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.
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.
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.
Yesterday, I waited outside of a funeral. Last week, an Italian friend of mine committed suicide. He was 42 years old. His name was Marcello.
Over the past 7 years, we spent a pretty good amount of time together. A year ago, Marcello opened a business in a sleepy town (and when I say sleepy in Italy — I mean Nyquil sleep). Inevitably, the business was dry by summer. Marcello was a more “outdoor” type of guy anyway and not a shop-keeper. Marcello was a fantastic photographer by trade. In fact, he took the picture on the front of our prayer card and helped us design the card. His name is on the back.
While designing our prayer cards, Marcello began to confess the depths of his depression to me. We’d go to dinner. He’d come to our bookstore. We’d get coffee together. He’d come by my office. Again & again, I shared God’s simple plan. I remember one time taking about 30 minutes with him using “The Bridge” flip-chart to show him that there truly was Good News. Every time my friend Roberto and I would spend time with him, we would pray with him, encourage him, and show him the unrelenting love of God.
What really weighs on me is that we may have been the only Bible-teaching-living men that he ever knew. The more I look through the people in his life, the more I believe this could be true.
One of the chief characteristics of depression is isolation or the feeling of abandonment. Marcello would regularly share with me that he had no real friends in this world. In so many ways, he was right.
As Roberto & I stood outside in 30 degree weather in the city courtyard, they brought Marcello’s casket out and placed it in the hearse. Following behind the casket were his wife and 4-500 of his “friends.” So many of them made comments like, “It’s very sad, but he had really changed this last year…and his anti-depressents didn’t help… just let him go and rest in peace.” Say what they will, but I was left pondering the meaning of true friendship as the sharply dressed mass of people came out.
There in the courtyard, the eternal words of Jesus came to my heart, “Greater love has no man than this - that a man would lay his life down for his friend.” Jesus identified Himself by ardent, unrelenting, and true friendship.
The Song of Songs 8:6 says, “Set me as a seal on your heart, as a seal on your arm. For love is as strong as death; ardent love is as unrelenting as Sheol. Love’s flames are fiery flames; the fiercest of all.”
What we call friendship today doesn’t have the biblical depth of what I see in these verses. We get the distinct sense that friendship was measured by the weights of life & death in the Bible. In Marcello’s case, I’ve been riddled with the thought that as he drew closer to death, one true friendship could have stepped in and been life for him. If one had done that, they might have enabled Marcello to be with us today.
If only 1 of us 500 had…
Jesus was dead-set on friendships.
