movin' right along

first things first, i just posted the video we made for the retreat that i talked about on my post yesterday so everyone go watch that right now.

ok, so the day after the retreat 16 of us celebrated kyle thompson's birthday by renting vespas and riding through the hills of tuscany. it was a first for me to get to drive one and i will say it is exhilarating (i got up to 110 kph, just sayin'). we started in san gimignano, stopped for lunch in volterra, and our last stop was san galgano before returning the vespas that night. we rode all day long and i really was one of the most fun italian adventures we have had so far.




the next day we had to get back to the real world, well kind of, get some things done in preparation for the semester and get settled back into our apartment since we had been staying at the villa all through the retreat. however, on wednesday ryan left with kyle for a 4 days scouting trip for HUF of some significant WWII sites in southern italy. they had a blast and i did too because angela and i had a 4 night slumber party. while they were gone we ran a bunch of errands, cleaned the church building, prepared a lot of things for emily's goodbye reception sunday morning, and had an "avanti only" cookout for her friday night.

beautiful church right on the beach in southern italy

"kaptain kyle"

ryan swimming in a big cave

sunday morning before church, we had planned a going away "party" for emily. we invited all her students and friends and i has prepared a slideshow of her time here. while the party was going on i was outside filming goodbye sentiments from her students and everyone who has been a part of her life here in italy. i put it all together the next few days and was able to give it to her before she left.
so this monday we welcomed our newest avanti member, KELLI CLICK. i don't have a picture with her yet, oops but she'll be around so more on her later. anyway, to celebrate her arrival we all went to our favorite scandicci pizzeria "gallo" (rooster) that night.

tuesday night we went to an all you can eat pizza place in empoli with a ton of friends for emily's last real hurrah.

we spent most of wednesday at the bible school really dragging out this goodbye-emily-thing. that night just us avanti peeps and a few of our favorite other people went to our favorite scandicci eatery and gelateria for our real last fling. we had to tell her goodbye for real that night and it was pitiful to say the least. if ryan hadn't interrupted she and i would still be standing in her bedroom in a weepy embrace.

em's last night

she left early early yesterday morning so in an attempt to keep ourselves preoccupied, ermenita and i spent most of the day cleaning out/throwing away/donating/organizing/labeling the clothes in our church clothes closet. i think there were at least 10 giant trash bags full of clothes that we went through. it was a good distraction and now a huge storage closet at the church is completely cleaned out, yay. then last night we started back up our thursday night bible study at the church.


coming up next week we have a cookout for angela's parents who are visiting, a "back to school" student mixer, bible studies, regional churches women's meeting...looks like things will get back to normal after all. then our classes with our students start the week after that! i'm so looking forward to getting back with all my students and acquiring many new ones.


emily is going to be greatly missed here, but i know she will do great things wherever she ends up in this world. i'm thankful for the time we had here with her and all she taught us.


now you are all caught up on our recent "goings on", you lucky blog readers. keep praying for us and this new semester.

i love this time of year, which apparently now brings the most heavenly smell of fresh grapes inside our bedroom window everyday because of the grapevine growing up our outside wall. happy back to school time for everyone. enjoy the fall, y'all.

i love my roots and i love where i'm at

so, it's been almost 3 weeks since we have been back in italy. we had so much fun in the states but it went by way too fast. we got to spend a week at the beach with ryan's family, 3 days at the lake with my grandparents, and all the days in between with my family and all of our friends in memphis. we ate way too much (as usual) , but it was a really great time. 

everyone was so worried that we were having "culture shock", whatever that is, but we didn't, i guess. i just feel/say "this is my american life and that is my italian life". to compare them in any way would probably make me crazy. not to say that there aren't some ways of living we have acquired here that we won't continue there someday, because that's definitely not true. and this doesn't mean that just because it's culturally disgusting to take your trash out (or do anything beside sleep) barefooted in italy doesn't mean i stop doing it here. AND this doesn't mean that one culture is better or worse, it's just that the way of doing basically everything here is different from the way we do it there and that isn't BAD...it's just DIFFERENT.  i love my roots and i love where i'm at. ok, enough of that. 

