first things first

so i know we just returned from 2 weeks of church camp and 2 days learning to weave in the mountains of tuscany and eventually i will get to that, but first i have to mention some things that we did before that.

several sundays ago, we all loaded up and drove to Ferrara, where one of the avanti members andrea has recently moved. the kids of the church had planned a play and they really wanted us to be there for that. what a great congregation! they had their monthly pot-luck after church so we actually got to sit around and get to know some of the members. i personally love this church because it is in the middle of a field on a river and several of the members have made the church grounds a huge garden. i started wandering around admiring all of their produce when one of the members joined me and told me about every fruit tree and vegetable they have. it was great, right up my alley! ryan makes fun of me for how passionate i get about plants, flowers, fruits, vegetables, trees...basically anything that grows out of the ground. naturally, i loved it.

"mary and martha"

lazarus, of course

sweet little church in Ferrara

that night, we all went to a small town called Cerbaia, where they have an annual donkey race complete with festival and fireworks. it was so fun (the italians take this very seriously; part of the festival include a parade of the donkeys where they end up at the church of the town to have the donkeys blessed by a priest).

donkey blessings

donkey race

fireworks

later that week back in Florence there was a hour long fireworks show from piazzale Michelangelo celebrating the saint of Florence (i'm a sucker for some fireworks)!

the last and possibly most important thing that we did in the week leading up to camp was...

make 50+ jars of homemade jam

yes.

since moving to italy, i have participated in a lot of tasks that make me look back and say "now i feel like a real woman". ex. not having an air conditioner, dish washer, or dryer; hand washing loads of clothes in a sink; riding my bike or taking a bus everywhere; making homemade bread, pasta, limoncello, soap, olive oil, pizza dough, aromatic salt; getting all my groceries home on a bike...etc. to some people that statement is sad because those things and more are a way of life and to them i'm just a wimp. but coming from my comfy american life they give me a sense of "if i can do this, i can do anything". i guess that's good, right?

anyway, the point is that i added something else to that list and it was making jam with fruit from our own trees at the bible school.

we have a lot of fruit trees and every summer they have to throw away handfuls of fruit that go bad. not this year! angela, ermenita, and i spend 2 days picking, washing, peeling, slicing, boiling, smashing, and jarring fruit till our little hearts were content. we had so much fun and now we have a great thank you gift for everyone who helped us with our vbs a few weeks ago.

(you're lookin' at 26 pounds of fruit my friends)