still alive and well out here. Life played the hectic cards on us; a few of them in a row. Here are a few updates & snippets. I have another story coming over the next week that I look forward to sharing with you. Be watching for that.
Our daughter Jessi started walking — all over the place. Then, to really catch us off guard, she now knows how to say “no” and use it correctly. She’s such a girl.
I took a quick trip to Germany. That’s my coming story.
A man was born again in Christ in the ministry a couple of weeks ago.
Our church has entered our new worship center and done a temporary setup before renovations can begin. They should begin next month as we’re getting final details on mechanical/electrical engineering and final approvals completed.
We have a baptism at the river scheduled for this coming Sunday, the 11th of September. New life in grave memories.
Email is slow. I’m so far behind in responding because I can’t keep up with it all that I might be inadvertently offending you. So, I want to inadvertently apologize accidentally ahead of time.
August is a tough month in Europe because almost everybody, everywhere takes vacation in August. It’s tradition and tradition is so strong sings the Fiddler on the Roof.
Seven folks from our church returned this week from their duties in and around Iraq after five months. Bravi! A few others have left for the next number of months.
There was a hurricane. It made gas prices rise. Ours runs just around $6.00 per gallon and that’s for diesel. I stopped driving my ‘88 BMW altogether unless absolutely necessary. That car drinks more gas than our turbo-diesel and it costs about 40 cents more per gallon to fill it. Literally, it could cost us over $125 to fill our car. Here’s your question: Can you be thankful to the Sovereign Lord when you see $3.10 per gallon of gas? We know we would be!
Finally, I wanted to thank the folks that add little gifts to the offerings in their churches for us. We recently had a nice note from our supporting church in Singapore (Great church and wonderful friend in Pastor Christopher Chern). In the note, they indicated that “somebody” added a small gift to us to bless us. Thank you Somebody from Singapore. God bless you too — and all of you who think of us in these kind ways.
Here’s a shot I took just after dusk on Lake Bled. The church in the picture is on an island in the middle of the lake. A few years ago, Sandy and I swam out to this island and back which makes for another great once-in-a-lifetime story.
We went to this lake for a couple-day get-away for Sandy’s birthday. We did some white-water rafting, hiking, & reading. We also ate some great food. It was a real treat. We have to thank Brad and Heather Strable for keeping our children while we were away. They said the kids were wonderful and we said, “Our kids?”
A couple of days ago, Reilly was in line for a classic, old-fashioned tanning. While on our way home, he was busy negotiating the quantity of spankings while clearly understanding their inevitability. After he had sufficiently settled the acceptable quantity in his mind, he made the following comment:
“Is mommy or daddy going to give the spankings? I think mommy should because she’s a good shot.“
This was his sly little way of asking for “softer” spankings … not more “accurate” as the statement might imply. How do you laugh & discipline at the same time? It’s like sneezing with your eyes open — it just can’t be done!
Btw, I read a great article from a Hebrew perspective. I don’t remember the author but their point was that love and discipline are both gifts that children receive from self-less parents. Good thought.
The other night, I was in a LifeTeam where this question was asked, “What are the best things about your Christian community?” The answers that followed were great. One of my favorite things about our church is being able to wake up every day and know what to do; literally to know where the center of God’s will is and be there. I imagine that many Christians arise daily in confusion, and I wish that they could taste of the power of basic Christian community that seeks personal, familial, and communal holiness. So many of our young Christians are making “holy steps” to honor the Lord in their walk. I believe that that is what Vision is all about. Vision is where Jesus Christ comes to have first place in everything seen and unseen. The Vision takes place when Heaven’s will is done and the future Shalom is tasted on this Earth as believers raise their hopes in anticipation of their final Home.
Over the last three weeks, we have been moving our offices (they were in our home for almost two years) over to our new worship center. You say, “Oh, you got approved…how exciting.” No, we didn’t get approved yet, but we did get preliminary word of approval. I can’t even begin to explain how many hoops there are to jump through out here. I was contemplating writing a blog post about the last 31 months and almost 300 meetings that we’ve had with banks, offices, and scoundrels but I was overwhelmed with where to start. This process isn’t just one of those easy “well, the law in Italy works like this…” phrases. My post would be an excursus in Italian culture altogether. Bottom line (which we haven’t reached yet) is — I’ve never been through anything so absolutely crazy in my life. And I never want to do it again. I’m sure the Lord is reading my blog and smiling right now.