just to make sure we weren't going through culture shock, we tested ourselves by arriving back in italy 1 day before our church hosted 90 italians at the harding villa for a 5 day family retreat. ryan and i were the "dorm parents" for all the people staying at the villa and assistant teachers in the teenager class. the retreat was wednesday through sunday and our days consisted of meals together, devotionals, singing, classes, sports, card games, a talent show, a day at the park, and a beautiful worship together sunday morning complete with a potluck. it was really special to be able to catch up with all the kids and teenagers we had gotten to know at camp and be encouraged by the example of so many around us. 

debbie and mario having too much fun in the kitchen

jonathan, me, and em

the whole group during a devo

all of the children


i hope everyone has had an equally enjoyable august and i plan on blogging tomorrow to get you caught up to what we are doing now. thanks as always for your love and prayers. 

camp, weaving, paul simon, oh my

as you very well know now, the last week of june and the first week of july we spent in the mountains of italy at camp.

most people (like me) grew up going to camp and probably some of your most fun kid memories are from camp (mine are). kids look forward to this week all year long and here in italy it is no different. these kids came from the churches all over italy so some of them only get to see each other at camp every year.

this experience was really special in so many ways and i am so thankful for all the adults for letting us americans get so involved. we had so much fun and were blessed by getting to witness the lives of many kids and teenagers being changed forever. there were 3 beautiful baptisms (in a deep freeze) that i will always treasure being a part of.

instead of talking about it, i'm just going to show you the video i made:

camp video

so, then the day after we got back from camp ryan, angela, and i drove to STIA italy, see it there about 2 cm north east of florence.

this is where angela and i learned how to weave. stia is a sleepy little town in the casentino mountains and it is known for their wool. the 100+ year old wool mill there has been very well preserved and the inside made into a beautiful museum. the wonderful lady who taught us has 2 weaving "labs" in this museum so this is where we spent 3 glorious days together. ryan came along as our photographer, he may have gone swimming in the river a few times too. the light in this room was absolutely heavenly and ryan took some of the best pictures he has ever taken here. guided by our teacher, ryan took step by step photos of the weaving process that we plan on making into an instructional booklet for the women we will teach here in florence. angela giordano, our teacher, will also use this book to teach the women that she goes to help in developing countries, because most of them can't read. i'll share a few of his beautiful photos, but i also made a video of this trip.

stia video

then we were home for about 4 days, in which i worked on videos (ermenita's wedding slideshow and something for the bondeno church)/cleaned/washed clothes and ryan went to the bible school to help with the complete kitchen remodel happening over there. his job has been cutting tile so he comes home every day looking like he just took a dive into a vat of flour. even after his shower, for hours white powder seeps out of the corners of his eyeballs. cool.

so anyway, after a few days of that we went to milan to see PAUL SIMON in concert. we got there on a sunday afternoon, rented bikes and rode all over the city until the concert at 9 that night. AMAZING. he is still great live, very encouraging. the next day we had until our train left at 3 in the afternoon, so we did the same thing, discovered the city on bike.

it was wonderful, i'm getting so used to battling crazy italian traffic on bike, i actually miss biking when i'm away from it for a couple of days. i'm looking forward to conquering daily life on a bike back in the states.

since then we have had a few people over for game night, had girls night at mona's house for ermenita's last fling before her wedding, i've been working on more videos/purging our apt/cleaning/packing for our trip to the states, and ryan has still been working at the bible school. tonight we are going to a cookout at the villa, i still have to do one last art project for ermenita's wedding, we have to run a few errands in town, and we have to finish packing but that's about it.

we leave saturday morning before the sun comes up for our visit to the states! we are really excited and i'm very prepared to have reverse culture shock, but that's ok. i'm just so excited to see our family and friends again, even for a short time. oh, and i'm also cutting all my hair off!

see you all on the flip side.

