The changes that we’ve seen in those ten years are really incredible. We’ve watched the church go from all-Americans to a mix of Italians, Romanians, and Americans. We’ve seen teammates come and go. We’ve crammed Italian into our heads and I still get excited when it comes out right. We’ve changed ministry roles. Our kids have gone through preschool, elementary, and middle school. Heidi and I (OK, mostly Heidi) have matured and grown through years of difficult ministry. Despite all of the change, one constant remains. God’s presence. We cannot help but look back over these ten years and see how God has been moving and shaping things to lead us up to this moment.

The church here in Ancona is young, but maturing. We pray a lot together. We study together. We’re still working on establishing leadership in the church and we’re praying God brings in a harvest through us soon. But I can honestly tell you that I have never been a part of a community of believers like this one. I am so proud to see how far we’ve come.

Our goal has always been to work ourselves out of a job, and we’re getting to the point where that finally looks possible. As a team we have decided that, with God’s help, we think our work will be done in Ancona within five years. It will require a lot of hard work between now and then, and there are a lot of question marks still, but I’m beginning to see how the presence of the “paid experts” can harm a church after a while. It seems like our church members’ gifts will never mature and develop when there’s never really a need for them. And so we cautiously, prayerfully, begin the process of disengaging.

Thanks to our supporters, some of whom have been with us all ten years. That’s really incredible, isn’t it? Ten years of prayers and donations to see this church plant happen, and now we’re at the “beginning of the end.” Please keep praying and lifting this church up. We need it now more than ever.

Until next month…

It’s normal to think about Jesus’ sacrifice a little closer to Easter. Christmas is when we focus on the birth of Jesus. We picture the idyllic scene of Mary & Joseph and the animals all gathered around Jesus. And it’s really hard for us to fast forward thirty-some years and see that baby all grown up and hanging on the cross.

But that’s what was in God’s mind just after Adam & Eve ate the forbidden fruit. He was willing to sacrifice his own Son to fix our mistake. The baby Jesus is connected to the crucified Jesus and is connected to the resurrected Jesus.

We’ve been in Italy almost seven years now. And we’ve spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to teach about the real, life-changing Jesus that we read about in the Bible to a nation of people who have spent generations keeping Him at arm’s length. We’ve messed up a lot, we’ve strained to hear God’s voice and see his directions. And after all that work, He has blessed us by using us to lead a small group of believers who are growing by leaps and bounds.

Many of you reading this had a part in the creation of this church. Isn’t it beautiful how the Body of Christ works? It really does cross over all of these silly lines we’ve written on the maps. Thank you for caring enough to sacrifice for a group of believers you probably won’t meet this side of eternity.

May God bless you with a relaxing Christmas, and may we spend some time thanking Him who already knew how to fix this sin problem of ours before we even started sinning.

Until next month…

I was sort of lost in my thoughts, trying to play out the coming conversation in my head as a sort of warm-up for the real thing. I was shooting up random prayers, asking God to grant me supernatural wisdom, the gift of tongues, and the patience of Job – and I really needed all of those things before I had to ring the bell for my stop.

The road we were on travels along the Adriatic coast, but most of the way the view is partially-obscured by train tracks and power lines and row after row of apartments. At one point, I looked to my right out the bus window and saw this:

I remember looking around at everyone on the bus with me. The woman behind me was lost in thought. Two teenage girls were listening to music, one earbud for each girl, while they simultaneously chatted. Others were dozing off. And I was worshiping. God’s promises and faithfulness all came flooding back to me and I couldn’t believe that others weren’t seeing what I was seeing. I honestly wanted to shout, “Look! God has kept that promise for thousands of years! And He will keep His promise to be with me forever!”

But the worship time was apparently meant just for me. The bus started moving and I soon got off at my stop.

With some much-needed confidence in God’s promises.

