01.14.10

Time Flies…

Posted in Ancona, Newsletters, Team, church, culture, family, kids, ministry at 4:00 am

I just realized that I typed “Volume 8 — Issue 1” on the byline of our most recent newsletter. How is that possible? Is this really the eighth year of sending out newsletters?

A lot has happened over the years. We spent over two years in the US raising support for our work in Ancona. What an experience that was – easily the most faith-stretching experience of our lives.

Then we moved to Perugia to study Italian. We enrolled in a small language school and tried to train our mouths to make all the weird sounds we heard all around us. We also adapted to the Italian rhythm of life, and enrolled our two oldest kids in school. What an experience that was – easily the most faith-stretching experience of our lives.

Next we moved to Ancona and started to dip our toes into life on a team. We learned all the reasons why working on a team is such a great thing, and we also learned why it can be a really challenging thing. The Italian culture started to feel a bit more familiar to us, but things were still new and scary sometimes. Moving to Ancona and working on a team was a great experience – easily the most faith-stretching experience of our lives.

After our first furlough, we came back to Ancona with a new confidence. The language wasn’t quite so difficult. Our kids were doing pretty well in school. We even had a baby in Ancona. Our team leader asked us to be the interim team leader for six months while he was in the US. What an experience that was – easily the most faith-stretching experience of our lives.

Just before our second furlough our landlord gave us six months to move out of her apartment, and we were faced with finding a new place and completely furnishing it with absolutely no way to pay for it. What an experience that was – easily the most faith-stretching experience of our lives.

Which brings us more or less to the present day. We still get our faith stretched on a regular basis. God still pulls us through despite our doubts, and shows us how faithful He is to us.

And through it all, He’s forming a church in Ancona. Sometimes He uses us, and sometimes He does an end-run and brings people to us that we never would have even met. He molds us and shapes us and chips away at our rough edges until we become more and more like Him.

And to think. It’s only taken seven years so far…

Thanks for sticking with us.

01.07.10

Lame Taxes

Posted in culture, finances, friends at 2:58 am

We were greeted from our Christmas travels to a letter from the Agenzia Entrate – more or less the Italian IRS. By the end of January, we need to pay €109 (~$158). It’s TV tax time.

Italy’s three main, state-run television stations are supported by a yearly tax, paid for by everyone who has bought a TV. It doesn’t matter if you never watch the state channels, or if you only use your TV to play movies, or even if you have ever turned your TV on. If you buy a TV, they send you a letter in January asking you to cough it up. And the state channels still have commercials, so where all this money goes is a bit of a mystery.

So what’s a poor pastor to do? Do we pay the tax like good foreign residents? Or do we stick it to the man and refuse to support the media machine? Here are some facts:

  • Christians who I respect have laughed at me when I asked if they pay the TV tax. They say it’s a joke and no one but foreigners who don’t know any better pay it.
  • They can come and “audit” you if you don’t pay. What this really means is a bit of a mystery.
  • After midnight, most of these channels play shows that range from soft-core, to full-out pornography. If I pay my tax, aren’t I supporting this programming as well?

I’d love to get a discussion going – but hurry … the tax is due January 31!

10.23.09

How real are we?

Posted in church, culture, kids, ministry at 11:46 am

I’m getting to know a new group of parents. Our oldest started soccer this year, and so I have tried to hang around during practices to get to know some of the other moms and dads. There’s one woman in particular who is kind of outspoken and generally puts on a good show for us every practice.

Last night she was talking about a website that said we are going to have an earthquake this weekend. Some of the parents were really listening to her, but most were rolling their eyes. But she said something that really make me think. She said if an earthquake happens, she’s running down to the bottom floor of her apartment so that she can “die with all of the rest of the sinners – at least you know who they are.”

I think she was implying that the buon crisitano (the good Christian) is just a big faker. It’s not possible for the real people, the work-hard-for-a-living people, the kind of people she can relate to, to have a faith: the two things are just incompatible.

I hope that can’t ever be said about me and my life. I seek to be the kind of person that people can relate to, who knows what real life is like. And at the same time I seek to grow in my faith – a faith that is authentic and genuine. If those two things don’t match up in our lives, then I think we will forever be branded as an irrelevant bunch of fakers.

10.22.09

Getting Settled In

Posted in Ancona, Team, church, culture at 12:16 am

The transitions are always weird. We kind of have our feet in both America and Italy. We love both places, and if you asked us where “home” is our answer would really would depend on the day and how we’re feeling about things.