So, along with setting up water, electricity, phones, and offices we’ve been busy cleaning everything in sight, painting, constructing temporary walls, lawncare, and a lot more.
The auditorium that we’ve rented for the last 4.5 years is now going under renovations. We were told last week that we need to be out of there by July 1. So, we’re picking up and moving into the new place in a “squatters rights” kind of fashion. I don’t know if I would or should call it faith. I don’t want to pin the Lord with Italy’s bureaucracy or craziness. Timing is everything as they say. Three days after moving our offices down to the new center, we were told we couldn’t rent the city’s auditorium anymore.
We also have a couple of college students staying with us for the summer. Maybe I shouldn’t use the phrase, “staying with us”. More appropriately, let’s insert “working for us”. Oh, they’ll think twice next time about coming on a missions trip!! That’s for sure.
We also have 5 different outreaches planned through our LifeTeams during these two weeks. There’s a big one this weekend that I hope to write about later and have some pictures for. We’ll be impacting about 50 homes in the neighborhood of two of our families. Please pray for these outreaches that we might see evangelism and discipleship in full force.
Sandy informed me earlier today that she’s almost done with our taxes for 2004. I provide all the paperwork. She sorts it out. What a gal! Not only will she bare my children but she’ll do our taxes. Not many fellows get that lucky on mail-order brides!!
Reilly finishes his preschool at the end of June. We speak in Italian about 30% of the time at home now. He’s doing great.
We think Jessi is cutting her molars. Enough said. We should feel your prayers any moment now.
Some good friends of ours shipped us a couch from Montana. It’s not just a couch, it’s a sleeper-sofa that’s 3 centimeters too big to get through our doors. This is a story to cry over for another time. Needless to say, a friend and I did a Vulcan mind-meld (didn’t come up with much) and three hours later we had it through our doors in its rightful place just like Sandy dreamed it. It’s never leaving this room. It will be destroyed in this room when it is finished. Tonight, we’re taking the folks who brought it to us out to dinner, and I can’t wait until they ask, “How’s the couch?”
Last night, the temp in our room crested over 90 degrees and molto humid with the fan on. So, we hooked up a portable AC. Summer is set to “hot”. Our whole family had our best night’s sleep on June 23rd. We’re stating this for the official praise record.
Oh, and last but not least (only some of you will be able to really identify with this), my father-in-law sent us the 4th season of “24″ to watch. We like the show because it’s like “crack on TV” and highly addictive. Usually, we have to wait about a year before we can see it here and who wants to wait episode to episode? So, we’re cruising along, America is in full melt-down, and tapes 3 & 4 are blank when we pop them in — the last half of the story. That’s a sick joke. And to do it to your children on the mission field… that’s just depraved. He says it’s something about his master copying machine — yada yada yada…. He used to be a quality assurance engineer for Motorola for 32 years — so we’re not buying it! More later… “dink, dink, dink, dink”
We took a few days off last week and went up to Austria. We named our trip Kraustria. Can you feel the originality and creativity oozing out here on the digital page? I’ve added some photos of this beautiful country and other photos of our family on the trip in the gallery as well.. The weather and beauty were fantastic for us and we had a wonderful time.
Here are a couple interesting tid-bits about Austria:
There are numerous types of schnitzels — chicken, beef, pork etc. — and they eat it like Italians eat pasta.
The Austrian military is drawing down from 110,000 troops to 55,000 troops. Why? because everybody else around them is “NATO”.
Austria has fabulous golf — if you’re so inclined. And if you are so inclined, be prepared to be inclined as a number of their courses are for billy-goats.
The toll to drive through Austria is $11.30. The toll to drive in Austria is $10.40. Coming or going, you’ll help them build their tunnels.
You’ll pay about 20 cents for Ketchup at McDonalds in Austria.
A bottle of water can run you $2 - $5 in many locations. We love their grocery stores.
