We have a group of 15 university students from College Heights Christian Church here in Ancona right now. They’ve been a great group, really ready to dive in and experience the culture and learn about our church.
On Monday, they hosted a day at the beach. They invited people they had met and we also invited the church to come and enjoy hamburgers and hot dogs on the grill (something that few of them had ever experienced).
It rained off and on all day, and after weeks of hot, humid weather, it was cool and windy. Just about dinner time, some church members showed up, and we got the grill going.
That’s when the storm clouds rolled in. The owner of the beach let us use his outdoor seating, which had a roof. We started seeing lightning hitting the ocean near us. And then, all of the sudden, it hailed on us. Ice was bouncing off the roof and into the area where we were seated. We quickly moved the food out of the rain, and took shelter under an awning. One of our church members said he had never seen hail before! And about 10 minutes later, it all stopped. We shook our head and laughed at the horrible weather for beach day.
And then we noticed the rainbow:
I’ve never seen a rainbow so large before! It was a full semi-circle that went into the sea on one side, and up and over the city of Ancona. I tried to stitch two pictures together above to give you an idea of how big it was.
Paris Hilton has recently been on Italian TV doing commercials for a cell phone company called 3. Watch this … then keep reading.
The guy in the scene is Claudio Amendola, a famous Italian actor. Paris is playing the part of … herself. The commercial is about how it’s inexpensive to switch your cell phone over to this company.
This commercial is awful for several reasons:
Paris’ accent. It is literally one of the worst American accents I have ever heard. I’ll be the first to admit that it’s hard for an American to get rid of their accent completely, but Paris is borderline hard-to-understand.
For the second commercial in this series, they hired an Italian actress to do a American-speaking-Italian voiceover for Paris when she speaks in Italian.
It’s possible that Paris Hilton wouldn’t recognize Claudio Amendola, but absurd to think that Claudio Amendola wouldn’t recognize Paris Hilton. She’s really popular here.
So now that I have gotten that off my chest… I do have to wonder why certain parts of American culture (Paris Hilton) get imported here, and why other parts (Taco Bell) do not. It really is a strange thing.
PS - The title of this blog post comes from my teammate, Marcus, when he heard that they released the second commercial in this series.
Last Sunday was a big day in the life of the church here in Ancona. Our church looks a lot different than most churches in that it is a “Cell Church.” Basically, we meet in homes and function as a church. But just like cells in the body, we seek to multiply into more and more cells.
So now we’re meeting in two groups. We just got too big to comfortably meet in a living room. It was different to suddenly be half the size that we were last week. But at the same time it was so excited. Towards the end of our time together we talked about the vision that we having cells meeting in every neighborhood of the city. Two members of our church were discussing what it is going to take and it was really exciting for me to see them talking about where we are heading as a church. One encouraged patience, as church planting is generally slow here. The other encouraged boldness; he talked about how people need someone to be strong and to lead. They are both right, and I think we all learned a little from both of them.
Please pray for the church here. Big steps are being taken - pray that this is just the first of many multiplications.
Heidi and I went on a rare date the other night. We went out to one of our favorite restaurants for dinner. Then we were going to meet up with Maurizio at a new jazz club that has just opened up here in Ancona.
We were greeted at the front door by a friend of ours who happened to be singing live that night. She was so excited to see us, and sheepishly asked us not to notice the mistakes in her English (she was singing in English that night). We went and found a seat and waited for Maurizio.
A few minutes later our friend brought over a couple of membership forms. Apparently, the jazz club is actually a club. Only members are allowed in. Later on that evening I noticed the sign on the door that says only members admitted, with a big bouncer outside the door just in case you don’t believe them.
So they accepted our application, which apparently means that we are cool enough to sit around a jazz club (those of you who know me know that is completely untrue!). As we sat there listening to our friend sing in the Alanis Morissette style (really not jazz at all), I couldn’t help but smile at the places that God brings us to be with people who wouldn’t ever come to a church service. So if it means being tragically hip at a jazz club in order to be a light, I’ll do it.
I know I’ve written a lot about strikes. They are an aspect of Italian culture that I really don’t understand. Today, the journalists are striking - no newspapers. Tomorrow, we’ve heard word of a possible teacher’s strike. The last time this happened, the teachers told us the day before that the strike had been called off. Today when we asked if there was still a strike the teachers said that we’ll have to bring our kids to school tomorrow to find out. They had told our kids earlier that if they lights are off when we get to school in the morning that they need to go home.
So apparently they’re upset this time. But I’m really kind of irritated that we have to wake the kids up and go through the morning routine only to possibly turn around and come back home. As teachers, I wonder what this strike game “teaches” the kids.
And … as usual … I have no idea what they are striking for.
I’m taking care of a teammate’s finances while he is in the states. I needed to pay a bill by depositing money into a certain account at a certain bank (a fairly common way to pay a bill here). However, new laws have been passed that don’t allow someone who the bank doesn’t know to pay a bill using cash. It’s an anti-Mafia law, apparently, who used to deposit money passing out small bills to normal people and instructing them to deposit it into a certain account, thus avoiding the suspicion of making large deposits. So now, no more anonymous cash deposits. You have to “register.”
The man who took my information asked me what I was doing in Italy. I told him I was a pastor. He replied, “I don’t really like the protestant church.” I sort of ignored the comment, and listened to his mini-rant. He asked me where I was from (a set up, since it was written on my ID card he was punching into the computer). I told him America and he said, “I don’t really like America very much.” I resisted the urge to tell him I don’t really like bankers very much!
But then we had a decent conversation about faith, theology, and the church. He ended up giving me his business card and inviting me to call him sometime to chat about theology. I’m certainly no theologian, but I’m happy to have met someone who is interested in talking - even if he doesn’t like American protestants!
Today was a big day. After a month or two of class and studying, I passed my driving test. I now have an Italian driver’s license (called a patente). The test was a breeze, and really was a relaxing drive while me, my instructor, and the inspector chatted it up about what it means to be a pastor. At the end she said, “You passed, but you already knew that.”
And as you can see, driver’s license photos are awful here, too!
Looks like were back online (or as Heidi’s mom would say, “On the online”). Someone bought our service provider, who promised a seamless transition. And then we were offline for a week. Not so seamless, I guess. Thanks to our teammate, Matt, for uploading all the files again. Ain’t technology great when it works?!
Heidi spent some time tutoring a friend in English this afternoon. We have been having some unusually warm weather lately. Heidi’s friend commented on how strange the weather was, and explained that she had heard several older people saying that they feel like an earthquake is coming. I have no clue how those two things are connected, but I suppose time will tell. Yikes!
