11.18.10

Remembering God’s Promises

Posted in ministry, photography, Uncategorized at 7:07 am

I was having a particularly rough day. I was on the way to meet with someone, and wasn’t really looking forward to the things that I needed to say. I was sitting in the back section of a double-long bus, and the bounces as we headed down the road were causing my stomach to do nasty things. There was an overall trashy smell coming from somewhere. It had been raining all day, and my feet were wet.

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.

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07.17.08

Tri-Cultural Windows

Posted in Ancona, church, culture, photography at 5:46 am

A friend of Marcus recently took us on a guided tour of Ancona. I’ve lived here for over two years and hadn’t ever done any kind of tourist things, and was kind of looking forward to learning some new things.

As we winded our way through some of the historical streets on Ancona, we came upon a building I had driven by, but hadn’t ever noticed. It’s very ornate, and over the years has been the home of many rich merchants. Our tour guide explained a very unique feature of the windows. First, they have rounded arches, which are very typical of Roman architecture. But they are also double windows, which are typical of Venetian architecture. But they also have pointed tops, which are typical of Arabian architecture.

Ancona has been influenced by all kinds of cultures over the centuries. The ruling power of the time left its mark on the economy, the language, the government, or in this case, the architecture.

I immediately thought of the church. Right now, we have Italians, Americans, and Romanians who are all active participants. We’ve had Irish and French visitors. Sometimes the cultures clash a bit, but for the most part they all come together and make a really beautiful thing.

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A Suprising Finale

Posted in Ancona, church, family, friends, photography, Uncategorized at 4:34 am

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.

God has the best endings.

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