video about italy

our italian teacher showed us this video in class today and she even said that is is very accurate so i'm not making fun of italians. i love italy and every italian i have met so far, but this is hilarious and gives a good idea of where we are working. enjoy!

since the last time...

since the last time i've updated...

we have begun a chinese laundry in the hallway

jessica has given peter a haircut

we have visited rome and the church of christ there

ryan has eaten a hotdog and french fry pizza

we have tried the best coffee in rome

we have had physical friday "garden"

i drew a picture of the new avanti members

i have started painting

emily and i have started a kids english class

we have learned a lot of italian

we have had 4 straight days of continuous rain

we have had some wonderful bible studies

we have all been ill with something

we have planned trips to visit the churches in catania and vicenza

we have had to buy some warm clothes

we have been having a wonderful time

happy halloween

after returning from aprilla for the youth retreat we went to the huf villa for their annual halloween bash.

we had planned on returning early enough to swing by the bible school and get costumed up (we were all going to be "office" characters), but we got stuck in traffic and arrived really late. luckily, they have a box of random costume pieces at the villa, so we found some hats and glasses, enough to get us by.

we ate chili, the students carved pumpkins, people bobbed for apples, "passogigante" played (an awesome local scandicci band)... it was a blast!

also in recent news, the huf villa caught on fire on thursday so all of the huf girls (17) have moved in with us at the bible school. that is the significance of the prize winning pumpkin pictured below :) hope everyone else had a happy halloween as well!

youth retreat in aprilla

this weekend we went to aprilla (a little town outside of rome) for a retreat for people around ages 15-25 from all the churches in italy. there were about 40 young people total and it was one of the greatest experiences i have had yet in italy.

we left friday after lunch in the harding van and emily's car (there were 11 avanti workers and 3 italians that all rode together from florence). we got there at about 7:30 friday night, and after meeting everyone we had a pizza dinner together.

sweet marta, our friend from the college age retreat we had at the bible school the first weekend we were in italy

after dinner we sang together for a little while, they made some announcements, and we were sent off to the houses where we were staying.

we stayed with the sweetest family, marco and giuliana bordoni (and their sweet 2 year old, sara). they picked us up friday night and took us to their house, showed us around and we sat and played with sara and talked with them before going to bed.

saturday morning after we got ready and came downstairs, they had an amazing breakfast waiting for us (coffee with milk, pastries, and fruit). we sat and enjoyed breakfast with them before marco took us back up to the church at 10.

we fellowshiped for a few minutes and then sang and prayed. after that, our lessons were brought by vittorio vitalone, the preacher at the church in rome, and a wonderful wonderful speaker. even though i only understood about every other word, i got the general idea, and it was great.

he spoke at 3 different sessions throughout the day with singing and prayer time, a glorious pasta meal, and some free time scattered in there (in which we walked around the town, swung in an awesome swing in the park, got coffee, and played charades).

lucca, another one of our friends from the college age retreat we had

reading "green eggs and ham" in italian

typical

after dinner and charades saturday night, we cleaned up and watched the movie "big fish" in italian. after that we all retired to our houses.

about to watch the movie

sunday morning we woke up again to a wonderful breakfast with the bordonis, got ready and packed, and headed back up to the church for worship. this church is such a loving and hospitable congregation, and it was such a joy to get to worship with them. after worship they had a huge feast: lasagna, roast, beans, salad, fried potatoes, and dessert buffet...unbelievable.

after lunch we cleaned up and told everyone bye because we had to head back to florence. it was so sad to tell those people bye, in just a short time, we made some great friends and relationships. i'm already excited about the times in the future that we will get to visit aprilla and see those friends. what a wonderful experience!

english movie night

we had our first english movie night of the season and, as usual, i forgot to take pictures. so, i'm going to be lazy and just link jessica's blog where she does an excellent job of recounting the events.

ps we watched monsters, inc. and i think they loved it!

a "normal" week at the scuola biblica

now that we have gotten into a somewhat regular routine at the bible school, i want to share these ins and outs of a "normal" week here.

had to throw in this cute photo of zoey

every weekday morning, as i have mentioned before, we ride the bus into florence (about 30 minutes) and have italian class from 9am-1pm.

our coffee break at school

we had to describe "guess who" characters in italian

to each other and draw them in class last week

in 2 short months we have learned so much and had a lot of fun, but we have also been really stressed while trying to learn italian. by the time class is over each day, i'm usually in need of a nap because of how hard my brain has been working, but that is only the beginning.

