I did (just) manage to prepare the last two studies of the two series of Bible studies that we are doing in the church this academic year (until the end of June). So that gives me about three months of extra time, to dedicate to my Internet ministry, improving my web site and my computer program to study the Bible. I have been creating a fairly long “to do” list in the last few months, when I have not had much time to work on it. “Three months”, because in May we will decide on the studies that we will be doing next year after the summer break, and I will start working on them.

It has been an enjoyable weekend with the family, because it was one of the few with no commitments outside of the church service. So it was good to be able to spend most of two whole days playing with the children. There was a bit of a snow fall on Friday as well, which meant that there was some snow to play with in the garden (snowmen and snowball fights) this afternoon.

Next week there is one of my twice yearly trips to Madrid for an ECM leaders’ meeting. I will be away from noon Monday to late on Thursday, although I probably won’t see anything of Madrid except the airport, the highway, and the inside of an office. Pinuccia has taken the week off work to look after the children, and that alone will keep her quite busy. She will have a few visits from friends as well to keep her company.

I got through my big week, with 6 studies in 8 days. Some of them went quite well, and I could see understanding in people’s eyes, and I enjoyed doing the two Sunday School lessons. I also taught the children the first verse of my new song on the life of Saul. I will gradually teach the following verses (there are a total of seven) as we do further lessons on Saul in the next couple of months. In the meantime, I also managed to prepare ahead another study that I will be doing in a few months’ time. This week instead is a “minimal” week, with just the two weekly cell groups to lead (Tuesday at Rovereto and Wednesday at Trento). So I hope this week to be able to also prepare the last two studies that I will be leading before the summer break at the end of June. (Although it might be necessary to prepare a few more for the last few weeks, if we finish the planned studies early.) That will give me more time for doing my computer work, which has suffered a bit for the last few months.

Pinuccia also had a good meeting yesterday with the church elders about the Sunday School, following on from the teachers’ meeting last week, thinking about the future of the children’s ministry in the church. There will be some changes, with no less that 8 new children coming in, taking the number of children from 25 to 33 (that was a very fertile year!). But there will be some children leaving at the other end, having moved into the teenager age range. We want to re-start the Youth Group for these teenagers after the summer, although there are practical problems to overcome (eg the seven teenagers live in 4 different parts of the province, with only two at Trento). But since two of the possible group members are daughters of the two elders, we can leave it up to them to work out when is the best time to meet!

Stefania has had a bit more pleasure in going to school this week, although there were still a few tears some days. And one day, when I had to take Daniele as well when I dropped off Stefania, he started crying because I would not leave him at school with her.

Pinuccia got through her week with various commitments – ladies’ Bible study on Thursday and Sunday School teachers’ meeting on Saturday. The teachers’ meeting is always interesting: with eight females and myself, there is a different way of discussion to what I am used to in male dominated meetings!

This week it is my turn, with almost everything possible coming up for me at the same time. So I did the Sunday School lesson today, and will again next Sunday as well (I usually do two weeks out of every six). In the middle, there are the normal Bible study groups on Tuesday, Wednesday and the fortnightly Saturday meeting. On Thursday there is the small group coordination meeting that I will lead, with a bit of training to prepare for the leaders of the groups. I also have band practice on Friday, but at least that is more relaxing. The only thing that is missing for me amongst my regular commitments is the monthly service at Rovereto. On Saturday morning, Pinuccia also has a meeting with the elders to talk about the Sunday School ministry, although I will just be looking after the children and eavesdropping there.

It has been a bit of a difficult week for Stefania, who has suddenly started having a crises about going to school. In the morning she doesn’t want to go, preferring to stay at home (and especially with her mother), and crying a lot when we drop her off. What I pick her up again in the afternoon, she always says that she loved school and it was better there than staying at home, but she forgets that by the next morning. So we are praying that she will overcome quickly this crises.

