News and prayer information from Richard and Pinuccia Wilson

The main non regular event this week was on Saturday afternoon, where the two older classes of the Sunday School worked on preparing for next Sunday’s market day in the church. They created wrappings for home made goods (that some people in the church had made), plus signs and other things for the sale, and practised the new Christmas song I wrote. The goods will then be sold at the “market” after church next Sunday, with the proceeds going to the school in India that the Sunday School supports. The good thing is that the children understand that this is the point of the market, with some lessons on giving that have accompanied these preparations, and they pray that a lot of money will be raised for the children in India. So you too can pray for next Sunday.

The other news that I have not mentioned here yet is that we will be in Australia on an “unofficial” visit for Christmas. Thanks to my parents’ frequent flyer points, we will be leaving on December 16 and returning on January 2, to spend some time with my family. So there will be no talks or meetings to go to. But there will be lots of things to do, and lots of Australian things to show to Pinuccia and the children (especially those that are harder to do in winter). So we are all looking forward to this trip, and are starting to prepare for it. I am looking forward to my first summer Christmas in 18 years, like the good ol’ days.

Yesterday evening as we were coming home from the Valsugana “baby boom” group, both Stefania and Daniele fell asleep in the car (about 6.15pm). This is not too unusual. What was unusual is that we managed to get them both up three flights of stairs, and they kept sleeping. And sleeping. And didn’t wake up until this morning. Whilst one or the other has done such a long sleep occasionally, I can’t remember them both ever doing it at the same time. So Pinuccia and I had a peaceful dinner, fairly romantic as well because Stefania was sleeping on the sofa in the lounge, so most of the lights were turned off. And after that we both had a lot of time to get some work done: I on the studies in 1Chronicles that the church is doing, Pinuccia to finish off a special lesson for today for the Sunday School. Since the fund raising for the school in India we support is coming up, Pinuccia took both the class for the small and that for the middle children, to talk about why we support them and the right attitude that we should have to money and possessions.

So to pray for this week is the time together with the older and middle children on Saturday afternoon, preparing the material that will be sold the Sunday after, and also another song that I have written for them to sing that day in the church service. Then on Sunday, there will be a special bookstall at Rovereto. Special, because it is actually the day of the annual town market day, so there will be a lot more people around than for the usual days when we do the bookstall.

Once again an busy and tiring weekend, with a talk on the Christian family on Friday night, and two on Saturday afternoon. And for us especially, hosting the speaker and his family at our house as well. It does of course add a lot of work, but it is something we do joyfully, and something we benefit from also. And hopefully it will be an example that the children will learn from as well.
Since the guests were only English speaking, Stefania was forced to speak English. At least in theory: although she does understand English well, she is losing her ability to speak it, and never does, not even to me, replying to my English with Italian answers. So we kept telling her to not speak to the guests in Italian as they did not understand it, but it meant that she would not say anything rather than speak in English (because she couldn’t, not because she didn’t want to). Something to continue to work on there…
The other joy of the week was in Sunday School this morning. We usually ask for a few volunteers amongst the children to pray at the beginning, and the older children are happy to. But this morning Stefania asked to be one of those that prayed, despite being one of the youngest there and usually a bit shy. And she prayed well too.
The coming events to pray for this week are, apart from the usually meetings, the monthly ladies’ meeting on Thursday evening that Pinuccia will be looking after, and the monthly service at Rovereto on Sunday afternoon, where I will be preaching.

The last couple of weeks have been fairly quiet – in fact I didn’t even write a message last week because there was nothing out of the ordinary to say. The usual Bible studies and other meetings for me, school for Pinuccia and Stefania.

Next weekend however there is a special event to pray for. Louis Priolo will be coming from America to speak in the church on Friday night, Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning on relationships with spouses and the family (as a part of a speaking tour of Italy). On Saturday morning, the ladies will be having a prayer meeting for their children and their schools. This is part of a world wide prayer day promoted by Moms in Touch, and in fact a few ladies from other nearby churches will be coming to pray with them. I personally am looking forward to listening to the talks and learning something. It will me an interesting weekend for us, because the speaker – along with his wife and two daughters – will be staying with us for the two days. So we will be kept busy not only going to the talks, but also looking after the guests. It does create a bit of paranoia having guests who are experts on the family and who gives talks on it – we might end up as examples for his future talks, positive or negative!