But when everyone is spread out all over, even in other countries, it makes getting together pretty hard! I’m starting to think that God wants this time to be a time of Sabbath and renewal. We have church members in two other regions (like states) and one other country. We have people who have to work Sundays during the summer months, and join us in the evening exhausted but happy. We have a hard time getting together with people because they are at their beach homes or on vacation. Sometimes, even I say “I’m bo-oored.”

Then, I think of it another way. I can use this time to concentrate, really concentrate, on the people before me. Tonight we are having two families over for dinner. They don’t really know each other, but one is from church and the other have expressed interest in coming to church. I’ve been wanting to introduce them for a while. The more relaxed schedule of August makes dinners like this much easier to plan. And no one has to rush off and get the kids in bed for school the next day. Conversation is relaxed. People seem to let their guards down a bit, giving us an opportunity to bring faith into the discussion.

Tomorrow, we are headed about an hour away to the water park with this same family. Since it is hard to take our whole family on a vacation, it is nice to be able to take a vacation day here and there to spend some concentrated time building relationships.

This weekend we are hosting a missionary couple from the Rome area, and I really hope it can be a time of growth and encouragement (and rest, too!). This couple is in the very beginning stages of church planting in the Rome area, and the topic of building the Kingdom here in Italy always comes up. The following week another missionary will be staying with us for a few days.

When all is said and done, I want to look back on my summer knowing that we made many memories. I want to really know that we have used all of the opportunities that God had given us to share and encourage. When school starts, I want to see that we’ve all grown up a bit, not just the kids.

Until next month…

We usually head to the beach before lunch, and take sandwiches to eat when we get hungry. The walk from the car to the beach is pretty far, and the uphill climb on the way home seems like it will never end. But fortunately for us, we have an oasis. One of the Romanian families that attends our church live just about half way between the beach and the parking lot. And they get offended if we don’t stop by and say hello.

One Saturday, quite a few of the church members organized to go to the beach together. There were maybe 15 or 20 of us there, and as the sun went down we all packed our stuff up to head home. I was lagging behind, arms full with the cooler and beach toys. As I got near the Romanian’s house, I noticed their front door open. And inside was … everyone! They were busy making espressos for everyone. The kids were already playing Playstation. People were laughing. At some point a watermelon found its way to the table.

And I was struck by how hospitable these friends were. They thought nothing of inviting 15 people into their small living room and serving coffee. We were all salty from the sea, and yet they invited us to sit on their furniture and chat. If anyone would have passed by their house, I truly think they would have been upset. So we sat practically on top of each other and recharged ourselves for the second half of the walk to the car.

Isn’t this how the church should be? Not just on beach days, but every day? Shouldn’t we always be ready to fling open our doors and invite in whoever happened to stop by? Shouldn’t our house look like an oasis to thirsty people passing by?

Mondays are usually a slower day for me. I don’t have any regular meetings scheduled, and I spend part of my day planning out my week and thinking through conversations that took place on Sunday during our church service. The introvert in me takes some time to recharge on Mondays.

But this week was different. Kyle had the idea to do a Jericho prayer walk. Remember how the Israelites marched around Jericho one time a day for seven days, and on the seventh day they marched seven times? And as they finished the last lap, God miraculously brought the walls of the city down.

Ancona’s physical walls are long gone, but the spiritual walls here seem stronger than ever. The church here is making efforts at knocking them down, but sometimes it seems we have a long way to go.

We met at the monument at 7:00, walking along the Viale until we got to the port, and then we turned around and went back the way we came. It took about an hour every day.
We prayed for anything and everything: our church, the church members, our neighbors, spiritual growth, our leadership, maybe even world peace. We prayed for big things and small things.

That weekend, our church hosted another 24 hour prayer room, and this time the one-hour slots filled up very quickly. It seemed as though many went into the prayer room desperate for some time with their Creator.

Sunday morning, we finished the prayer walk with seven laps, though I couldn’t be there until the very end since Heidi was taking her turn in the prayer room. It was a week completely drenched in prayer.

