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.
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. 
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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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.
“August News” is the most creative title I could come up with just before midnight. Then, in a burst of inspiration, I thought I would translate it into Italian to sound really international. My readers who speak Italian are now thinking, “Big Deal.” I didn’t say it was a very large burst of inspiration.
On Sunday the 7th, Sandy turned 29 - again. She’s decided to plateau around 29 for 10-15 years if nobody will mind. Since we were together with the congregation on Sunday morning, we had some large cakes decorated and we all celebrated her birthday together. The ladies then gave a wonderful presentation and outpouring of their gratitude to Sandy for her dedication to the work of the Lord. It was a very special moment for both of us to see.
During the invitation to the preaching, about 8 men & women came forward for various decisions in their lives. One of those was a man named Paul. Our church (and particularly one of our LifeTeams) has been praying faithfully for Paul and reaching out to him for over a year now. Paul fell under conviction and turned to Christ Jesus there in our midst. Paul will now be baptized & discipled through the LifeTeam. We are joyful over the work of the Lord Jesus.
The property owner of our new worship center has now come to our church the last two Sundays. In fact, Tiberio is now coming every morning to meet us at the conference table to read the Word of God and hear us pray. Tiberio is a Romanist and devoted to Mariolotry. However, he also has a growing hunger to know the Word of God and its power. We need you to help us pray for Tiberio and his salvation along with his wife Antoinetta. The agency that rented the building four years ago still owes Tiberio many thousands of euro in back payments. In Italy, people have no recourse in which to seek and obtain their money because of the corruption of the people and weakness of the judicial system. So, Tiberio feels as if he’s left without an option. Today, we prayed by faith in front of Tiberio that the Lord would do something mighty to reveal His glory through this situation. We want to ask you to join us in that prayer so that only the Lord’s power would be seen and that His power would accompany the Word of Truth that we are daily sharing with Tiberio.
Tomorrow, Sandy and I are heading out for a couple days break as part of Sandy’s birthday gift. One of our couples will be watching our two children. We hope we can still be friends when we return. My idea of a break is a nice lounge chair, a wonderful new book (I have 3 of them that I have yet to crack — I’m taking along 1776 by McCullough for this trip), and an ice-cold drink in the mountain air. Pure learning and thinking with no decisions to be made is a great way for me to get a break. Sandy, on the other hand, … well, let’s just say… she wants to make sure that we remember these get-aways. So, I’ll try to get a few pages in and balance my drink while white-water rafting down a river in the Julian Alps of Slovenia tomorrow afternoon. Buon Viaggio.
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”
If Paul had them, I’m sure he would’ve included them. “For we fight not against flesh and blood but against principalities, municipalities, powers, rulers…” We had a chuckle over that one as it’s impossible for a city to recognize healthy religious activity here in our province. The municipality loves commercial-driven entities, then industrial, then artisian, and then cultural. So, we continue on trying to establish a good meeting center for our ministry — 31 months after beginning the pursuit.
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.
We had a wonderful Resurrection Sunday in our church on the 27th. Many visitors came (even though we had poor weather AND the Daylight Savings Time “spring forward” of one hour which we do 1 week before the US in Europe). We had American, Italian, African, Ukrainian, and Filipina guests with us. We also had a whole group of Spanish speaking friends. Afterward, we had a banquet for a little over 100 people. It was lovely & honoring of the Risen Lord from start to finish.
A couple points of rejoicing are that the Italian congregation (only a few weeks old) conducted a beautiful lesson from Isaiah 53. In the group, there was a couple who had lost both of their young daughters to a tragic accident about nine months ago. Brokenhearted, they asked for prayer among the Italian believers. There, in their language, a mantle of care, peace, and Truth was wrapped over their aching spirits. Later, a few of us delivered flowers to them at their home and prayed with them before they went to the cemetary to visit their girls. While there is a long way to go for Mauro & Gabriella to come to true repentance through submission to the Word of God and biblical Christianity, the chains were rattled. Please pray that they will yearn and ask for the Key.
Also, another young lady named Carolyn has been with our church for about eight months now. Sandy, her ladies’ small group, & a deacon’s wife opened their arms to friendship and help. Through the ministry of the small group, teaching & example of the Lord’s Supper, and genuine Spirit- conviction, Carolyn broke in sorrowful repentance and turned her life to Jesus Christ in the service.
Carolyn is one that we know about and there may have been others who turned toward repentance that leads to eternal life.
I have uploaded two new albums of photos in “The Serenissima Ministry Group” folder & our personal family folder in our Gallery. I’ve included pictures of the flowers that we delivered to the Italian couple and a picture of Carolyn in the album. Also, we’ve included photos from our family Easter.
