Double duty, and the end of an era
Yesterday evening we had to do double duty: whilst I as usual went out to lead the Wednesday night Bible study group, Pinuccia had the seven Sunday School teachers at home for a training and planning meeting. It probably was not a good idea to do it this way: two members of the Bible study group had to miss it (one to go to the teachers’ meeting, the other to baby sit so his wife could go to the meeting), and Pinuccia had to keep leaving the meeting in order to look after the two children, at least until I got home about 10.30 (whilst they kept going until almost midnight). It was not ideal, but it was almost impossible to find a date when all the teachers were free; next time, if there is a clash with a Bible study group, we will probably just cancel the group for that week.
On the work front, Pinuccia has had her current contract (which ended at Easter) extended – the teacher that she is substituting decided to stay on leave for a bit longer. Her hours have also been changed slightly, so that she is not away from home quite so long (4 hours each afternoon now), which all four of us are happy about. The other change is that from now on she will be attending the Monday night cell group whilst I stay home. Getting out once a week will be good for her, especially to meet with friends to read the Bible and pray together, although she is not keen on having to leave the children again. And for me it is the end of an era: the cell groups that I started at Trento about five years ago are now completely in the hands of other leaders and I am not even present any more to give them help or advice. So at the moment I have just the Rovereto group on Tuesdays and the Wednesday night group at Trento (which is the continuation of the group that already existed before the cell groups were set up), as well as the teenagers’ group on Saturdays. This gives me some freedom to do something else, and I will be talking with the leaders of the church some time to consider what I can do next. Maybe it will be the start of a new era.