Grace that is Greater

A couple of weeks ago, after being in Ferrara for just a week, I went back to Florence.  The Bible School hosted a youth retreat for young people from all over Italy, including our group from Bondeno.

We had seven people from Bondeno go to the retreat.  Luca, Daniela and her sister Alina, Elisa, Sara (Luca's sister), Anna (a friend of Daniela and Alina), and me.  We got there Friday night just in time for dinner, which like a dream come true, was Mexican food.  After dinner, we played a live game of clue - like a real murder mystery.  Angela organized the whole thing, planning clues and challenges that groups had to pass in order to find the murderer.  The Avanti workers (including me) dressed up as characters from the game and led the challenges: Angela as Mrs. White, Erme as Miss Scarlet, Laura as the Cook, Ryan as Prof. Plum, Peter as Mr. Green, David as Col. Mustard and me as Mrs. Peacock. I think everyone had fun.  After the game we had a devo led by Joele, 17 year old guy from Rome and sang some of the new songs that Emily and Lorenzo had translated from English into Italian.  

One of my favorite things from the weekend was singing together.  It was so encouraging to worship with such a large group of young Italians.  At different times throughout the weekend we introduced new songs that had been translated.  We sang Holy Lord, We Fall Down, Father God, Light the Fire, and Here I am to Worship (all recently translated into Italian).  We also sang Magnificat, which I worked on with Lorenzo to translate.  Some of the kids here in Bondeno get especially excited about the songs.  We've already taught several of these songs to the church here in Bondeno and we've started singing them regularly.
Saturday we left town to go to a small town called Vallombrosa in the mountains near Florence. There is a beautiful park there in the middle of a pine forest. We had a picnic lunch and then spent the day playing games. We also translated "There's a Stirring" into Italian.  Later we went back to the Bible School for one of Debbie's famous cookouts (including her loaded mashed potatoes).
But Sunday was by far the best day.  Sunday morning we went to church in Florence.  We were lucky enough to be there to hear Jim Woodroof (David's father) preach.  I had never seen the church so full.  With just the youth there were an additional 20+ people.  But it was also the first Sunday for the new group of Harding students, so including the American students there were about 80 young people in church that morning.  Not only that, but there were so many other visitors too.  Two of David's students from the Bible School came (both of whom I had not seen at church before).  Plus Anna Maria, her husband Alan and Alan's parents (friends of ours who live near Florence) were there.  I was so happy also to see Sandro and Chiara.  Sandro works at the Harding villa and he and Chiara are good friends of David and Debbie and the Shackelfords.  Sandro and Chiara's son Lorenzo translated for Jim, so he was visiting also.  The church was completely full; there wasn't a single empty seat.  It was so encouraging to see all of these people all together on a Sunday morning.  I was already overwhelmed by it all so when I saw Rosa (our cook) come in with her husband Felice I almost started crying.  We love all of these people so much and many people have been praying for them all for such a long time.  The Spirit was definitely moving in Florence that morning.  We were blessed also to hear an incredible message from Jim.  He spoke to us about the greatness of God's grace.  It was really in incredible morning.
After church we all went with the Harding students to have pizza at a restaurant nearby before leaving to come back to Ferrara.  It was a great day and all in all an amazing weekend.  We were all encouraged to have the opportunity to spend time with each other and praise God together. I'm sure everyone looks forward to the next time we are able to spend another weekend at the Bible School. 

I Want to Ride my Bicycle

Saturday I moved to the City of Bicycles, Ferrara. Actually, it's just outside Ferrara in Bondeno. And actually it's just outside Bondeno in Vigarano (just like I never actually lived in Houston or in Sugar Land). I moved to Ferrara to work with the church in Bondeno. I came here to visit a few months ago and met some of the most welcoming and hospitable people I have ever met. Somehow I didn't realize until recently that we're instructed in the Bible to show hospitality; these people are experts. After a few months of planning I am now here. My work here will focus on the church but I will also be teaching some English lessons like I did in Florence. My main work with the church will be for the teens. I will be teaching Sunday morning and Thursday night bible classes for the teens here (middle school to high school). I will also plan and help plan different activities for them during the summer. At this point I'm wishing I had been a summer intern when I was college, bit I know it's going to be great.