We made it back to Italy safe and sound. Our apartment was cleaned and ready for us (thanks team!). Our car insurance was turned on – though somehow gremlins got in and ruined the transmission while we were gone. The church welcomed us back with the usual hugs and kisses alla Italiana. But somehow things seemed different.

It was a little like we were on the outside looking in on everything. Ministry and church life obviously goes on without us. It’s not like people are sitting around and waiting for us to get back. But it takes a while to get back into the rhythm of life. And the transition was in some ways a little uncomfortable.

But slowly, things are seeming more normal. The routine of school / sports / Bible studies / prayer times / classes / etc. is starting to take over. We’re renewing our friendships and our apartment seems like home again. It all reminds us that neither here, nor there, is our true home.

05.25.09

Being the Outsider

Posted in Ancona, culture at 4:00 am

A couple nights ago the class representative for our oldest’s class organized an end-of-the-year dinner. It was your typical Italian feast with all of the courses (appetizer, two pastas, grilled meats, salad, dessert, and coffee). As we were all sitting down, someone had the idea to separate the guys and the girls. We took up the entire outside area of the restaurant. The kids were on one side. Dads in the middle. Moms on the other side.

As we’re sitting there chatting I just sort of sat there for a bit and listened to the other dads talk. The mayor of Ancona recently resigned (in scandal, of course) and they were talking about the nine candidates who were running. And of those nine, many were people they had all gone to school with. They started telling stories about so-and-so who used to ride on the hood of cars going down country roads. Or the other guy who they all said was destined to be in politics (not sure if that’s a compliment or an insult).

All of the sudden it hit me. Most of these guys have known each other since they were kids. They went to elementary school together. They’ve watched each other grow up and get married and have kids. And here I am, the American protestant pastor trying to insert myself into a community that has been around for forty years! There are a couple of dads in particular who try and pull me into the circle, but for the most part I’m an outsider.

I don’t say this to start a pity party. But it does bring a little prespective. How many class dinners do I go to before I can tell stories about so-and-so? Am I going to stick around long enough to get drawn in?

05.21.09

Life Out in the Open

Posted in culture at 7:51 am

The temperature has suddenly spiked here in Ancona. For the first time in many months, the house is getting a little stuffy at night. We open the windows to get a little fresh air.

Life in an apartment is full of little noises that remind you that you’re not alone. Noises like the woman upstairs whose high heels click on each stair just after lunch on her way back to work. The sound of a toilet flushing. The garage door opening or closing, or the slam of the front door when someone comes home.

But now that the windows are open, the noises are much louder. We can hear TVs at night and the clink of dishes after dinner. Neighbors walk out to say hello when they hear you on the balcony hanging laundry. Loud motorcycles going down the street make it hard to hear the TV. At first we feel like we have to keep the kids quiet all the time so that no one hears us. But then you realize no one else is making an effort to hide. It’s just how life is.

It’s a little unnerving at first. But after a while you stop noticing the noises and everything blends back into the background. It’s only when the windows first get opened that you realize you’re not alone.

04.27.09

Who should pay?

Posted in church, culture, ministry at 5:26 am

I overheard a very interesting conversation at church last night. A woman, who is normally fairly reserved, was really upset when she started talking about the victims of the earthquake in L’Aquila.

The government has promised to give the victims of third of their home’s value to rebuild. Many people have lost everything, and more and more reports are coming out that say the builders who originally constructed the buildings took shortcuts and didn’t obey government standards for earthquake proofing. So buildings that should have been able to withstand an earthquake crumbled.

Unfortunately, the city archive was also destroyed. So the chances of finding the builders (who are probably long gone anyway) are very slim. Even if the person remembered the company that built the building, more than likely those people aren’t around anymore.

So the woman in our church was lamenting the fact that the taxpayers have to foot the bill. She was upset that the mafia is probably involved and is skimming off the top. “Italians are good people – maybe too good,” she said as she described people who blindly give money to help with no real assurance that any of it ever gets to where it is intended. My friend said she would much rather invite someone into her home and, as she said, “share my bread with them” than send an text message that donates €1.00 to the Red Cross.

I think she has a point, but what can you do? Aren’t things like this the reason that people have governments? Earthquake insurance is nonexistent here. If the government doesn’t step in and help, who will?

The church?

Is it possible that Christians have relied on government to be the hands and feet of Jesus? Wouldn’t a group of people whose only motive is to relieve suffering and help as they are able be a far more effective “disaster relief team” than a big government bureaucracy?

