Getting my feet wet

A lot of people have been asking what I'm doing in Italy and how it's been going. It's a hard question because moving to another country is nothing like moving to another state and the way to do something in one country, with of all its comforts and ease of living, is quite different in another.

For example, for the month of August, Italians go away on holiday (i.e. vacation), usually to the beach. So here in Collegno (the part of Torino where I am living), there is hardly anyone around. This weekend should begin the mass migration, but life as it is normally will not be until Sept 7th or so. What this means for me is that if a nearby shop is open at all, it will close sometime after lunch. I can see the mail mounting high in most of my neighbors' mailboxes. I haven't seen a soul in the building. I pass very few people on the street... and yet I live on one of the main streets outside of downtown...

Well, the exception to the store closings in August are the bigger malls and stores which take about an hour or more to get to. Sometimes, like when we went to IKEA, we had to take THREE different buses. And the wait for the bus was MUCH longer than the actual ride.

And factor in the fact that other than IKEA, I can't really research prices online. I have to actually go to Carrefour and look at prices there. Then OBI across the way to compare. Then make it out to Bricofer and wherever else. All because I don't want to spend an arm and a leg for something I can get much cheaper somewhere else or settle for something ugly when there's something comparable and pretty somewhere else. And I don't know the reputation of the brands and the stores to really know things like we know our own stores and brands.

And then theres the paperwork that needs to get done, like getting my tax code so that I can set up the electricity and sign up for discount cards. Getting my permission to stay so I don't have to leave when my visa runs out next August. And getting internet and phone at my apartment so I can continue communicating with the outside world once I move out of my team leader's place.

Oh, and jet lag which wipes me out my mid-day so that I couldn't get so many things done as on my check-list...

So here's my list of things that count as "getting my feet wet" or establishing myself in Italy. It is not exhaustive and it's in no particular order but the firing sequence that went off in my head as I typed.

(x) Get over jet-lag - not sure: Aug 27/28??
(x) Apply for tax code - Aug 21
(x) Apply for permission to stay - Aug 24/Sept 16
(x) Call to set up electricity in apartment - Aug 24
(x) Get electricity in apartment - Oct 1
(x) Set up phone services - Sept 17, waiting for them to start
(x) Unpack - mid-Oct
(x) People return to their normal lives in Italy
(x) Clean apartment - Aug 22
(x) Spackle & sand apartment Aug 25 & 28
(x) Tape up baseboards and doors for painting - Aug 28 & 30?
(x) Prime walls - step 1: adhesive paint step 2: prime white
() Paint
() Make friends - in progress
() Meet neighbors -in progress
() Learn bus routes
() Get a map in my head of the city
(x) Check out cultural center in Collegno
() Visit college campus in the city
() Team's arrival (!!!!)
() Be fully supported
() Recover the language that I've forgotten
() Learn more Italian
() Move out of my team leaders' place (prereq: a bed, closet & kitchen) - have everything but kitchen & electricity !

Rebels & Yankees

The tension and stereotypes between the South and Northerners actually exists. Think of the differences between Mississippi and Massachusetts. It's real. Part of it has to do with warm and cold climate cultures. The difference between a Latin community and a German. One is even-oriented, the other time-oriented. Another difference is shame vs guilt. Group versus individual. Etc.

In Italy this cultural distinction between north and south also exists. The south is more agricultural, the north, industrial. Southerners are known to be more friendly and hospitable. Northerns tend to be more impatient and curt.

I spent six weeks in Salerno, south of Naples, which is in southern Italy and found the people to be super friendly and helpful, patient and kind. I thought southern Italy was where I wanted to be. It was impossible not to find help or not to make friends, even with completely different-minded people.

But it's the north that is more spiritually desolate and parched without the gospel. So, to the north I came. And though I've only been here a week and there is hardly anyone here in the country, I have found my share of rude, rude people.

