Down in the center, near Teatro delle Muse, you’ll find Tunital, home of the best Kebab in Ancona. You can find kebabs all over Europe. Some people call them Doner. Some people pronounce it ke-BAB. But on our team for some reason forgotten to history, it’s KE-bab. And it’s delicious. We go there often enough that they know just how we all like it (half meat, half fallafel, a little spicy). And of course …

the mayonnaise blast. A dollop of warm mayo ready to help the first bite slide right down.

It sounds goofy. And maybe we’re a little bit obsessed about it. But sometimes you just gotta’ have a kebab.

(And sometimes we get really sad when we go all the way down there and they’re closed.)

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.

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.

But as time passed and relationships with teammates grew stronger, I began to look forward to this time together. We pick a piazza to meet at, find a stair or curb to sit on, and pray. Eyes open, looking around, watching the sky and the people and the traffic. Sometimes we meet for coffee, and sit outside as people pass by, often bumping into us, completely unaware that they are being prayed for. Often times the line between prayer and conversation with teammates gets blurred as a moment of prayer turns into a discussion time about an issue we’re struggling with.

I used to see these pauses in the prayer time as interruptions, and would try and bring the focus back around to prayer. But if we really believe that God is present with us anyway, and if prayer really is a conversation with God, it seems to make sense for prayer to become like talking to the person across from us. It seems to me to be, as Brother Lawrence’s book is titled, The Practice of the Presence of God.

Our prayers often focus on asking God to show us where He is already working in this city, and how He is already causing the church to rise up. Big prayers and little prayers, while sitting in a piazza and watching the world go by.

I think the church needs more Prayer in the Piazza.

On one hand, I know that my job will be to keep “the ship” sailing, rather than make huge course corrections. So I don’t feel like I’ll be making big decisions. On the other hand, I don’t want to blow this off and pretend like nothing is going to change. So I’ve been asking friends who are smarter than me for their advice. Here’s what one guy had to say:

1. Listen- Create opportunities where you can just listen to what’s going on with the team, personally and “professionally.”
2. Encourage- You’re a nice guy, keep being that way. Let them know you want the best for them by encouraging your team in who God is making them and what He is doing through them, individually and on the team.
3. Communicate- Don’t assume they know what you think they should know. Don’t hold information back from them. Unless it’s a really dire circumstance, there’s nothing you know that they shouldn’t know. Through communicating with them, you show them that they are valued enough to be trusted with information, even if they don’t have much to do with the use of the information.
4. Don’t avoid conflict with them- I’m not encouraging meanness but conflict is good and can say, “Hey, we’re not all on the same page but we are all people who have been given minds by God and who can have a little excitement when discussing things, if only we’re willing to disagree in a Christlike way.” Check out this article for a cursory look at what I’m talking about regarding this.
5. Love- Man, you’re a loving, cuddly guy, this should come easy for you. Really, influence is what John Maxwell says leadership is all about. I think people are more influenced by love than anything else. Not the cuddly kind (accept with wife and kids) but the gracious merciful kind that everyone needs. Keep things gracious and you’ll do great in this interim period.

I’ve got some smart friends, huh? Except I don’t think I’m cuddly.

Here in Italy, we use Euros, which happens to be a very strong currency right now. Our “paycheck” is in dollars, which happens to be a very weak currency right now. Put those two facts together, and my average, three-bedroom apartment which used to cost around $850 is now over $1,000. And that’s over the course of just a few months!

I think we’re hit doubly hard here in two areas: housing and groceries. Both of these are things that can be trimmed only so much. A family of nearly 6 can only cut out so much food and so many bedrooms!

Jason emailed us a link you may have seen which basically indicated there is no end in sight to the dollar’s drop.

So when do we start worrying? Does a point come where we all pack up and go home because it costs too much to live here? Do our supporters even understand how horrible it feels to raise all of this money and watch it disappear just because of some silly world currency market? The thing that really bothers me is not so much that things cost a lot of money, but that I feel like our supporter’s donations just go right down the drain because of something none of us have any control over.

I think Jason had some great advice for us in his email, “Read it. Be aware. Don’t worry. God is big. Keep praying and cinching your belt. Let’s be more generous.”

My teammates are incredible, and each has privately asked if there’s anything they could do to help. I would have loved to have taken them up on the offer, but honestly couldn’t think of anything. Then Jason nailed it last week when he asked, “How long has it been since you’ve taken a vacation?”

The line between work and home has always been very blurry here. Lots of ministry things happen in the evenings when people are available, which also tends to cut into family time. The computer is always on, beeping when there’s a new email to respond to. And we tend to be a pretty mobile team, so I can work just as easily from home as from our office. I think the result of this is that I tend to always be working. Since we had two teammates gone from the field for about four months, the workload increased and I now find myself without any energy.

So my wife started cooking up a little four day trip to Florence. And I can’t help but smile at the prospect of getting away from it all. She knows me too well.

Wait … didn’t God take a break once, too? It almost sounds Biblical…

I have a teammate who is pretty much opposite from me. He’s a thinker, a philosopher, loves reading books with unpronounceable authors, and is more liberal that I am in almost every area. And I honestly wondered before this retreat if I we could ever get on the same page. I like reading, sort of. I really don’t like the philosophical ping-pong of ideas. And I’m pretty conservative in my thinking. So is there space for both of us on this team? Are we doomed to frustration and irritation? Will he constantly see me as this stuffy, boring, uptight guy who needs to be free? Will I always roll my eyes at him, thinking he needs to grow up a little and be a little more disciplined – and for heaven’s sake tuck in your shirt?

I have to confess that the answer really surprised me. We never did come to blows. We never argued, in the negative sense of the word. There were times where I had to stop and pinpoint where he was coming from. And there were times when he wanted to explore the outcome of my way of thinking. We may have scratched our heads a couple of times at each other, but at least I was able to learn something in the process. And I think our team (and the church) is better off for it.

It’s the beauty of this crazy kingdom that God is setting up here.

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Our team recently hosted one of the first events focused on the guys in our church. We decided to go white water “refting” (that’s how it’s pronounced here) at the Cascata delle Marmore, about two hours away from Ancona. Being the manly men that we are, we opted for the normal rafting, and not the rafting “soft.” The falls in the video above started just up the river from where we began our adventure down the river. And, incredibly, these falls can be turned off. Several times a day the water is diverted from the falls to a nearby hydroelectric plant.

I really enjoyed getting to have a time for only the guys to get together and do something quasi-dangerous. I got to see a side of our normally-mild-mannered church members that I might not have gotten to see otherwise. And you can’t help but see the lessons involved as we tried our best to be unified and work together to get home safely.

The only thing I didn’t really enjoy … the wet suits.

I am very glad to be on a team that knows how to have fun. Every now and then we have a Team Fun Night. It’s a time where we get together and not talk about ministry stuff and let our hair down. Or, as the girl’s did last night, put our bangs UP. That’s right folks, it was 80s night!

It was hilarious! As everyone walked in we all giggled at the high tops, polo shirts, and neon colors. It was like we were all taking a glimpse into our pasts to see what we were like in Junior High. Matt prepared an incredible “mix tape” of songs from the 80s. We would all stop what we were doing and start belting out some cheesy song at the top of our lungs.

I know it’s not essential that a team be able to have fun together, but it sure does help!