News and prayer information from Richard and Pinuccia Wilson

Doing the week, there was a meeting of the leaders of the “special” groups (that is not the normal cell groups) which work with the young people – the church Youth and Young Adults’ Groups, and the university and English language groups which also include people from other churches. It was great to hear their desire to work together, with a bigger vision of reaching and discipling all the young people in the city. As I sat in the meeting, I was so proud of these eight leaders and the ministry that they are building, and grateful to God for having raised them up for us.

This week I also finished preparing the Bible studies in Isaiah, and last Sunday I had my last Sunday School lesson. This means that I have prepared all the studies I will be doing until the summer break in the beginning of July. So I have a bit of extra time now, although not for long. I have a meeting with some of the church leaders on the 24th to decide on the program for the next year, after which I will start to prepare the studies for September. But until then I will have a bit of time to concentrate on my computer ministry. Just in time too, as during the week two other projects came up: fixing up the web site for an Italian publishing house, and preparing the electronic text of an Italian Bible translation.

Today there was the visit of the Indian pastor who founded the school that we support. We arranged for the children of the Sunday School to tell him and the church what they had learnt from supporting this school for many years. It was quite touching to hear their maturity in this.

This is a month of special Sundays, and next week it will be the visit of someone from the school in India that the Sunday School supports. So he will be able to report on the construction of the dining room, which is where the children’s money is going at the moment, and we have prepared material for him to take back to the children in his school. After church, we will be having a working picnic to do some planning for the children’s camp next month. There is still a fair bit to do, but it is coming along well, and I’m excited about it and looking forward to being there!

Following up from last week, the church did decide at its special meeting to rent the hall for its activities. Unfortunately the church lunch after the meeting got washed out, which will not happen when we have our own hall and can eat inside.

Next Sunday could be an historic moment for the church. For about five years we have been looking for a suitable and affordable place to rent, with increasing problems in the council hall that we have been using for more than 20 years. Finally we have found what could be a good place to use, and on Sunday there will be a meeting of the church to decide if we want to rent it – and importantly, if we want to increase our giving enough to pay for it. The place is close to the city centre and on a road that a lot of people use, so it is very visible and would give us a real presence at Trento, rather than being in the backstreets of the suburbs. It is in one of the more lively areas of city, where there are a lot of immigrants. Since it is also very close to the room we use as an office, we will also be able to build on the witness that we have had in the area in the last couple of years. In fact, this Saturday the church will have a stand offering international games at a festival of that part of the city. If you want to look it up on Google Maps, the address is via Alessandro Manzoni 3, Trento. In any case, please pray for this meeting, that we will be guided by God to use the resources he gives us in the best way to proclaim him at Trento, and that our generosity will match our desire to serve him.

It is now the last night of the ECM biennial conference in Spain which has been on all this week. Pinuccia is at the final meeting together, whilst I am in our room with the children as they sleep. It has been a good time, although having to look after the children does limit our interaction with the other missionaries. But of course we would not have it any other way! The children have had a great time in the children’s program, after a bit of unease on their part on the first morning, and it has been a privilege for us to be able to leave them with some capable people during this week. They learnt about transforming the peoples of the world (which was the adults’ theme as well, although we were limited to Europe), and I have already heard some changes (for the good) in the way that they verbally express their relationship with God, and what God wants them to do. It was also good for them to renew friendships, especially with the other Australian children. They might have only seen each other once two years ago, but our children have been looking forward for weeks to seeing them again. It will be good to have these peers in the future as well, to build up these relationships so that they can help each other in their similar situations.

For me, the best part was reflecting on what I and the church do at Trento, looking at the examples of others places in Europe and at the teaching of the Bible on what God’s mission for us is, and being challenged to do more and better what God wants us to do. But also being able to thank God for the church, which is already doing a lot of what ECM is moving towards, for example in collaborative church planting and integral mission. It has reminded me of how much God has blessed us, with a healthy church and a leadership that is following God’s heart for the province of Trentino.

We should be (volcanos permitting) home late tomorrow (Saturday) night, but not too much time to rest and catch up. The ex International Director of ECM, who was an important part of the planting of the church almost 50 years ago, will be travelling with us, staying with us until Monday and speaking at the Trento and Rovereto churches on Sunday. It will be great for the churches to hear a bit of their history, to realise the great sacrifices many made in the past so that we could benefit now. On Monday night there is a church committee meeting, and then on Tuesday others guests will be staying. Wednesday is a public holiday, and we would like to travel to Milan with the rest of the church for a meeting with the network that our church belongs to, but I think we might have to rest and catch up on the washing instead.