With some teens at the church in Bondeno - Enrico, Alina & Daniela

So far things have been incredible. I'm living with a family from the church here: Mina and Umberto, some founding members of the church, and their grandson Luca, a guy my age who studies at the university in Ferrara. They all work very hard for the church here and u am excited to be able to work with them. I can hardly begin to describe how welcoming they and everyone else have been. I have my own room and bathroom rent free and Mina has been cooking real Italian for every meal. Plus they have offered me a bike and a car to drive (including lessons on how to drive a manual transmission). Right now I'm working on getting my things unpacked and soon I want to start learning my way around (which means continuing driving lessons and/or wandering around on a bike). This weekend we have a youth retreat in Florence (back to the Bible School!) and next week I will start teaching classes at church. I haven't fixed any English lessons yet but I've already had a lot of people express interest. It's still early and I'm still getting settled in so it's still hard to tell what my schedule will be like but I'm really happy to be here and to be able to do some things to help the church here.

Me with Luca and Daniela

What's Been Goin' On?

Here are some of the new things that have been happening...

New Classes:
I have started teaching or helping with some new classes.  We divided our evening group classes into Beginner 1 and Beginner 2 to accommodate for different levels of English.  I teach the Beginner 1 class on Monday nights and Peter and Angela teach the Beginner 2 class on Tuesday nights.  We cancelled the class on Wednesday nights because there had been pretty low turnout on Wednesdays.  The Monday and Tuesday classes have been going very well though.  In the Monday class we usually have about 10 students.  We've also started reading some simple stories from the Bible to apply the English they've been learning.
I also help with lessons that Emily has been teaching at a preschool nearby.  Emily, Jessica, and I go to a 3 yr old class and a 4 yr old class for about 45 min each every Tuesday.  It is incredibly fun (all the kids remind of the little boy in 'Life is Beautiful') and it gets us more involved with the community here in Scandicci.
Also on Tuesday, I teach a class of three 12 yr old boys.  That's been fun but I'm trying to think of ways to make it more interesting for them so they don't get bored.

Friday Night Activities:
Last semester we had several events for our students here at the Bible School.  This semester we've started doing events like this more often.  Every Friday we will host a different activity to teach English and to get to know our students better.  The first Friday of every month we will have an English movie night.  The second Friday will be an American cooking school: teaching them how to make American food.  The third Friday will be game night and the fourth will be a book club.  Emily and I are responsible for book club.  This semester we will be reading The Pearl by John Steinbeck.  We already have about 10 students signed up to participate.

Physical Friday:

Coffee break during a physical Friday at the Bible School

We have had a couple of pretty productive physical Fridays.  A few weeks ago we saved the church a few hundred euro by trimming some trees ourselves.  Behind the church building there is a small patio with 3 very tall palm trees.  The neighbors in the apartment next to the church asked that we trim the tree because the palm fronds were falling into their parking lot.  You may never have considered it, but trimming palm trees is difficult.  David had to set up scaffolding under the tree so that he could reach the leaves.  You may also be unaware that palm leaves become tiny spears as they die.  Almost everyone accidentally stabbed themselves at some point.  Of all the injuries, Ermenita had the worst.  A branch fell from the tree and kit her leg.  The spike on the end went through her pants and got stuck in her leg badly enough that Mario took her to the hospital.  They gave her tetanus shots and she had to have stitches where they cut the spike out.  Apparently these trees are supposed to be trimmed every few months and some of the church members want to get rid of them (I think I would support that decision).

