On Tuesday morning, we headed to the airport at 3:30 a.m. This is quite common for passengers on international flights. On many occasions, I’ve enjoyed watching the first rays of sunshine rest on the lush vineyards during the one-hour return drive home. Of course, I’m doped-up on multiple cappuccinos to keep me blistering alert.
It was the conclusion of the 3rd summer that brother Andrew Maxwell served with the Serenissima. Each year, we give him a tremendous tour package of being able to stay with our family (affectionately named “Post-Eden”), a monster painting project or two, and a big gulp of Italian bureaucracy and prices. Who wouldn’t want to be a part of that?
A Divine Appointment
While checking Andrew in at 5:30 a.m. I looked over and saw somebody I recognized but had never met. With boldness mixed with caffeine, I walked up to the man in the other line and asked, “Are you Frank?” My thought was, “Hey, if the guy says ‘no’ — it’s not a big deal b/c it’s 5:30 a.m. and everybody’s sleep-walking.” Sure enough, the guy says, “Yes, who are you?” I remembered the answer to that question, recalled it, and told him. It was Pastor Frank King who has been a missionary in the Venice area for 31 years.
Brother Frank was dropping off his intern on the same flight. While catching up with Frank, I got another tap on the shoulder and it was Pastor Steve Gray from Padova. Steve has been in Padova for 20 years. He was also dropping off their summer interns for the early flights. It was a wonderful encouragement to me. These guys are heroes on the front lines to me. I’ve been at mission-pastoring now for 9 years and felt like a “green-pea rookie” around these fellows.
We shared our ministries and the glory of God for an hour together (with another round of cappuccinos) and then I got to share some blessings and gifts with them.
Here’s a treasure I took away from it all. It was a taste of Heaven to meet up with these men spontaneously. We all battle the overwhelming difficulty & Romanism in this land. And it takes a rugged, gut-wrenching endurance to just stick with it. I think that those who persevere and long-suffer for the Faith will find a deeper sweetness, significance, and joy when they arrive in Heaven. You won’t find these folks surprised to have made it there. Heaven is made for the celebration of the saints.
I’d like to introduce a new blog that has entered the blogosphere called From Israel to Italy. The author is Roberto Battistuzzi who is one of our deacons at Serenissima and leader of our Italian ministry. Roberto’s wife, Adele, is our office administrator and does a wonderful job in this capacity.
Roberto has worked with us for a little over three years now and the Lord has knit our lives together in a tremendous way.
Every day, a group of our folks (we never know who it will be from day to day — which is a lot of fun) including the Battistuzzis meets for coffee, reading of the Word, and prayer before commencing our work. Almost every time that we meet together, Roberto and I have new thoughts and discoveries to share with each other. Many of Roberto’s discoveries are so didactic by nature that I’ve encouraged him to put them down for others. Today, Roberto made his first two entries. His specialties are the Hebrew worldview and Italian culture. So, you should see a number of future insights into those fields.
Godspeed to you Roberto as you write for His glory!
Here’s a recent picture of Roberto utilizing one of his best talents.
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?”
“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.
It is the revealed Word. God took these words and breathed them, ordered them, and set them into perfection. In other words, on this planet there is not a better or more complete ordering of words. It is Holy Writ.
I took this shot of my Italian Bible while sitting in a cafe. While conducting an outreach to Italians, the light was resting on the Word in such a lovely way that it caught my attention and I said, “Wow, the Word is just beautiful today.”
We give one of these to every Italian that frequents our ministry. Each one costs around $60.