Deodarant is just being discovered in this nation.
While Austria is a wonderful place to vacation, its people are lost without Christ. There are a number of missionaries and pastors in that land. Will you pray for Austria and its messengers today?
We’re off on a short trip to the mountains as a family. It is a much-needed time together.
So, it’s not that we don’t want to respond to your emails — we just chose to ignore them before you wrote them.
We’ll get back with you next week.
However, there are a few more blog posts that are scheduled to come out this week while we’re away. So, please keep checking back to read those. We couldn’t let you miss us that much!
Each year, our home mission asks us to write an annual report. Have you ever had to do one? If you keep a journal or diary, doing an annual report of yourself and family is an excellent entry. It’s a great exercise and well worth it. I heard one pastor friend of mine say, “The best discipleship question in the world is ‘what are you doing’?” What a great point! What are you doing? Ask and answer that one and you’ll thank me later.
I’ve modified our report some and will share it with you here.
Before I do, I must announce that Reilly swung his first golf clubs today. He was hilarious — almost as hilarious as his Dad when he plays. We let Reilly hit the ball all over the place. He hit the ball so much that he got his first blister — another new experience. They say that you learn something new every day. It’s when you start learning two new things a day that you’re really living it up!
By the way, I added a new picture of the kiddos in our Gallery. I caught them sitting still for two seconds. It’s an anomaly shot…
Now, here’s a portion of the annual recap:
With gratitude to the Lord Jesus, we joyfully report another year of faithful service on the mission field of Italia. Our family has grown by one; a beautiful and precious daughter whom we gave the name Jessi Kay. Jessi turned one at the end of April, ’05. She is a quick learner and will provide quite a challenge to her bigger brother Reilly who is four. Reilly is in his second year of an Italian school and is becoming very fluent in the language. He even has the proper accent down. Reilly’s started to quote his first Bible verses, his hair is still a rich red, he’s crazy about puzzles and swimming, and dad is going to take him out to start learning to play golf. Dad realizes that he only has a few years left to win anything in this talented family so he’d better start now. Rob & Sandy celebrated their eleventh wedding anniversary and seventh year on the Italian field.
We had a full year and some of the highlights would include many salvations (of people from a number of different nations who live here), baptisms, life-changing church retreats, books and Bibles distributed by the hundreds in English & Italian, new small groups started including one in Italian, an Italian congregation started, and a trip to see our families in the States.
Last June (’04), we had a group of guests with us on the field. Brother Andrew Maxwell is finishing up Bible College and he was with us for the summer. Andrew was one of the fellows that we led to the Lord out here when he was in the USAF keeping jets in the air. Andrew is set to return again this June to help us through the summer. Also, one of our supporting pastors, Brent Snook, and his wife and three daughters visited us for about two weeks. They had a wonderful time here and witnessed for Christ among our people.
In December, we returned to the States for the holidays. During that time, Rob took a graduate class at IBC and our family visited one of our supporting churches — Grace Baptist Church of Farmington, NM.
In March, we began an Italian congregation where our Italian folks are taught in Italian, by an Italian. About once a month, Rob trades with Brother Roberto and teaches the Italians. It’s a young group, but already, there are a number of Italians participating along with people from the Ukraine, Africa, and Cuba. We would like to see this congregation established and stabilized with a good 30-50 people in it within the next couple years. At that point, we can begin to look to plant ministries into other cities.
One other project that we had hoped to have finished this last year was securing a new place to meet as a church. We have been working on this effort for thirty months now. The slow pace is due to Italian bureaucracy, corruption, and lack of religious liberty. Securing a new worship & equipping center is an important step toward future ministry and we hope to have this project completed this coming year.
Finally, about a dozen men from our church have been deployed down to the big sandbox. We will be meeting the needs of their families throughout the year. Please keep them and us in prayer. This is a very hard time for these men, their wives, and their children.
Thank you for your time and consideration in reading this report.
During this last week, Rob’s cousin, Jason Carlson and his wife Kim, visited us for about 6 days. Jason is an assistant pastor at a Baptist Church in Minneapolis, MN. We had Jason teach a class entitled “Postmodernism & the Christian Worldview” to our church. The class was great and our folks really enjoyed it.