Ryan got the task of cutting the bars out of the window

The week after that we did some work around the Bible School.  College Church is buying us a new washing machine, dryer, and refrigerator (Thank you!) and we had to clear out space for the new appliances.  Part of this work included removing a cabinet and a door frame, and cutting the bars covering the window to the laundry room (the dryer won't fit through the door so it's coming in through the window).  It was quite an eventful day.



I hope to write more again soon!

House-Stuffed Italian Thanksgiving

Last night was our bug Thanksgiving dinner.  We invited all of our students to the Bible School for a real American Thanksgiving and they were eager to accept.  On Friday we had almost 70 people signed up to come. In all I think we had about 80 people here last night.  It was tricky figuring out a way to find space for everyone, but the guys did a great job clearing out  space in our classroom.  We were able to fit enough tables and chairs for everyone to have a seat.  Then, under the direction of Jessica - our resident artist - we decorated the classroom and it looked great.  The classroom normally has a very cold feel to it, white walls, fluorescent lights and tile floors, but it ended up looking really fun and welcoming. We had brown paper-bag table cloths, festive Thanksgiving centerpieces, and a huge "Happy Thanksgiving" sign.  Jessica had the idea to spread colorful leaves (both dried leaves and paper leaves) on the tables and it looked so great.  Then there was the food... We started cooking on Thursday night, cooked all afternoon on Friday and then got up on Saturday morning and cooked all day.

On the menu:
2 turkeys, 1 ham and cranberry glaze, stuffing, sweet potato casserole, vegetable casserole, corn casserole, peas, mashed potatoes and gravy, mixed berry Jello salad, cranberry sauce, rolls, clam dip, cheese ball, mixed veggies with dip, wassail and iced tea
and dessert:
2 pecan pies, 4 pumpkin pies, 1 chocolate pie, 2 chocolate chip pies, apple crisp - all with homemade whipped cream

Debbie did an amazing job of planning all the food and working out the timing.  Using three kitchens, with three ovens over three days we were able to make enough food for 80 people (and at least three days of leftovers).
The party started at 7:30 and even though Italians are supposed to be late people started getting here about 10 minutes early.  We were still trying to carve the turkeys and get all the food out on the tables (each with little labels so that people knew what everything was) as more and more people came in.  I kept squeezing my way through the crowd back and forth through the kitchen at it grew denser and denser.  Two of my individual students came and there were quite a few people from our 9 o-clock beginner class.  Before we ate we gave a short explanation of Thanksgiving.  Jessica had written a short story describing the meaning of Thanksgiving complete with Pilgrims, Indians and references to George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and football.  I read it in my best teacher voice. After that David explained that there would be two lines around the buffet table and everyone literally laughed and said 'Italians don't make lines'.  And they didn't!  People got plates and just worked their way around the table, everyone going every which way and bumping into each other.  It was fabulous.
The final verdict is that Italians love Thanksgiving and Thanksgiving food.  People really seemed to have a great time and they really loved the food. I asked people which was their favorite and the top answers were the turkey, the sweet potato casserole, and the corn casserole.  (It's interesting trying to explain a 'casserole' to non-native English speakers by the way.)  People said the flavors are all very different and unusual, but they really enjoyed it.  In Italian, squash and pumpkins are both called 'zucca' and I had to explain that pumpkin pie was made with the big orange kind and that we have different names for all the different kinds.  They really seemed to like it though.  In general, American desserts are a lot sweeter than Italian desserts and there's really nothing here that resembles pie.  The people I talked to liked the pumpkin pie and the chocolate pie.  The pecan pie was really interesting to them because pecans were another food they had never had before.  Describing nuts is surprisingly difficult.  Pecan pie is one of my favorites and the pecan pie was great, but I'm not sure how many Italians really like that much sugar.
At some point during the night I made the mistake of looking in the kitchen to see the giant mound of dishes waiting for us.  Maybe in some form of self-preservation it did not occur to me until that moment that we would have to wash all of the dishes used by the 80 people in the house.  In the end I think the last group left here after midnight and we finished cleaning at about 1:30.  It was an amazing night and I know everyone had a great time and really appreciated what we did.  Also, people brought donated food for the church and we took bags and bags full to church this morning.