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)

vbs

we have been preparing for a month or so...

we welcomed 25 kids from 3 different churches...

we had a skit...

we sang and learned new songs...

we learned about the armor of God...

and dressed up...

and did crafts...

and had a GREAT time...

everyone knows what goes on at a vbs, but this one was the most special one i have ever been a part of; it was like "the little vbs that could." thank you to everyone who was a part of it whether you were sending up prayers of blessing or right there with us. i pray that it meant as much to the kids and their families as it did to us and that through every bit of it God was glorified. of course, i'm working on a video of it that i will hopefully post before leaving on sunday for 2 weeks of camp so be looking for that.

have a great rest of the week!

strawberries and rhubarbs, oh my

a little birdie (my bf martha) told me that today was national strawberry rhubarb pie day, so in honor i decided to share my recipe.

this is adapted from an old "real simple" recipe, but my grandmother said it sounds like an old-timey recipe that her mother and mother in law used to make. good enough reason for me to claim it!

here she goes...

ingredients:

6 cups rhubarb, sliced

2 cups strawberries, sliced

1 cup sugar

3 tbsp flour

1 tsp grated orange zest

1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

1/8 tsp salt

2 eggs

2 homemade or store bought pie crusts, unbaked

directions:

heat oven to 375 F. in a large bowl, toss the rhubarb, strawberries, sugar, flour, orange zest, cinnamon and salt. beat 1 egg separately, add to the fruit mixture, and toss everything again to combine well. fit one of the pie crusts into a 9 inch pie pan, fill it with the fruit mixture, and press down firmly. lay the second crust on top and press the edges together with a fork to seal. beat the remaining egg with 1 tsp of water and brush all over the crust. sprinkle with a little extra sugar and cut vents in the top pie crust. set pie pan on a baking sheet (it will run over) and bake for 1 hour 20 minutes. let cool for 2 hours before serving. delish with vanilla ice cream or homemade whipped cream on top!

enjoy!

summer schedule

oh my goodness. busy doesn't even describe it right now. but that is how we like it, after all, that is why we are here. to serve the people here.

this past week started our summer rotation of activities. it began with the arrival of the BAT group (can't remember what BAT stands for but it's a group of athletes from harding that are staying at the bible school and it's separate from HUF but they kind of do the same thing just with different teachers and they are only here for a month). we cook one big meal a day for them about 4 days a week this whole month. there are 26 of them so i have been arriving at the bible school at 10 and working with rosa and the other avanti peeps non-stop til 3ish. the other 3 days of the week are for church, preparing for vbs, hanging out with students/friends here, and the other things we are working on for the church.

our vbs is going to be june 18th here in florence.

then after the BAT group leaves we will be counselors/nurses at camp for 2 weeks somewhere in some mountains of italy.

then we will be back in florence for about 2 weeks before our trip to the states. during that time i am going to stia italy to learn the art of weaving in an effort that robbie shackelford has been planning. we are hoping that by teaching, supplying the materials, and having a time each week at the church where we can all weave together; some of the poor women in our community can come and make things and sell the things they make to have some money to provide for their families. i am really excited about this project and cannot wait to get it started. serving the poor was something that ryan and i really tried to focus on in memphis and i had been looking for a good way to do that here. i'm praying that it really goes well! what a better way to form relationships with these poor and seeking women than to sit around weaving together and getting to know each other weekly basis!

so then the 1st 3 weeks of august we will be in the states visiting family and friends and we are really excited about that too.

as soon as we return we (the church of florence) are hosting an italy wide 4 day church retreat where we will all be staying at the harding villa together, reuniting with friends from all over italy, and worshipping together. (ryan and i are teaching the kids classes at this retreat and we are also the night watchmen at the villa)

when i really break it down like that, i realize that this summer is going to fly by, but it's going to be a lot of fun and hopefully strengthen a lot of the relationships we have made here. fly through every new day here i keep reminding myself of 1 corinthians 3:7 (i'll let you go read it).

please forgive me if the blog posts become more sparse over the summer and please continue to be in prayer for the work going on here in italy and all the seeking hearts that we come in contact with daily.