easter weekend!

this was a great weekend. saturday morning, all us avanti people got up and drove to bologna for a youth retreat (youth being anyone 16 to 30ish). all our friends we have made at other retreats were there and it was a great time of fellowship and encouragement. the speaker was franco verardi, the preacher in taranto where eric and jessica recently moved. i had never heard him speak before and he did a great job. that morning he talked about our lives and our priorities and in the afternoon he talked about the temptations of jesus and how important that is to our relationship with him.

after the lessons, a group of us took a walk through bologna since most of us had never been there before. the whole day was a great time and so refreshing to see all of our friends and be encouraged together.

everyone at the retreat

lesson time

we need to be united

our good friend lucca

some of the girls

some of the boys

main piazza of bologna

gelato time

we came back late saturday night because we all wanted to be at florence church sunday for easter. church was great on sunday, we had our usual monthly fellowship breakfast together before church and then jeff hopper was here from the states and gave a great sermon.

sunday night, we had an easter cookout at the bible school and it was another wonderful time for just getting to spend time together and relax. debbie and david had some family friends visiting so they were there, keith and christy smith came with their kids, danielle and luli came, and kyle and his family friend phyllis who is visiting came.

we grilled out

we painted eggs

we talked

we ate

later that night 8 of us played apples to apples and we had so much fun. i haven't laughed that hard since my parents were here, and it was a really great end to the weekend!

hope you all had a happy easter as well!