I’m getting ready to go out for the monthly service at Rovereto (where it will be my turn to preach), but apart from that the week is over for me, and so I can write a bit. In any case, when I return from the service, it will be straight to dinner, then getting the children to bed, and then a bit of rest, so it might be harder to write later. The service will also be a welcome back for Suzanne Bikker, the new missionary at Rovereto, who just got back this afternoon from a few months of deputation. Now that she will be here long term (and with a car), she will be able to put all her energy into her ministries. And I will be putting more time into guiding and helping her in this.

This week most of my commitments restarted – Bible studies on Wednesday and Saturday, band practice on Friday. The only one that was missing was the Rovereto group on Tuesday, which meets this week. It was good being able to teach the Bible to people again! The other two highlights of the week were:
- getting my driver’s licence renewed, and discovering that my eyesight has actually got better not worse since the last renewal 10 years ago, and even since 28 years ago when I first discovered I was slightly short sighted;
- the continuation of our church growth program, with not one but two births on Wednesday. With another baby born just before Christmas, and who we met for the first time at the Saturday group, there are only three pregnancies left (two of which are in the Saturday group).

This week it is Pinuccia’s turn to do some teaching. She is leading a study for the monthly ladies’ meeting on Thursday, and then leading a Sunday School teachers’ meeting on Saturday. It does send her into a bit of a panic, especially as she has less time available to prepare such meetings than I do, so you could pray for God’s help in these things.

Most of this week has been spent getting over jet lag. It used to be a lot easier for me, maybe getting older means it takes me longer to recover. In fact, it took the whole family a while. The second morning after arriving we were all up and wide awake at 4am, and there were a few other early mornings as well. This meant early nights for us all as well, so it was a good thing that I did not have go out in the evening much last week, as most of the groups that I am involved in restart this coming week. I probably would have fallen asleep during the Bible studies if they had been on! But it is back to the normal work patterns for me now. Stefania and Pinuccia went back to school last Thursday, so they are already back to their normal rhythm. We all have got over the long trip by now.

We arrived back at Trento yesterday afternoon after a long trip (36 hours from door to door), but it went smoothly. At least until the last part, when we got caught on the highway from the airport to our house in all the traffic going to ski, so that was a crawl. We were of course fairly tired from the trip. But there have been some friends staying at our house whilst we were away, and are leaving tomorrow, so they have been looking after us whilst we recover and get back to normal (thanks guys!).

We do have a bit more holidays left, as Wednesday is a public holiday which also marks the end of the Christmas/New Year period. So Stefania and Pinuccia both go back to school on Thursday. It also means that I do not have any Bible study groups meeting, although on Thursday night I will be going to the church committee meeting, and Friday is back to band practice again. I will therefore have a bit of time to catch up on some things I could not do whilst in Australia (mostly some corrections and improvements to my Internet sites), and to start preparing some more Bible studies that I will be leading in a few months’ time.

The main reason for this trip to Australia was to visit family, and of course Christmas Day this week was the big opportunity to do this, with all the family together for the first time in 18 years (since I moved to Italy). So it was great to be able have a traditional Wilson Christmas again. And for Stefania and Daniele, for the first time. They also did a lot of “bonding” with cousins and other relatives, which was good both for them and for the relatives.

We are now however already towards the end of our trip. On Friday afternoon we will be taking the plane home, so pray for our farewells and the long journey with the children.

We have been in Australia for a few days now, with just the last effects of jet lag to go away yet. Although it is hard to distinguish between the effects of jet lag, and of having small children who wake up a lot earlier than you would like to. In any case, we have been able to do a fair bit with our family already, and we are already seeing improvements in Stefania’s English as she gets practice at making up sentences.