Monday, I spent the afternoon with Enrico, a good Italian friend that I have had for 7 years now.
For the last couple years, we have not been able to really “crack the surface” of spiritual matters. This has weighed heavy on my heart.
A couple posts ago, I explained how I lost another friend to suicide. The friend who died was a mutual of both myself and Enrico. On the day of the funeral, we met for coffee and began to discuss our other friend’s life. I explained to Enrico how I had sat for hours with our other friend and shared the Good News. I shared with him how close our friend was to turning to the Power of the Word of God. Then, with all sincerity of heart and boldness in the Lord, I looked straight into Enrico’s eyes and said, “You and I haven’t spent much time lately talking about spiritual matters. My prayer for you is that you will come to see the treasures of the Bible and really know Jesus Christ. Would you give me 15 minutes to just sit down with you and share some of the things I was sharing with Marcello lately?” His answer was, “Sure, I’m off on Monday. Come on over to the house, and I’ll fix you pasta and we can talk about these things.” You cannot feel the surprise and the “change” through this blog. This is truly a remarkable answer in northern Italy.
Now, I have to back into this a little bit. For the past couple of months, myself and two deacons have been interceding for 9 men - 3 each. We share their names among each other. We pray for them. We step into their lives before the Lord. In essence, much of the work was already accomplished through prayer.
As we spent the afternoon together, we talked about all kinds of things. He fed me a wonderful pasta and - for lack of a better description - Veal knee in broth. It was ‘nummy and gummy; a real “missions experience.” I had my computer with me and made a CD of his son’s birthday party. Yet, at the end, I felt under great pressure. This was not guilt-pressure, but rather, Divine obligation and urgency. I knew I was called to Italy for this time, place, person, and moment. So I took the Word of God into my friend’s living room and asked to spend 15 minutes with him to begin sharing precious news.
We started in Acts 10 & 11. The first Gentile who was saved, who understood redeeming-repentance, was an Italian man - Cornelius. So we started with that very rich Bible word - ravvedimento (repentance). Jesus told religious people, “Ravvedetivi”. Religion couldn’t change the heart. People saying they believe in God or that He exists does not mean they’re following hard after Him. So we talked about the blinding nature of religion that doesn’t resolve sin. Enrico then said to me, “So Robert, what you’re telling me is that I need to get moving in my spiritual life…” An acceptable statement at this point and quite surprising since we haven’t been able to break the surface in spiritual things in a long time. The simple answer was “Si.” Then Enrico’s wife entered the room and sat down. I re-capped. At that point, Laura began asking Enrico if they could return to the LifeTeam (an Italian small group in our church). We also talked about the new Italian congregation and why it was so important for me to share these things with them. I simply explained that if I couldn’t share the treasures of the Word of God with them, then I was being disobedient and making a huge mistake while living in Italy — making Italian friends and never sharing with them the life-changing Truth. I was very transparent and honestly exposed my motives. As I explained that, Laura’s eyes filled up with tears - the first-fruits of ravvedimento - and they thanked me for being their friend for so long. I’m hoping for eternity here. We prayed together and coordinated when we would see each other next. They will be at the Italian small group this coming week. I’m going to bring our son so he can play together with his so that mom and dad can spend time together before the Word.
I drove away with a renewed commitment - not to quit on my unsaved friends while they are still alive.
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.
Being a servant of God really doesn’t take a special title or require an advanced degree. It does require a great co-mission. I heard the beginning of the Great Commission in Matthew 28:18-20 translated something like this, “While you’re going about your business, be doing My business.” That’s not too bad of a translation (especially of the present participles).
Last May, we were conducting a public baptism out at the river Livenza as we regularly do when the weather warms up. While holding the baptism service, a lady walked up named Patrizia. She was fascinated with what she saw. Patrizia has been coming to our church regularly ever since. Patrizia is a hairdresser by trade and has a salon about 100 yards from where we used to live. I must’ve passed her placed at least 3 times a day for 5 years and knew nothing about her.
Late last summer, I decided I’d go and get a haircut there to visit and share the Word. I brought my Bible with me and we were soon in a discussion of the 10 commandments. As I entered her store, I realized I was in a neo-pantheon of sorts. Beside the new age “whale-call” music I was also greeted by a zen garden in front of me, a Navajo indian chief on the wall, and a small shrine to Mary in the back. My new “peace-searching” friend greeted me with all smiles and a totem pole hanging around her neck. I asked her about these things and found out that she had been with the Buddhists in Treviso, Mormons in Pordenone, studied Shintoism, and visited different Hindu groups when they come through. For all the peace that these things were supposed to bring, I asked her why she couldn’t stop smoking. She drew on cigarettes to relax came her reply. Ultimately, I had to ask her, “Why do you like coming to our church so much?” She replied, “You are a community of peace, and I love hearing about the beautiful things of the Bible.” I thought, “Good enough.” At the end I went to pay, and she wouldn’t permit to pay (which is extremely rare in Italy). She said, “Thank you for your teaching here. Take the money and help out people that you know need it.” Hey, at that point and from a business point of view, Patrizia won a patron.
