Be Still and Know
Wow… 5 months have gone by since landing home from our crazy trip to Russia, arriving at the beginning of Italy’s total lock down and diving into a totally new family dynamic. Crazy!! It feels like every moment of our lives since then has been very full and very intense. However, we have felt God’s presence and leading and we are so thankful that He has provided for us each and every step of the way. In all the challenges in life right now with a pandemic that continues to threaten, a family that has doubled in size and a difficulty to see how it will all play out we are reminded to “be still and know.” Know who our God is and know that He is good all the time no matter what.
We couldn’t have chosen a better fit. God sees, He knows and He always has a plan. We are so thankful!
Quick Updates
The kids have been so excited to meet new people. We’ve enjoyed seeing them warm up to many people in our church community and neighbourhood. From the first day that they saw Vito they called him Grandpa. Their grandparents on the Italian side have loved on them and they have eaten up every bit of it. Unfortunately, due to Covid they have only been able to meet their USA side of the family through a screen, but they’ve been so eager to chat and cannot wait to meet them in person!
In these past few months we’ve spent time discovering, learning and making lots of trips to the doctors for the necessary visits required by Russia. It’s absolutely amazing to see how much they’ve learned in such a short amount of time. We’ve explored the woods, made a garden, read many, many books, and done a lot of cooking together. The kids are speaking Italian almost fluently. They know the alphabet, they can write and count and play board games. They love to do crafts, draw and color and they unfortunately cannot speak Russian anymore. They have grown up so much they actually think and talk about when they arrived as “when we were little.”
We are so thankful to have had this time in the summer to concentrate on family. We face challenges every day in learning to be a family of six and parents of four. Training up children is hard, but even with its difficulties we have many beautiful moments. All four kids play so well together the majority of the time. The kids love the beach, Juventus, nature, animals, gelato, pasta and just hanging around at home playing with legos. Adrien continues to be a great, big brother. He leads all of them in many games and activities. They adore him. He has matured so much it’s awesome.
Adrien has a big season coming up! This summer he participated in a soccer camp where there were scouts for a team that is associated with the professional seria A soccer team here in our region called Udinese. At the end of the second day of camp Andrea was approached by one of the coaches and asked if he would be interested in having Adrien join the Udinese youth team. The coach said that he and several other coaches there had seen some qualities in the way Adrien played that they would love to see developed. They said that he has some real potential! This is a pretty big deal! We all were super excited and although it will be a big commitment with practice three days a week (40min away from home) and games each Saturday, we didn’t think we could pass up the opportunity. Adrien has been so passionate about soccer since he was two or three years old and we love his determination. Please pray for him and for us in this next season.
Big changes for our church community
Covid has affected churches all over the world. Fellowship has changed, worship has changed and gathering has become much more difficult. In Italy our meeting spaces are small and many are not equipped for accommodating adults and children with social distancing. We are unable to meet all the required regulations so we’ve been meeting virtually and worshiping together, but apart. This is not ideal, but at least it’s something. The beauty of it all is that God is still on the move. He is still drawing His people to Himself and we cannot lose sight of that. A pandemic cannot and will not stop our God, instead He will use it to bring Himself glory. His church in Italy is still growing and we are excited to announce that some of that growth is happening right where we are! TrE church is multiplying! Our family along with two other families from TrE, the Mulders and the Macoveis are leading up a new church plant called “Il Granaio” (The Granary). With this new church Andrea will be stepping into the lead pastor role. Our hope is that God would use this new church to draw those who live outside the city of Trieste to a community group and gathering more reachable to them. It is hard to think that we will not gather to worship all together each Sunday and there is mourning that comes with that, but we know that God has been leading us to this and we are confident in His provision as He expands His Kingdom. TrE church will be celebrating the history of TrE and the future of Il Granaio and TrE with our first gathering since February. We will be meeting in a location that is able to host everyone with the necessary regulations on Sunday, September 6th. The following weekend we will have our first Granaio service. We will be meeting virtually until we are able to understand how we can meet in person. We would love your prayers for this big, new step!
“Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.” John 12:24
Praises
For how well the children have adapted, learned Italian, become brothers and sisters, summer fun
For how we have grown as a family and worked well as a team
For all God’s provision in these pandemic times
For the multiplying of TrE
Prayers
Kids starting school
Adrien’s new soccer season
For Andrea and I training up our children together as Jesus would do
Il Granaio and TrE …this new chapter in our lives as a church family
For Andrea to have wisdom and confidence in Jesus in taking on this lead pastor role
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There has been a change to our Pioneers account number. It is now 136144. If you make your donations with an automatic draft this change will not effect you. The draft will be automatically switched to this new account number. However, if you normally send a check or make donations online please use the new account number. For those of you who send donations with a paper check, you can download below the updated support slip with the new account number.
Thank you so much for your faithful partnership of making disciples of Jesus in Italy!
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