News and prayer information from Richard and Pinuccia Wilson

A bit of Spring weather has arrived now, with temperatures getting up to 20 degrees during the day. If past years are anything to go by, it will get a bit colder again for a while, and then the Spring weather will arrive permanently. After 3 winters in a row, we am looking forward to it! For Stefania, it meant that we brought her bicycle out of hiberation yesterday, and she went up and down our cul-de-sac, with Daniele excitedly following behind her trying out his walking and running skills. It has also meant the beginning of the concert season, with today being the first town festival of the year, in a town 5 kilometers north of us. The band was invited to play, so I dashed there after a quick lunch after church. In a couple of weeks it will be Lavis’ turn to have their annual festival.

Another one of those non stop weekends. Saturday morning there was the usual house cleaning and shopping, then all the afternoon I was at Rovereto at a bookstall. There were about 20 people that we had some sort of contact with and received some literature – having the Scripture calendars in this period of the year helps. That is quite a good number for such a bookstall.

Then on Sunday there was the church service in the morning. The Sunday School had another presentation, so Pinuccia and I were quite busy in that, and we got home late. Then in the afternoon there was a birthday party for our “twin” family – my ex flat mate, who was married 6 months after us, and has a daughter 3 months younger that Stefania and a son 4 months younger than Daniele. I filled up with food there, because then we got home with just enough time to get changed (but not to eat) before going to the band’s Christmas concert. After a little get-together after the concert, I was home again at midnight.

Now pretty much all of the groups have started their winter break, and tonight at 9pm we will be leaving for our 24 hour trip by car and ferry to Sicily, where we will be for two and a half weeks. Since we have not been for a year, Pinuccia especially is looking forward to seeing her family again. So today is going to be pretty busy packing and getting ready. I will have limited Internet access whilst in Sicily, so there will be limited (and probably no) blogging, so my prayers go to all my blog readers for this period of Christmas and for the new year.

I have now some time at home this weekend, although there are a few household activities to do and other things to catch up on after my absence in these days, so it is not time for a rest yet. Yesterday Jury and I left at 3.30am to drive to Milan, where we caught a plane to London, to speak at the annual meeting for ECM Britain’s supporters. Jury found it helpful and encouraging to see first hand many of the people committed to supporting the church in general and him in particular. Then straight after the meeting it was back to the airport (where we found the plane was an hour late), a flight and a drive home, getting back at half past midnight. Jury was a bit disappointed that he did not see anything in his first trip to England, although on the way there we had a perfect view of central London from the aeroplane window, so he did get to see most of the major sites (albeit from a far). I on the other hand think that I am getting a bit old for these strange trips, even though I did get quite a few naps in during the car and plane trips. Pinuccia in the meantime was trying to prepare the Sunday School lesson for today, without much success as the children wanted her to be with her almost all of the time. So she was still working on the lesson when I got home.
Then today after church we went straight to the annual lunch for the band. It was slightly hard work after the efforts of yesterday, especially since there was a very good and abundant lunch laid on. So the stomach was filled whilst the eyelids were drooping.

I have finished my studies for the week now, although Pinuccia still has the ladies’ meeting to run tonight. So now I can have a bit of a pause before another busy weekend.

In Saturday I will be making a trip to London with Jury. Jury is preparing the social ministry that the church wants to create, and shortly will be employed by the church part time to run that and the Valsugana group. Since part of the funding for this will be coming from the English section of ECM, we will be going there to speak at their one day conference for supporters and others, to explain the vision that we have at Trento, to thank them for their support (many there have been praying for decades for the church) and to encourage them to be involved. I think it will be very useful for Jury as well, to get a wider vision of the ministry that he will be involved in: it is not just the church that is doing this, but we are helped by Christians from around the world. We decided that the easiest way to go was to just make it a day trip. So at 4am on Saturday we drive to Milan (about 2.5 hours) for a flight at 8am. Then at 6pm we catch a flight back, and around midnight we should be home. So pray for good travelling as well, especially as it is fog season around Milan now. Jury is a bit upset that it will be his first time in England, and he will see just the airport, a road and the conference hall, although I am used to that by now.

Then on Sunday at church I will be helping the children prepare for their event next week for the first half of the service, then Pinuccia will take her class to their lesson whilst I try to follow the sermon whilst looking after Daniele. Then there is the annual lunch for the band, so it will be an interesting time getting to know the others there, away from the usual practices. Maybe I will get some rest then in the evening.