Over the last five months, I’ve continued to get my haircut there. And, with vacation assistance from my barber-father-in-law in Arizona, I haven’t spent a dollar on my deformed melon in six months! I’ve also taken the Word for each haircut to ground some of the wild, ethereal discussions that come up. Now Patrizia is regularly bringing her next door neighbor Manuella to church. She’s also telling almost every client about our church. When I go into the shop, the common phrase is, “Oh, this is the American Pastor you’ve been telling me about.” Last Sunday, Patrizia asked me about the Hebrew concept of teshuva. Teshuva is a deep Jewish understanding of repentance. There’s much to study in the Bible about this. So, we had a good discussion about that. Then, I began to show her pictures of our family, friends, sponsors, and disciples etc. That’s when she made a thoroughly postmodern statement, “When I look at these pictures, I see so much harmony…” Now I could work with something. When sharing God’s metanarrative (grand story) with people in our culture, the metaphor becomes a great tool of language. It was on the battlefield of “harmony” that I could confront and conquest the other gods all around me. One by one, I was able to share story after story of the Gospel bringing harmony to the lives of real people. My hairdresser friend then replied, “How beautiful, you just don’t hear stories like these today…” I thought, “But, you’re the one who brought up harmony.”
Patiently continuing on.
We can imagine that the impact of the falling dollar is spreading across many US-supported ministry families in Europe. For us, this means that gas prices are well over $5 per gallon and our rent has increased 40% in the last two years without our landlord ever raising it. From another perspective, we’re doing more work, we have 7 years on the job, and we have a larger family — but we have taken a paycut of over 50% since we moved here.
So, don’t forget about us. 
Europe’s missionaries are all in for a rough time. Here’s a graph that I saw today that illustrates the decline:
Translating this graph — in 2002, you could trade 1 dollar and get 1.14 euro — Today in 2004, you can trade $1 for only .69 euro.
As I type this post, the printer is still cranking out more hard copies of our newest prayer letter. But you can have our newest issue of the Friuli Files prayer letter made for September by clicking here or visiting our download area. If you don’t have Acrobat Reader installed on your machine. You can read a simple text version of the September issue.
On another note, we met with our bank this morning as they have been reviewing financing for our new worship center. It is common for European banks (especially Italian) to not want to take any risks whatsoever. Originally, they requested a guarantee of $180,000 which we said we could do. Now they’re requesting double. They want a guarantee of $360,000 so that they can finance our project. I told them that was absurd and that we would have no money to pay the tax burden placed on an initial sale of property. Oh yes, Italy gets theirs up front & more. The bank manager said that he thought our original amount was sufficient and that he would talk to the Direzione about it. But they hit another obstacle. They were also fearful of what’s called the “Destination of Use” which is similar to zoning laws. We have been assured that we fit into a “commercial” sector and we were approved for usage on our last property by the Municipality. However, they want new Municipality documents from us. So, we chase the tail a little bit.
More to come — for sure
In this post, I wanted to list some of our current prayer requests. Thank you for joining rank with us before the Lord!
1) Our church is seeking a new worship center. We’ve saved funds for 6 years and are very close to receiving the necessary financing to establish a permanent center.
2) The Good Seed Christian Bookstore is becoming a ministry epicenter in our city. The owner is one of our deacons and shares the Gospel daily. Pray that the Lord will meet his daily needs as it is very difficult to establish and prosper a business on this economy.
3) Many more Italians are beginning to get involved in the ministry. A number need to be saved and fortified in the faith.
4) We’ve had a number of new babies in Christ. We need prayer as we raise them to maturity.
5) A number of strong families have had to leave due to military rotation. We’re seeing an increase of visitors coming in during these weeks ahead. However, we need to pray for the right people to join us in the work here.
6) Pray that the Spirit of God would assist us to continue in and pursue a vibrant relationship with Jesus Christ.
7) Pray for our children. We are on a great mission and all are at risk.
8) Pray for the launch of a new church plant in the next 6 months.
9) Pray for the launch of a new Italian congregation within the next 6 months.
10) Pray for the launch of 2 more Italian small groups and 4 more English-speaking small groups in the next 4-5 months.
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