Pop Goes My Brain

Everyday during our Italian class we have a 20 min coffee break. There is a cafe in the school just down the hall from the classroom. Everyday they play music videos on this little TV and unfortunately it is MTV Italy and most of the songs are American pop songs. I have never watched so many music videos in my life and I am more in touch with the subject here than I was in America. Once they played Katy Perry's video about short shorts and I think part of my brain died.

Full House

So there are a lot of people living in this house.  All of the new Avanti Italia workers live here (7 people), as well as the old ones (2 people) and the directors (2 more people).  There are also two other guys who live here; one is the assistant to the director of the Harding program (HUF) and the other is a guy whose family is here with HUF and he is going to school in Florence this semester.  Whenever I say "we" did this or that, it is usually some combination of the following people...

Eric, Ryan, Allen, me, Emily, Laura, Jessica, Angela, Debbie and David at the Grape Harvest

New Avanti Italia workers:
These are the people I go to school with everyday.  We all also teach English classes and do many other things together.

Me, Jessica, Eric, Angela, Peter and Laura at
the church lunch in Prato

Angela Withrow - Angela graduated from Harding in December and is originally from Garland, TX.  She got here just a couple of days before me and she is my roommate :)  It's a good think I like her as much as I do because we are together all of the time.


Eric and Jessica Smith - Eric and Jessica are one of the married couples.  Eric graduated from Ohio State and Jessica graduated from Harding.  They have been living in Cabot, Arkansas for the past few years.  Eric was working as a surveyor and Jessica as an artist (a very, very good artist).  


Ryan and Laura Stephens - Ryan and Laura are the other married couple.  They both graduated from Harding a couple of years ago and had been working as nurses in Memphis, TN before they came here.  Laura really enjoys cooking and I really enjoy eating the food she cooks.


Peter McGraw - Peter also graduated from Harding within the past couple of years.  He was working in Memphis before coming here as well. Peter was not able to be here until the beginning of October, which was difficult since we had been here for a month (and a lot happens in a month).  But he's been working really hard to catch up with Italian and I think he's started feeling less overwhelmed. 



Other Avanti Italia Workers:

David and Debbie Woodroof - David and Debbie are the directors of Avanti Italia.  They do a really amazing job of managing our time and using our resources to help whoever we can.   They are also like backup parents and do a great job of making everyone feel at home here.

Laura, Jessica, Debbie, me and Angela at the church in Prato

Emily Woodroof - Emily is David a Debbie's daughter.  She graduated from Harding a couple of years ago and has been an Avanti Italia worker here in Florence for a year already. She has one year left and then she will be finished with Avanti :(  I will be sad when she leaves.  She has done a GREAT job of helping us all get accustomed to the way things work here and helping us with our Italian.  Before I got here people warned me that I would love Emily and her parents and those people were correct.

Jessica, Angela, Ryan, Ermenita, Eric, me, and Emily at Ermenita's graduation

Ermenita Zyka - Ermenita is from Albania but has lived in Florence for 6 years.  She just finished her undergraduate degree at the University of Florence (we went to her "American style" graduation yesterday).  She has been going to the church here in Florence for about 5 years (I think) and recently started working as an Avanti Italia worker.  She doesn't teach English classes, but she does many other things for the Bible School and for the church.  She speaks both English and Italian fluently so she is also going to star helping us with our Italian.  She is wonderful.  

Other people who live here:
Allen Cochran - Allen is a student at Harding but is taking the semester off to study Italian here in Florence.  His parents are the guest professors at HUF this semester and his younger sister is here with them also.  The Cochrans are great and it's been fun having Allen here (I like to give him a hard time about his crazy hair).  He's been here the whole time that I have so it will be strange when he's gone next semester.

