School, Sunday School and bookstall
Stefania has successfully overcome her first week of pre-school. She quite enjoyed it, and looked forward to going each day. She didn’t actually speak to the other children or the teachers (in either language), but she did at least play with some others instead of playing by herself with other children around, which is what she has usually done in the pat. Next week it is a step up to 2.5 hours per day. The hardest part for her will be getting up earlier in order to be at school by 9am. She is definitely a night person! However, she gets Monday off, as it is Lavis’ patron saint’s day. Whereas Pinuccia, who works at Trento, will have to go to work.
The meetings at our house during the week to prepare for the Sunday School and welcoming ministries went well. I have ended up with the 7-10 year old class, which has five children in it. I share it with Pinuccia and another lady, so we each miss only one out of every three sermons. It will be an interesting time for me! The classes will start on September 21, although it will be sometime in October when I have to give my first lesson.
In the meantime, tomorrow (Saturday) there is another bookstall at Rovereto, the first of the monthly bookstalls after the summer break. There is also a fair on in the town, so there should be quite a few people around. I was supposed to be or wanted to be at two other places as well. The organisation for missionaries in Italy is having its biennial mission conference at the moment - I heard that there are more than 250 people present, which is far more than any expectation. And the theological institute at Padua (2.5 hours away) is having their annual training weekend. Since the church does a lot together with the institute (including a few members doing courses there, and one of the elders teaching there), quite a few church members have gone there. It has left us a bit short handed for the bookstall, but there will be enough people present and it is good to see some of the newer people in the church helping out at Rovereto.
Today was also release day for a new version (7.05) of my program, with some of the changes that I had managed to do whilst we were in Australia. It is a bit of work getting all the files ready for distribution, backing up the new files, changing the site and writing messages in the various places were I announce new versions, so it takes most of a day to do it.