04.12.09

The Wonderful Insanity of the Prayer Room

Posted in 24-7 Prayer, Ancona, church, culture at 3:03 am

Kyle is in the prayer room right now singing his heart out. I’m sitting just outside, waiting for my hour to start. It’s 7 AM, Easter Sunday morning. I look over the list of people who have signed up to pray and see that Kyle is going on his fourth hour of prayer. The early morning hours are always hard to fill, and who ever is on call has to pray if no one shows.

There’s a part of me that thinks we’re nuts for doing this. There’s nothing special about the room. We decorate it, and sometimes have a theme to help people to focus their thoughts. There are some candles and a big wooden cross. But it’s just a normal room. But at the same time there is something very un-normal about it.

I’m in a country where Easter is barely a religious holiday for most people, and really not much of a secular holiday either. I saw a poster in the center of town for an art exhibit that is opening up tonight. It’s just another day. I’m preparing to preach a simple Easter message and don’t really feel very Easter-y.

So I’m faced with this blah feeling about Easter, and this morning that feeling collided with the wonderful insanity of the prayer room. Ho-hum faced off with holy. Shrugged shoulders met bended knees. A yawn met a whispered prayer.

Guess who won?

01.20.09

What does it mean to be ecumenical?

Posted in church, culture at 1:51 pm

Last night I presided over a Catholic prayer service with a priest who, the first time I met him, told me he had never met an evangelical before.

This week is a special week of prayer for the unity of churches. Every night there are at least two places that are having some sort of meeting with churches from lots of denominations. I was slated for the prayer service in Castelfidardo, followed by a question and answer period after.

The priest was very welcoming. I told him I was there to help in any way, and that I had prepared a short thought after the reading from 1 Peter. He told me he would be happy to hear my thoughts, and away the service went. Things went as planed, except when he spontaneously nudged me during the service when he decided I should read some of the responsive texts with him.

The question and answer period after was fairly low key. I introduced myself and the others who came with me. Most wanted to know what a protestant service was like. The nuns who came up asked me the three classic questions: 1) Do you pray to Mary? 2) Are you under the pope? 3) Is communion for you actually the body and blood of Christ, or just a symbol? Unfortunately, according to one of the nuns, I was “wrong” on all three counts.

I honestly dread these meetings. I’m not much of a PR guy. Crowds of strangers are difficult for me. Question and answer time is rough because the Italian doesn’t always flow under pressure. But after I get over it I always enjoy them. Even after almost four years here, it’s still hard for me to believe how little Catholics know about us protestants. And that lack of knowledge very quickly turns to fear and suspision (and vice versa). And so maybe for a group of 30 people in a small town outside of Ancona, the Chiesa di Cristo La Via isn’t such a scary place.

During the meeting I quoted a friend of mine, who gave me some wise counsel during a time when I was really unsure about ecumenicalism. He told me that if two groups of people (evangelical and catholic) are genuinely following Christ, then at a certain point our paths will meet. That point in time may be tomorrow or it may be 1,000 years from now. But it will come.

And at that point, this week of prayer for Christian unity may make a little more sense.

01.11.09

The Feeding of an Infant

Posted in culture, family, health care, kids at 9:55 am

Everything is cultural. Every now and then I start to think that surely there must be some universal truths that are true for everyone in every culture. Like raising an infant. There have to be some dos and don’ts, right?

Wrong! Our kids’ pediatrician is teaching us that. Around Francesca’s five month check up, she hands Heidi a badly photocopied recipe called: Diet from the 6th Month. Here it is:

Make a vegetable puree with:

one potato, one carrot, one zucchini, one onion, and either some Swiss chard or celery.

Take 2-3 tablespoonfuls of the vegetable puree and add:

2 teaspoonfuls of extra virgin olive oil

2 teaspoonfuls of aged Parmesan cheese

3-4 tablespoonfuls of multi grain cereal or baby pasta

10 grams of powdered meat or 60 grams of pureed meat

And so once a day for lunch, that’s what Francesca eats. For dinner, we substitute ricotta cheese instead of the meat. Starting with the seventh month we add fish instead of meat. And from seven and a half months we add ham. And then month eight brings beans (surely we’ll notice the effects of that!).

We raised three kids in America, and I don’t ever remember boiling an onion or Swiss chard for the babies lunch. I can’t think of any pediatrician that recommends ricotta or Parmesan cheese for a six month old. But we tried it, and she loves it. No gas or tummy aches from the onion. The pureed meat is just fine.

And it all proves that everything – even what we feed our kids – is completely influenced by what everyone around us does.