First, there was a lady at the post office when I went to apply for my permesso who was just plain cranky. She was short with me and where I had left things blank (like signing and dating or the page numbers) on purpose to make it official or to make sure it was correct, she would tell me "you have not finished!" "this is not complete!" Instead of just saying, "could you sign and date this?" or "oh, you left this part out." Social niceties are not very common around here. There was another lady that same day huffing and puffing and slamming things because it was a little warm in the building. It was far from intolerable.

But worst of all was at the small paint shop we entered. I needed to buy spackle to repair the holes in the walls the construction workers left (yes, brand new place, needing spackle!). We were still trying to figure out the paint system (they dilute their paint and there isn't such thing as 'primer' per se). Team leader Paul and I were inspecting some tubs of paint and trying to decipher the language. The handle was on the front side of the paint, so I moved it to the back and let it drop.

BAD IDEA!!!

The handle hit a rail behind it which was not screwed in properly and VERY flimsy. And on top of the unstable railing was propped up a canvas with a layer of paint. This was on the window display where below were other painted knickknacks. So the handle that I moved hit the flimsy gate which wobbled and knocked down the canvas which proceeded to make the BIGGEST clatter known to mankind. And of course, the whole store went dead silent... except for the lady owner who came over to me YELLING and proceeded to CHEW ME OUT in Italian. I didn't understand anything she said expect for something about it being "bad for business." This seemed to last for eternity and I was COMPLETELY mortified! I turned bright red and got hot and sweaty... but it wasn't even my fault!

I was looking to purchase merchandise from her and bring business. It wasn't my fault the paint was right up against the gate that wasn't screwed in. It wasn't my idea to place a canvas on an unstable flat surface! And then decorate the floor below it! I was sooooooo upset! And my look of embarrassment was probably confused with guilt. And I did feel bad, but really, it wasn't my fault!

I left there very perturbed, hoping it would fall again and she would see that she had no right to chew me out and feel all bad about yelling at a foreigner.

But as I got to thinking - Jesus was falsely accused! And He didn't say a word! I would have given her a peace of my mind, had I been able. But all I was able to say was a sheepish "scusa, scusa..."

The people here don't know the joy that Jesus gives. They have never experienced His love. They have no idea what peace from above would even feel like. These people can only rely on themselves and their business to bring them what they are looking for. When really, the Answer to all their wants and needs is in Christ.

Paul wants to go back to that store and befriend her and her husband - she will surely remember him (she proceeded later on to reprimand his wife, Beth, for looking around)! Maybe it wouldn't be the best for me to poke my head around there just yet, but who knows what may come of this. It's these unforgettable moments that sometimes make the greatest impact... Maybe she'd been having a bad few days and she just let it ALL out on me. Better me than someone who could snap back at her. Someone who can't remind her of all the nasty things she said. I was her best audience to lose it on.

So I trust that God is doing something bigger than me. That He is preparing hearts and making every move so perfect. And I've got a tough crowd up against the message - but I also have a God in whose hand is every heart!

Nothing good does He withhold

Team Torino member Ken quoted that verse (Ps 84:11) in an email he sent out this week testfying about the way God has worked in providing at every step on the way to Torino.

We know God has orchestrated our change of date because:

1. My apartment is still in construction
Recently I wrote about how I have entered into negotiations on an apartment. This apartment is unlike many others because it is:

a) in our price range;
b) near public transportation (in fact, these are on one of the main arteries of Torino!);
c) most of the team with me a stairwell or short walk away; and
d) brand new (not necessary, but helpful)

All of the other apartments available right now only meet one of four above. This apartment (and the rest of the building, where other Team Torino members may live) are still in construction and will not be ready until August - if we were to have arrived now in June, we would have to pay for two months of (expensive) temporary housing while waiting.