Zoey with Ryan and Allen

Kyle Thompson - Kyle is the assistant to the director of HUF.  He has his own apartment here at the Bible School.  He is usually at the Harding villa or out with the students so we don't really seem him here very often.  But, he's a lot of fun also.  

Zoey!

Zoey - Zoey is Emily's puppy.  She is awesome.  She is also going to be the most spoiled dog in the world because she lives in a house where there are always at least 12 people seeking here affection at all times.

My schedule

Some of you may be wondering what I do everyday... let me tell you.
For the first few months we focus on learning Italian.  So (quindi), I'm learning a lot.  I got to school at Lorenzo de'Medici in downtown Florence.  It is just several yards from the San Lorenzo Market and the Medici Chapel and a few blocks away from the Duomo.   We (me and the other Avanti workers who came this month) go to school Monday - Friday from 9:00 to 1:00.  On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays we come back to the Bible School for lunch and a meeting.  On those days Rosa comes and cooks for us.  This week we started the policy that we are not allowed to speak English during lunch on those days.  Anyone who says anything in English has to pay 10 cents - we'll all go out for pizza with that money once we have enough money.  I haven't had to pay anything yet; that doesn't mean I'm saying things correctly, but I guess it counts as Italian.  All of that lasts until about 4:00.
We teach individual English classes Monday-Wednesday.  The new workers have fewer students right now because we are in school.  On Mondays I have two students for one hour each (4:00 and 5:00).  After that we have a ladies Bible study and dinner with everyone.  It's in English right now, but as soon as we get someone who doesn't speak English we will switch to Italian.  On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday nights (9:00-10:00) I also help teach a beginner class.  We have about 10 people in this class right now.  This year we started a group English class for people who need to learn basic English (our first lesson was the alphabet and saying your name).  It's a fun class, but this means that Mondays are pretty crazy.
On Tuesdays I have a bit of a break because I don't have any individual English classes.  After school I have the rest of the day off until the beginner class at 9:00.  The past two weeks I've gotten to go up to the Harding villa to play the piano for a little while.  It's also a good chance for me to plan my English lessons.
Wednesdays are basically the same as Mondays (school, lunch with Rosa, meeting) but I only have one student at 6:00 and there's no Bible study before the beginners class.
Thursday and Friday we don't teach individual English classes.  After school we have the afternoon to do different things that David (David Woodroof, the director) plans for us, supporting the church or the community somehow or other Avanti-related business.  This Thursday was the Vendemmia (grape harvest), which I'll write about later.  The two Thursdays before that we had to go to government offices to do paperwork for our health insurance and permesso di soggiorno.  Then at 6:30 we go to the church building where we have a conversation class (another group class).  Then we have dinner and a church Bible study - that means it's all in Italian.
Fridays are called "physical Friday" and we are supposed to do work around the Bible school after our meeting.  It's an old building and has been lived in by tons of people, so there are tons of things that need to be done.  So far we haven't actually had a "physical" Friday because there have been other things going on.  A few weeks ago we had the youth retreat here so we had guests and last week I got to go to the Uffizi with the Harding students.  Yesterday we visited one of David's students, Andrea, at his art studio. He's a really talented painter and he's also designed machines that he can program to carve and paint by computer.  He can scan an image and the computer will literally paint it (with a paint brush).  It was really interesting.  After that I went with Emily (Emily Woodfroof, she's an Avanti worker who has been here for a year and is David's daughter) to the library here in Scandicci.  We (Avanti workers and some of the Harding students) are doing a story time there in English every Friday in October and the first one was yesterday.
Saturday and Sunday are my days off.  Things always come up on the weekend, but the only planned activities are on Sunday.  We all go to church together at the Chiesa di Cristo (Florence Church of Christ) and then at 6:30 we go to a dinner and Bible study at the Harding villa.
So, that's my week.  I feel like I'm constantly doing things.  This is the first chance I've had to even write this blog.  It's great work though and I'm loving it.