It was also the hottest week we have had here in Ancona. Many of our activities take place at night when it is cooler, which made for a long day when the prayer walk starts at 7.

But I can’t think of a better reason to be tired. Despite my selfish bad thoughts when the alarm went off, a jump in the amount of time we spend talking to God can only be a good thing.

Because it really is up to Him, isn’t it? We make sure we’re the brightest possible light, and the saltiest Christians we can be.

So now we wait for the walls to come down.

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?

With spring comes so much newness. Rebirth. Excitement. God uses these beautiful seasons to give our life more meaning. Though the warmth is nice, I would hate to live in an area without changing seasons. Life never seems to slow down. Things are the same day after day. Here, I see winter as a time when God has us recharge. We stay inside more. We slow down. We sit. We relax. The weather may keep us inside. It may keep us craving a mocha enjoyed with dear friends (and gaining 10 “winter” pounds to prove it). Sure, it’s irritating to be wet day after day from the non-stop rain that comes with Italian winters. Yes, it is hard to keep up with the laundry when you can’t hang your clothes outside. Sure, there are small irritations. But, as I see God bringing life to a slower pace in the winter, I feel encouraged to join in on nature’s cycle.

But, just when we are starting to get the itch, spring arrives. No more cabin fever. Newness. I see much newness in the life of our church body. Much growth. The winter brought great Bible studies among our believers. We studied Experiencing God with a couple in our church, and several got together to study A Purpose Driven Life. Now the spring will be time for the fruits of the Spirit to begin maturing and ripening because of this time of study and reflection. Please pray for continued growth in the lives of the believers, namely Simone and Marianna. They have been really challenged lately because of our study together.

Our schedules also reflect spring’s busyness, as well. There are ladies’ events, church events, Bible studies, mom’s get togethers, interesting preaching/teaching times and more all going on right now. Our current sermon series called What the Bible Says about… has been a real blessing. It’s been good to dig into the Word and help the church discover why we believe what we believe.

Also, as you may have read in our prayer update, there’s a new baby at church!! Please pray for Daniel and Simona as they begin their parenthood adventure far away from friends and family (they are Romanian, living in Ancona).

Thank you for all of your support. Though you may not see the significance, you are a vital part of our ministry and lives. We could not be here without you!

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.

The growth of the church in Ancona has absolutely nothing to do with me. Or any of the other missionaries working with me. Or any of the members who currently attend.

This fact has really been driven home to me in the past month. Jason asked me if I would meet him at our church building after dinner. A woman who is friends with one of our church members wanted to get together and talk about some things she had been reading in the Bible.

Uhhh … OK. Who could turn down an invitation like that?

So we met and just started talking. Jason started things out by asking her to give us a little bit of background about herself - where she’s from, how she ended up coming to our church.

I was completely unprepared for what was about to happen. In the most clear and genuine way, she talked about how God had been working in her life even before she knew it to prepare her to become a Christian.

She talked about how she needed forgiveness, and how she believed that Jesus lived a perfect life and was a sacrifice for our sins. She knew that baptism was a part of becoming a Christian. She even quoted the passage in Acts where the Ethiopian says, “Look, here’s water … why shouldn’t I be baptized?”

We were honest with her. We talked about how baptism is very important in the life of a Christian, but one part of other things like repentance that are just as important. We told her that problems in life don’t magically go away when people give their lives to Christ. And we asked her a simple question: Are you ready?

And she was. Not even a week later we all met at the Casey’s house to baptize her in the bathtub. When she came out of the bathroom after getting dressed she said, “It’s wonderful to be a newborn!”

All of this reminds me that God is already at work here in Ancona. He is much more concerned than I am about a growing church in this city. He is infinitely better than we are at drawing people to Himself.

We basically just have to show up. We have to find places here where God is already working and join Him. “God made it grow” is such a true verse. We’re all busy seeking Him and doing what we feel He’s leading us to do, but God is the one working behind the scenes.

Welcome to the family, Cristina!