Some good friends of ours invited us to attend a fish dinner down by the port. The area of town is called Gli Archi (The Arches), and all of the buildings have a large sidewalk in front and are covered with huge arches.

The dinner was a benefit for some non-profit organization. They spread out picnic tables underneath the arches and everyone mingled around until the boy scouts hurried by to take tickets and bring the food.

There is a street right in front of the arches, and it’s one of the main ways into town. Traffic tapered off as dinner went on, but the occasional bus or streetbike roaring by quickly reminded us to hang on to the kids.

When people think of Italy they often think of a fancy restaurant or a big plate of pasta. They picture wine glasses and pizza. And to be sure, the big fancy Italian dinner is something we enjoy about living here.

But as I sat, scrunched on a flimsy picnic bench with family and friends on either side, I realized that I would much rather have dinner sotto gli archi than in some fancy restaurant. The seafood pasta and fried fish was great, but not nearly as great as the company. I found myself smiling as Trey chatted with Maurizio, as Silla grabbed Francesca to take her for a walk, as Marco brought over a huge dessert that he bought before the pastry shop closed. Dinners like this are just as much for the company as the food.

But … the food was delicious, too!

Every now and then I get hit by a little no-stal-gì-a. I find myself spending time on Facebook looking up people back home. I call people for no reason just to chat. I wonder what so-and-so is up to right now. Cultural things that are normally just differences become irritating. The line in the post office seems longer, the cash register at the grocery store less organized, the bureaucracy even thicker. It’s easy for me to work from home instead of forcing myself to be out. I find myself retreating into my little introverted world and I have to force myself out (or maybe find the right people to coax me out).

I wish I could find a cause for the occasional outburst of no-stal-gì-a. I think it seems to come after a certain length of time in Italy. Sometimes a particularly stressful event with the culture sets me off (there’s another blog post cooking about this very thing). And then it just kind of goes away and life starts to feel a bit more normal. But then, when you live with your feet in two different countries, with family and friends on both sides of the Atlantic, surely a little no-stal-gì-a is normal, right?

But it’s more than just free babysitting. Italian kids seem to enjoy a closer relationship with their grandparents. And it’s made me realize how little contact my kids have with theirs. It really does make life harder. I know my kids miss out on that special bond with grandma and grandpa (and it’s our fault – we’re the ones who moved here). They miss getting to know adults who are less busy and have more time to focus on kid-stuff. Heidi and I miss having someone who can watch the kids for date nights (which hardly ever happen when the going rate for babysitters is $15/hour). I think even our church misses out on the wisdom that grandparents bring. The internet does allow a bit more of a connection than would normally be possible via letters and phone calls. But the distance is still there and still changes things.

And I have yet to find a way to fill that gap.

And I will never understand how it works. Italy has a multiple party system. It’s not just republicans and democrats (with a couple of minor parties here and there). There are dozens of major parties and even more minor parties. No party who receives less than 5% of the popular vote can take office, so the parties form coalitions which can get enough votes. The coalition a person votes for will contain several somewhat-similar (but certainly not identical) political ideologies.

I passed by a newspaper headline just before election day (actually, it’s election weekend here). The headline read, “Photos of all 140 candidates inside”. 140 candidates? Yep, because for regional elections you can vote for the party and for the person you want to win. 140 candidates! How can anyone keep that straight?

Here’s the kicker … if at any point anyone is unhappy with where the government is going, it gets dissolved (it’s happened over 50 times since World War 2). Poof! It’s like it never happened. A temporary government is set up until elections can take place. Oh, and the current prime minister, he controls the state-run media channels (RAI), and also personally owns the competing channels (Mediaset). There are almost no independent media companies.

So basically, I don’t understand a thing. And my fear is, I’m not sure the Italians do either.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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?

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.