Our kids really attached to Jason and Kim too. Reilly had a classic line the other day when he walked up to Jason and gave him a big hug and said, “I love you. What’s your name?” Jason showed Reilly some magic tricks so now everything in our house has to be some sort of trick. It’s too bad Jason didn’t show Reilly the go-to-bed-right-away-without-delay trick. Reilly’s a rascal on that one — and so creative too — that we’ve started to wonder, “Who’s the magician?!”
Jessi turned 1 on April 28th. We got some great video as she mashed her chocolate cake into her mouth as fast as she could. We had a hard time telling if she got that from her dad or mom… She is a cutie. She probably won’t start walking soon — she’ll start with running. Look out world!
During the time that Jason & Kim were with us, I was finishing a paper for a grad class that I took in January. It was due on Friday. Then another paper was due by Sunday as well as preaching and teaching. I made all the deadlines — at least all the ones I know about.
On Saturday, we had a going-away BBQ where some of the guys in my church thought it would be fun to pour the ice chest over me. They said it was like I was the “winning coach”… ya, ya, ya … only 11 months left until April Fools’ Day guys!
This morning was our baptism Sunday. We had incredible weather. It was such a beautiful event! I’ll share more in another update and post a few shots in the Gallery sometime this week.
Sadly, around 10 guys from our church are being tasked for duty in the big sandbox. We will be praying for their protection as they’ll be gone for some time. Our hearts just go out to these guys first because we’ll miss them so much and second because it’s so hard on their families. I know it’s a comfort for them to know that their church is behind them, praying for them, and caring for their families while they’re gone. You can help us care for them too through prayers and gifts.
I’ll have some more up on the blog here this week so be checking back. Thanks!
After 9 years of “line-drying” — our friends in our church delivered a brand-new dryer to our home on Saturday to bless Sandy. It’s whirring as a I type this. What a blessing our friends are. Now if we can keep the electricity from shorting out while using it (Italy has terrible electrical problems — ours goes off at least once a day) - we can get on with ruining a few more sweaters.
Here are a few tid-bits from our week that make for good reflection & praise.
Earlier this week, we had another great privilege to bless a whole plane-load full of troops on their way to Iraq. We’re able to minister to them, feed them, bless, them, become their friends, and thank them as they pass through for a few hours.
We were able to go tubing in the snow in the mountains on our day off. There we met two new families. One was from the local area and the other from Sao Paolo, Brazil. This was the first time the father & daughter had seen snow in their life.
On Thursday, we had a heavy snow fall in our town. It was beautiful. I took a few pictures of Sandy and Reilly having a good time in the snow and posted them in the Gallery on our site.
Saturday, Reilly quoted his first memory verse all by himself. He’s committed to memory Israel’s great Shema, “Hear O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord.” Deut. 6:4
And, this Sunday, we began our Italian Congregation — for Italians, in Italian, led by an Italian. It was beautifully decorated and the folks were very excited. We think we’re going to see some great progress in the months ahead.
After many months, it is a joy to announce that we have a new photo gallery installed. Just click on the “Gallery” link here or on the left side of our main page and you’ll enter our interactive albums.
In the Gallery you can view our photos individually or in a slideshow. You can select the size that you’d like to view or download & save. You can also add comments to the pictures and select a service to have them developed and mailed to you. Each album also has its own RSS feed for those of you who like to utilize that feature.
We’ll be adding a number of photos and albums all this week to populate the gallery. Then, we’ll continue to add photos as we adventure along. Some future improvements include more decor to the main entry page, an Italian language pack, photo polls and ranks, and contributions from other partners and ministers.
I studied the installation of this gallery for quite some time and just felt it was a hair beyond my “know-how” even though I’ve installed other *php* packages on our server. SO, I owe many thanks to one of our new ministry partners here in the area named brother Mike Rosowski. He and his wife Gwen are looking to come alongside of us in the ministry. Mike has tremendous computer/web skills and saved me hours of time by doing the install. Many kudos Mike!
Soon — be looking for an announcement about OPERATION YELLOW RIBBON. You can get involved with us in supporting the troops with prayer and good Christian materials for the servicemen/women and their families.