on mondays, wednesdays, and fridays we come straight back to the bible school for lunch at 1:30. after lunch we clean the downstairs and have an AI meeting from 3 to 4. then ryan and i usually work on our italian homework, study, prepare for our english classes, paint (something i've recently started), or clean our room. at 5 my only monday student arrives. we study for an hour.

immediately after my class, a few of us usually start scrambling something together for our simple supper. we take turns being the "head chef" but since i like to cook, i usually help.

at 6:30 we eat dinner together, along with any italians that have come for our bible study. at 7 we split men and women and have our bible studies.

the week we took pictures, david and debbie were gone

with the HUF students and a few people were sick

so there were only a few of us

we usually end our study between 8:15 and 8:30, and at 9 to 10 on monday, tuesday, and wednesday ryan, andrea, and angela teach a beginner's english class.

tuesdays after class we are on our own for lunch. ryan and i usually pack a sack lunch at the bible school and bring it with us to eat somewhere in florence. then we explore the city...take pictures, sit and study or draw, look in stores, sit at coffee shops, get gelato...whatever we feel like doing for a couple of hours to relax.

last week we split girls and guys

ryan and i both have students at 6pm tuesday night so we are always back in time for that. after class we eat something for dinner and i do homework and study while ryan teaches or helps teach the group class.

wednesday after class, lunch, and the meeting, i have students at 5, 6, and 9pm, and ryan has them at 6 and 7 with the group class at 9. between those classes, at 7:30 i study with ermenita (she is providing one on one tutoring if we want it) and try to eat something for dinner.

thursdays we are also on our own for lunch and we are free again for a couple of hours to do something on our own. the past few weeks, our school has offered free guided tours (in italian of course) of different important places in florence. we have been to the boboli gardens, santa maria novella, the academia, and santa croce. those tours usually end just in time for us to catch the bus to the church for our thursday night simple supper, english conversation class, and italian bible study.

some of us trying to cook and david being david

at 6:30, a few people prepare some simple soup or pasta for dinner, while a few others teach an english conversation class to whoever comes, and a few more teach the children of whoever comes. at 7:30 we all eat together and then sing and have a bible study (in italian) until about 9pm. by the time we clean the church and get back to the bible school it is usually about 10 and i'm exhausted. we have a test in our italian class every friday so i always try to study thursday night when we get home, but it never fails that i fall asleep after about 5 minutes and just end up studying on the bus friday morning.

fridays after class, lunch, and the meeting we are supposed to have "physical friday". seeing as we live in an older and very large building with about 11 other people, there are usually some activities in need of a large group to work on. so far, we have gutted, detailed, and reorganized the laundry room, moved in and rearranged for a deep freeze, and cleaned out and reorganized about 10 armoires full of blankets, towels, sheets, pillows, and any other type of household linen you can imagine. this is actually right up my alley because i like cleaning and reorganizing. we haven't been able to do physical friday every week though, because other activities come up (preachers conference, ermenita's graduation, library reading, going to people's homes, english movie night with our students, going out of town...). after physical friday work we usually work on the blog and clean our room, i skype my grandparents :) and we just relax a little. there are always plenty of leftovers from the week for dinner.

most of our saturdays are free to do whatever we would like. saturday is ryan's and my laundry day and that is also when we have traveled to pisa and san gimegnano. on saturday mornings when we aren't going somewhere, we usually walk to the saturday market in scandicci, read, lounge, paint, watch a movie, sleep, or hang out/go on a walk together or with students in florence or scandicci.

sunday, as you would guess, we go to church in florence. it is always a joy! we rotate with helping with the kids classes and that is always so much fun. we usually come back to the bible school after church and cook something. i use sunday afternoons to prepare for my english classes and study italian, and then i always skype my parents on sunday night. monday morning it starts all over again...

i love everything that we do here at the bible school and in florence and scandicci, and wouldn't trade the moments and memories for anything. living with 10 other people and teaching 40-50 students a week in the same building might stress some people out, but i only think about it and smile. i love the little things like answering the doorbell to see a smiling student face, sitting down to have tea with my students before our study, walking to school with the other avanti members (every one of us silently walking and listening to our ipods to get ready for the day), cooking and eating together, skidmark cleaning/bidet using lessons from debbie, reading the bible with italians, americans, men, women, young, old, happy, sad, lost, found...there's nothing like it and i'm so thankful for every minute, easy or hard.

i think all of us would say that even if it all ended today we have learned more about ourselves (good and bad) in these 2 months than maybe in our lifetime, and for that too i am so grateful.

so there it is...the life and times of an avanti worker, so far