2. The perfect place for a large family
Team Torino members Ken & Mindi have a large family and have also been looking for a place. Finding a place to live from across the ocean is nearly impossible, as meeting the owner is essential to putting in an offer. Not only that, but finding a place suitable for a large family when Italians usually have just 1 child, and finding a place that would not isolate them from the rest of the team has been a daunting task. On Tuesday afternoon, word came in from Italy on the perfect place, where they will be in the same complex as another family, near a direct bus route to the rest of their team -- and the owners accepted a price LOWER than their minimum. And they have never met! It could only be God.

3. God is our Provider

To put it plainly, support "ebbs and flows." That's what I've thought of it; that's what Team Torino member Cristi said of it. And it's true. For 4 months I stalled just under 50% pleged. Other times I have sometimes JUMPED 20% in a matter of weeks. I've kept doing what I had always been doing. But while the responsibility to be faithful to what God has called me to do remains with me, the responsibility to provide perfectly, lies with God. And He has chosen to keep us as a team from being fully supported up until now.

The Silver Lining

Tom, who lives in Bologna and will be moving with our team to Torino, lined up a reasonably priced bed & breakfast for himself and Team Torino leader Paul in our target area of Torino, when Paul went to visit to line up apartments for our arrival. 

It was a two bedroom, two bath apartment where the owner lived and opened up his home for guests to share the space with him.  When they arrived, the young owner, Mario, introduced himself saying he found out they were protestant ministers by checking online (he must have researched online from Tom's e-mail address) and proceeded to tell them that he was an athiest, but not in the strict sense, but rather in the Italian sense of having rejected the religious God of the Catholic Church.  He said he was into New Age and some Buddhist ideology, and enjoyed being at peace with the Creator through the peace and tranquility of His creation. 

By day's end, it was evident that God was at work in his life as an unexpected event left him rather disturbed and not sleeping for most of the night, as they would find out the next morning.  At breakfast, conversation turned to God and religion, and Tom briefly explained the difference between religion (i.e...man's futile attempt to answer the question, "What must I DO to be reconciled with God?") and the Gospel which declares that God did everything to make it possible for us to be forgiven and reconciled with Him through the sacrificial death of the Lord Jesus Christ.  At this point he was moved to tears and began to open up and share some more.

Mario said that he wants us to keep in touch and tell him as soon as we get into the area and start having meetings, because he wants to come and be a part of what we are doing when we get there! Mario accepted a Bible and was encouraged to begin reading in the Gospel of John.

Praise God!

Set Apart & Sent Away

Saul was on his way to kill Christians. It was his goal in life, to wipe Christianity off the face of the planet. And from man's perspective, it would not be such a hard task, considering this schism faith had only been around a few years.

But then, on that fateful trip to Damascus to kill more, "suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground a heard a voice say to him, 'Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?' It was then that Saul met Jesus and believed.

A vision came to both Ananias and Saul, but the message to Ananias had more information. What the Lord told Ananias and had not yet told Saul was this: "This man is my chosen instrument to carry my name before the Gentile and their kinds and before the people of Israel. I will show him how much he must suffer for my name."

And so Ananias went to Saul and placed his hands on him, prayed over him, and Saul regained his lost sight, received the Holy Spirit and was commissioned on a new task.

Paul, after some time, joined the church of Antioch, where Barnabas also was. And the Scriptures say that while they were ministering God there, "the Holy Spirit said, 'Set apart for Me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them."

Countless times people from the church have been called out by God to a task and commissioned by the church.

This time, it's my turn. 

On Sunday, March 8, in a four of New Testament Baptist Church services, on missions emphasis Sunday, the elders and deacons of the church will lay hands on me and pray over me, commissioning me to that which God has called me to - to His work, and His church.

And then I shall be sent away to Italy, in just three short months!

Rosi

My eyes water thinking I'm going to live so far away from her... and to think she has no idea.

I was able to get incredibly cheap flights from Kansas City, where I was on a team retreat, to California, to visit my niece. I'll see her once more, when she's nine months in May, and then not again for 10 months. That's over half her life. 

