News and prayer information from Richard and Pinuccia Wilson

Last weekend Pinuccia lost her voice (probably caused by a bug that it flying around here), so she could not go to work. By the time she had regained her voice on Wednesday and went to the doctor to get a medical certificate, he said that it was better not to risk her voice and gave her another couple of days off work. So at the end she was at home the whole week, which made life a bit easier for both of us. It is back to work tomorrow however – which also happens to be her birthday, and a Significant Birthday at that.

Yesterday we met with the leader of the Young Adults’ group, to talk about what they and we are doing, and working on our collaboration together. It is good to see the work that he is doing with the young adults, and how God is changing people in that group. We are still working on when and how the three teenagers in our group should make the passage to the older group, as there is no perfect answer to the question.

The other event in the church last week was on Thursday evening, when another discussion at the coffee shop where the photographic exhibition had been held last month took place. There will be another such discussion in a month’s time, so there are certainly opportunities opening there.

Yesterday the families of two of the members of the Youth Group went to Mantova (about an hour south of here) for the opening of the new meeting place of a church there, so there was no meeting in the afternoon. We took this rare opportunity of a free Saturday to visit a set of Pinuccia’s aunt, uncle and cousins about 2.5 hours south of Trento, having lunch and spending the afternoon there.

Apart from that, there were the usual activities for the week, as well as a church committee meeting (at which we carried forward our discussion and decisions for the Trentino church planting project; there will be some big decisions to take as a church at its annual meeting in April about its future – more on that later) and getting a newsletter out (at http://richardwilson.interfree.it/news63.htm if you haven’t seen it yet). With this newsletter, I have also started the preparations for our visit to Australia in the middle of the year – I have started filling up our time with bookings to speak in churches and other groups about what we are doing in Italy.

I’m back at home now, after three days of long, but worthwhile, meetings at Madrid. “Necessity is the mother of invention” the saying goes, and Pinuccia discovered that she could indeed take the two children down and up the stairs by herself, which she had never done before and didn’t think was able to do. So whilst I was indoors all day with meetings, they enjoyed themselves going out to the park or shopping, and had a few visitors as well.

Then on Saturday evening there was another good meeting with the teenagers, in that now that they know each other better and are older, they have interesting conversations together. We did our last study in Luke’s Gospel together, after almost a year and a half in that book, and in a few weeks’ time we will start a new series of studies using the book The Fight.

No records this week, with a large number of people of the church at home with the flu. But there was nevertheless a good crowd, with several new people, to hear the president of an evangelical organisation for business and self-employed people – and then to have a good lunch together, as we usually do once a month. On Saturday there was also one of the better meetings of the Youth Group that we have had: despite one missing due to the flu, after two and a half years we are seeing the teenagers open up to express their questions and difficulties in life.
Early on Tuesday morning I go to Madrid for a meeting for some of the leaders of ECM, as I do twice a year; I will be back around midnight on Thursday night. Pray especially for the rest of the family, who will be stuck at home most of the three days. It is not easy for Pinuccia to get the children down and up the stairs by herself, although some friends will be coming to visit to give her a hand to get out occasionally.