Praying a sovereign God… and now Pinuccia’s work
In my newsletters I have mentioned that this church year (ie September-June, like the schools here) all the cell groups are doing a series of studies on different aspects of prayer, loosely based on Don Carson’s Call to Spiritual Reformation. I managed to arrange the program of two groups so that they both did the fourth study this week. This made it easier for me to prepare, and how the first group went helped to improve the second. The theme was “Praying a Sovereign God”, ie what and how to pray to someone who does what he likes. (The simple answer to the ‘how’ question is to remember that he is not only sovereign, but also personal and wants a relationship with us.) I thank God that these two studies went very well, because it is not an easy topic, but the people in the groups worked at thinking through the issues, and reflected on whether the God they know and pray to is what the real God of the Bible is like.
On Tuesday Pinuccia got an offer too good to resist - a full time job until the 9th at the pre-school here at Lavis. So she decided to take that up, and next week will try to get the paperwork done in order to go on an early maternity leave. Not only is the school a lot closer to home than the others, she wanted to check it out since it will be Stefania’s school in 20 months’ time. Pinuccia said it is very good, and will be happy to send Stefania there. Interestingly, it is full, with the maximum number of classes allowed (nine), whereas many of the schools at Trento that she works at are having the number of classes reduced. Lavis is obviously more of a young family area, something I see every time that I go out, as there are always lots of prams and strollers prowling the streets. Pinuccia also says that for the first time this (academic) year she feels that she is achieving something, as she is working during the actual school time, instead of the afternoon after school care jobs she has had, which are more like babysitting.