A big hello to all of our faithful blog readers! We just returned to the Valley (Phx) after a 5 day trip through New Mexico. We met up with some friends at the half-way point of Santa Fe and then went on to Farmington in the nw corner of the state. We ministered on Sunday in Grace Baptist Church and we were greatly blessed by the people there. So many of them are praying for us and Italy too.
Then, we drove down to Prescott and stayed with Sandy’s sister for the night.
All in all, we’ve just rounded the corner on 1300 miles in the last few days. We’ll be leaving for Italy on Friday so we have a stressful week ahead.
Here’s a little “helper” — while preparing for our trip, I ran across a fantastic website for maps. It’s called Map 24. There are two great aspects to this site. First, the javascript that allows you to move around the maps and streets is fantastic. And second, there’s an international version of the site which covers Europe in amazing detail. Try it out if you like to look up maps and directions.
Dear Family, Friends, and Fans (2 for 3 isn’t bad),
We want to blog warm wishes to you for the New Year. We hope that you’ve had a wonderful Christmas time. We sure have. We’ve been visiting family and friends in Arizona and will be out West through January. Here are some of our highlights and plans:
- Our son Reilly is living in a dream world. He’s being so spoiled and going so many places that it will take months to bring him back to the real world.
- Jessi is now saying “Da-Da” — Sandy won’t admit that she’s saying it — but she is! An independent counsel will be launched soon for verification.
- I got my standard underwear from Santa for the year. After living with toddlers, what could be much more important? Does it offend you that I mention underwear in a professional pastor-missionary weblog?
- Sandy is out shopping - again.
In January, we’ll be visiting some ministry contacts and supporting churches. I have a grad class the first week of January for 5 days and then we’ll be returning to Italy toward the end of the month.
I’ll still keep posting to the weblog here - so keep checking back. Thanks to so many of you who help us in the work by supporting us or praying for us.
Today, Reilly turns 4 years old. He woke up this morning to a call from his grandma and grandpa in Arizona who had stayed up until 1 a.m. to wish him a happy birthday. But the fun part is that it’s grandma’s birthday today too. Reilly was born on the 14th — same as his grandma Linda Krause. Next week when we arrive back for Christmas, we’ll have a big birthday party with all of them… including Reilly’s uncle Stephen who shares his birthday on Christmas Eve.
Oh yes, he also came downstairs and saw his pinata — Percy from Thomas the Train. We don’t think that he understands that he’s going to get to beat the stuffing out of Percy later — but he’s excited anyway. Daddy loves pinatas too — they’re so therapeutic for stress relief.
This is Sandy writing. I just wanted to share a little of the festivities in our Italian town at Christmas time. A few weeks ago the town began to assemble it’s annual Christmas market in the historic center. The market consists of wooden shed/booths run by vendors selling food and various products for Christmas gifts. On the weekends there are special activities for the kids. Earlier this evening I took the kids out for a walk in town. It was drizzling so it made the little excursion a little more challenging, but we were a bit stir crazy in the house, so it was nice to get out. Rob was teaching a course tonight so he was not able to join us. There is a little kid’s train set up in the center for the kids to ride, so we made our way to that location. The trees along the streets have been decorated with white lights. Each store has a beautiful Christmas display and most of the stores were open until 7:30 p.m. It is very common for Italians to go out on Sunday for a stroll around town in the late afternoon and so our town is well-equipped for window shopping. It’s beautiful to see all the different outfits and shoes in the windows and it’s fun to “people-watch”. Most people don their stylish clothing for their Sunday walk. We made it to the train just before it closed, so Reilly was able to get a ride in. Jessi had fallen asleep in the stroller. After riding on the train, we walked through the Christmas market and headed back toward the car, which was a 10 minute walk away. It was not an extraordinary outing, just a little quaint one. Tomorrow is a holiday in our town to celebrate the day of San Nicolo, the patron saint of Sacile. He will show up in the center at 5:30 p.m. to give the kids candy. He’s dressed similar to a Santa Claus type figure. 
Many of the Italian families give their children gifts and candy for this holiday and the kids get 3 days off of school. Happy Holidays!