Today and yesterday were Stefania’s and Daniele’s big surprises for the trip. Last time we were here they got to know some Australian culture, and we brought some DVDs back to Italy with us. So in Italy they have been really enjoying the Wiggles and Colin Buchanan over the last 16 months. [For my non Australian readers: they are famous singers of children's songs.] And so have Pinuccia and I – since it has been 18 years since I lived in Australia, and I didn’t have children, I had vaguely heard of these two artists but I had never heard them perform or knew much about them. But they have been part of my inspiration and idea sources for the songs I have been writing for my Sunday School children. Before we left to come to Australia, I saw that both of them had Christmas concerts on at Sydney whilst we were here. So yesterday afternoon we went to the Olympic Park to a Wiggles’ concert, and today we went into the city for a walk around and some shopping, and for a concert by Colin at the cathedral. It was a joy to see the pleasure and the excitement beaming out of our children’s faces as they realised the nature of their surprises – one of the joys of being a parent, of course, is to give joy to your children. It was all fairly tiring for them, and us, and tomorrow we will have a rest day at home (although that does include a trip to the nearby park and one to a swimming pool). In fact, Daniele went to sleep half way through the noise and lights of the Wiggles’ concert, and then again just before Colin’s concert so that he got only the second half of that one.

We are in the middle of packing for our departure for Australia tomorrow afternoon. Although I must say that we have found it a lot easier packing for a visit in summer, there are a lot less clothes to take. So in fact we have almost finished, and tomorrow morning we will pack the things that we will be needing in the next few hours. In the meantime, this morning will did all our goodbyes of our jealous friends in church.

The main events this week where the talks by Carl Trueman. The three talks on Tuesday were well attended by people from the church, and from nearby churches (ie up to 200km away) who came to hear him. The people I talked to found helpful the depth and clearness of his theological and practical thinking. Then on Wednesday afternoon there was a talk for the city on Calvin at a Catholic study centre. There were only about 10 who were not from the church, but they seemed interested in what was said. In any case, it was good to proclaim what we believe in public in the city of the Council of Trent.

With my Bible studies for this week cancelled due to these conferences, I had enough time to finish off and release the new version (7.13) of my Bible study computer program. So now I can take a break from that for three weeks as well – apart from replying to the e-mail questions I will receive, at least those that I will be able to reply to without my computer and my books.

I should however be able to keep up my blogging on borrowed computers, so I should be writing about the trip within the next week.

We were supposed to be, at the moment, in the middle of four heavy days. But Stefania got a fever on Thursday night, which meant that we dropped out of a lot of our commitments, and life became a bit easier. On Saturday afternoon, I went to the Bible study in the Valsugana by myself, and on Saturday night we did not go to the annual dinner for the band. This morning there was an important event for the Sunday School, with a market to raise money for a school in India. So Pinuccia, after having down a lot of the preparation, had to miss it to stay home with Stefania, and got others to do what she had to do. But it went well, with the children singing a new song I had written and then saying what they were thankful for that they had receiving from God (instead of complaining about what they don’t have, when many have a lot less), with about €1100 being raised.

Today there was also a Christmas market at Lavis. We did go out for it, to get a bit of fresh air, but did not last very long before Stefania got tired and her temperature started going up, so we returned home early. Tuesday is a public holiday, and so many people – including the schools – take Monday off as well to get a long weekend. So Stefania and Pinuccia will both be at home. We were intending to make a trip to visit some of Pinuccia’s relatives, but that got put off as well due to Stefania’s illness. So we get a day at home (and maybe some shopping) instead. Then on Tuesday, there is an important event to pray for: an all day conference on the Evangelical Faith and the Reformation. It will be good to have such a conference on the holiday dedicated to the immaculate conception (of Mary, not Jesus), in a hall just a few meters from where the Council of Trent was held. Pray that we of the church would learn more about our doctrine, and that there will be many people not from the church that come as well. Then on Wednesday, there will be another talk on Calvin (for his 500th anniversary) in a Catholic study centre.

With these conferences being held, the cell groups on those days will not be held. This means that last Wednesday I gave my last Bible study for the year, with our departure for Australia being next Monday. I still however have one Sunday School lesson to prepare for next Sunday. I have also finished preparing all the Bible studies on 1Chronicles that I will be giving until summer (but there are still 6 studies on the Apostles’ Creed to prepare). This means that I will be able to dedicate all my work time this week to finishing the next version of my computer program, which I hope to release before we leave for Australia.