I am her Tia, her Madrina (Godmother). She's awesome and has no idea how she warms my heart. Other than her, my grandparents are the ones that make me sad about leaving. But Rosi, my joy, breaks my heart. 

I hope she will grow up to understand that in the will of God is the best place to be. That God loves her and works everything for His glory, which is our good. I pray that she would know Him and love Him. I pray that I can be a big part in her life and that she will love me even half as much as I love her. I hope that I can continue to minister to those I leave behind as I follow God through life and that this would be a testimony to His goodness, sovereignty and power.  I hope that not only the Italians will come to know Jesus, but the people I leave behind at home, and even Rosi.

The Bug from God

I've just spent the past week in Kansas City. It hasn't felt like much at all. I think it's mostly because I was sick for some of the time in the middle. It was really bad sick.

I'll spare you the details, but suffice it to say I haven't been that sick in a long time. But I am pretty sure I know why I got sick. Not how (though I think it might have been from the plane), but why.

Last time I was in Italy (2006), I got sick and even had a fever. It got so bad, I was taken to the hospital by the missionaries I was staying with (thanks Les & Margaret! I owe you soo much!). When my mom found out, she was on the internet looking up flights to Italy, ready to fly out there if I just said I missed her or wanted her there. 

But I was fine. Miserable, but fine.

And then here I was in Kansas City, under the care of myself and my team, and though there's really nothing you can do when you've got a stomach virus but wait it out, I was given patience, understanding, encouragement and even chicken soup. My team, without complaint, let me lie on the couch all I needed be as miserable as I needed and allowed deadline to pass and pass because sitting up was not an option. 

The virus lasted about a day and a half (what's with the whole 24 hour thing?) and by Tuesday night I was on my feet, laughing and running like I do. 

I believe I got sick for my mom. So that she can see that my teammates can take care of me. While I'm a 6 hour plane ride away (not to mention the wait at the airport), she can rest knowing that my team is taking care of me. Getting me the needed meds and nutrition, and letting me rest. 

God doesn't take away our worries by taking everything away. It is not like I will not be sick in the next five years while I am away in Torino. Instead, we can be assured that God gives us small hurdles now to train and grow us to persevere during the harder hills later. When I get sick in Italy, we can all look back at this week and see how one of the worst sicknesses went away. 

Beginnings and Endings

Last January marked the beginning of a year full of lasts. My last semester. My last first day of class. My last day all-hall meeting. My last chapel. The last time I see some friends before Italy. The last time to Chicago before Italy.

And most recently: My last Christmas home.

Christmas is the most traditional thing my family does. Noche Buena at Lelo & Lelas. Christmas morning at home. Christmas breakfast at Tio & Tia’s. Christmas afternoon back at Los Lelos. Nothing changed. If anything went a little off schedule, someone had a cow.

And as much as things stay the same, really, they change.

So it was and it wasn’t my last Christmas home, all depending on your definition of “home.”

This year my dad’s side of the family and us went to California to be with my new niece, Rosi. She’s too young to travel, so we all went to see her.

This year, everything was different, even though we tried to keep some things the same, like my mom making frijoles, Papa made lechon, and taking turns opening gifts in the morning.

As so, since graduation, my “see you later” to my friends may just be fulfilled in heaven, because we have no idea when the next time we’ll see each other again is.

And this Christmas, well, I leave to Italy in June and I wont be back for nine months. That means I miss Christmas. And New Years.

As I said goodbye to 2008 just minutes ago, it hits harder and harder that 2009 is the year of my Big Move. In 6 months I’ll be heading to Turin, a of a million people. To tell them about Jesus. And I’ll miss Christmas, but I won’t be without the reminder of the resurrection. And I’ll miss New Year’s, but I will celebrate it knowing we are closer and closer to Christ’s return (if He doesn’t come back before then). And that’s the plan. Because showing other people the Way to eternity, the Way to Jesus, is more important than anything else.