We are enjoying our Easter holidays with the family. As with all families, the holidays do a bit tiring for us since we have to be constantly present for the children, but having my parents here helps. Pinuccia and I even get some time off by ourselves, more than in the rest of the year put together. My parents leave next Friday, and the day after that we all leave as a family to Spain for a week, for the biennial conference of ECM. Pray that it will be a good time together as a family, with other missionaries and supporters, and that each one of us will grow in our relationship with God and ministry as a result. This last point will be hardest for Pinuccia, since the children will have their own special program and it will be easier for me to follow the missionaries’ program that for Pinuccia.

The highlight this week has been the arrival of my parents, who are staying with us for a couple of weeks. There will be a lot more time and doing things together once school starts its one week holiday on Wednesday. They came just when a whole lot of other commitments came up for us. Which worked out well, as we could exploit them ask their help as babysitters whilst we both went to a children’s camp planning meeting on Thursday, then a school meeting and band practice and Friday. Without their help, we would not have been able to do these things.

A couple of other short news:
- The GBU group at the university had their record attendance of 19 last week, and in the next couple of days will be doing their first official evangelisation on campus.
- Altrimenti, the social-cultural arm of the church, as been asked by the provincial government to run a new food distribution point for needy people, a sign of our good standing with the authorities.

This weekend in the church was concentrated on training. Pinuccia organised it and we hosted the speaker who came, which kept us busy. Which is way it is Monday afternoon and I am only getting around to writing about it now. (The other reason is that my computer monitor died a painful death over the weekend, so computing time was limited; I’m using the television now.) It was good to build on what we did as Sunday School teachers in November, although once again I had to leave after lunch to pick up the children. But I have the notes, so I hope to learn something new. I still don’t feel that I have come to grips with teaching the age group that I have now (10-12 years), as I only started with them in September and never taught that age before. Then on Sunday afternoon we went to Rovereto for a session for the parents. How to bring up children is certainly a keenly felt issue in the church, but of course is not something that you learn in one afternoon! But we do hope that it will be the start of a continuing discussion in the church, so we can serve God better in this area.

Pinuccia introducing the seminar for parents

At the Sunday School training day

Now that the warmer weather has arrived more permanently, it is time for the usual Spring rush of activities to start. The first is coming up this weekend, which has and will be keeping Pinuccia busy in the organisation. Someone from the Child Evangelism Fellowship will be coming. She came also a few months ago. All day Saturday she will be continuing her Sunday School teacher training which she started then. This visit, she will also be running a seminar on the Christian education of children in the family at Rovereto for the parents (and others) of both the churches. Pray that these meetings will be helpful for the teachers and parents in their ministries to the children, and that Pinuccia will have the energy to prepare what is needed.

The false spring has arrived, as it often does around this period. So we have a few days of sun and relative warmth, and have been taking advantage of it after a several months of mostly indoor activities. So yesterday for example there was a trip to the snow, which is always great when the sun is shining as well.

In the church, there is the annual meeting coming up next Sunday. Always a good time reflecting on God’s work in us in the past year, and talking about where we want to go with God’s leading. I am also busy with ECM business in this period, with a Skype meeting last week and one for each of the next two weeks with some of the leaders of the mission. Being the “secretary” of these groups means that I have also some work before and after these meetings to prepare them and get their decisions implemented.

This afternoon there was a two hour training conference for the churches of Trento and Rovereto. Tim Chester, director of The Porterbrook Institute, church planter in Sheffield and author of over a dozen books, was in Italy for a few days, and we managed to get him to come to speak to us on missional church, missional life style and missional leadership. There was a very good turnout from the churches, and what was said and discussed was helpful for us individual and as two churches. Of course, this commitment to training (both from the leadership of the church and from the members) is a good part of the reason why we have so many people in leadership, as I mentioned in my post last week. And I thank God for the many opportunities that we get to have important international speakers and writers to come to us, even if we are only a medium sized church. Now, if we could get just as many people to our prayer meetings, that would be good for the life of the church as well – we are not so good at that.