Maybe it is not quite holidays, since there are a lot of things to do around the house, and small projects (like my tax return and making a family video of our time in Australia) that I want to wrap up before the church and school commitments start up, but it is a nice break to have. We have managed to get to the lake once, and will have another trip in the next couple of days. Although with both the dishwasher and the washing machine breaking down during our absence, we are having to organise such trips around visits to get them repaired. We also took Daniele for his one year check up, and whilst two of his problems at birth fixed themselves, the third (an undescended testicle) has not, so surgery will probably be necessary in a few weeks’ time. But first he will have an ultrasound to see the exact extent of the problem, so more on that later.

Although my church commitments have not restarted yet, the band practices began last night, so I got to see my friends there for the first time in a while. We went of course to church on Sunday as well. There are still a lot of people missing there, whom we will see again in the next couple of weeks as they return from holidays, although there were also a few new people to meet.

We were kept busy over the weekend by various activities. First of all, the local cooperative bank had its Annual General Meeting on Saturday, and the band was invited to play at a refreshment afterwards. Unfortunately, as AGMs tend to do it finished late, so we waited around in a big tent under the rain from 5pm to 6pm, when everyone came out. Usually it is exciting to play to a crowd of 1500 people, but they were all interested in eating the refreshment rather than listening to us, so the “concert” seemed a bit flat. The crowd did leave a little bit of food for us (although a lot had been finished off), so I filled up on that before going home, and discovered that both Stefania and Daniele had collapsed in bed – very strange for them so early. So instead of the whole family going, I went by myself to a special praise and singing night at the church, with the help of half a dozen Americans who were visiting. It certainly attracts; the hall was almost full and about half of the people were not from the congregation (some I know were friends who were invited, I’m still not sure where the rest came from).
Then this morning there was the usual church service, after which Pinuccia had a small meeting with the Sunday School teachers about the changes in September after the summer break. (More on that later, when we have some more information and have been able to decide exactly what will be happening.) So I took the children home and prepared lunch for us all, whilst Pinuccia got a lift and came home later. Then at 5pm there was the presentation of the Rovereto Church Planting Project in a hall in that town, which was good for giving people an idea and a vision for what will be happening, and for reminding people that the project itself won’t achieve anything, it is what God does that counts, so we need to be praying. There were two immediate effects of having that meeting. The direct one was that someone else from the mountains above Rovereto will try to come to the Bible study on Tuesday. The other indirect effect was that on the way home we stopped to eat a pizza at a restaurant at Rovereto, and discovered that one of the waiters was someone who used to come to the church, but having worked in hotels and restaurants for the past few years he hasn’t been able to come lately. But he was missing the fellowship a bit, and although he can’t come to the Tuesday night meetings (as he works), I will arrange a lift for him to church on Sunday, and who knows maybe in the future he will be able to contribute more to the planting of a church at Rovereto where he lives.
Tomorrow will be busy in another way: Pinuccia’s school will be having an excursion to the local library, and the morning teachers will need all the help that they can get. So instead of just going in the afternoon, Pinuccia will be at school all day, and I will be looking after the children the whole time as well. That will certainly keep me busy.

After a long absence from the band – caused by them changing the day of the practices – last Friday I was able to go again because they had changed the day back again. So it was good to get out and relax with a bit of music again, and to see my friends there. I was a bit out of practice however; towards the end of the practice it started to get hard to play as my lips and diaphragm were not up to it. Despite the fact that Friday is theoretically a free night for me, I will in any case have trouble getting to the practices: the Friday practices had in fact started the previous week but we were in Spain, tomorrow Pinuccia leads the study at the women’s Bible study so I have to stay at home with the children, and the following week is a public holiday and we will be going to Bologna for a meeting and lunch with other churches.

Yesterday we had one of our special nights with the teenagers: home made hamburgers and a couple of films. There was also the fourth member of the group for the first time for many months, and she does intend to come regularly again now. Since we started with dinner, there was a 7pm start instead of the usual 5.30, which should have given us a more relaxed day with more time to prepare. But on Friday night we heard that one of Pinuccia’s aunts, who was at Modena staying with another aunt to receive chemotherapy treatment for a tumor she has, was too sick to receive the treatment and so was going back to Sicily next Tuesday. So we decided to go to Modena for the day to visit her (especially as it is possible that it is the last opportunity for Pinuccia to see her aunt). So there were two 2.5 hour trips to make in the day, and after stopping at the supermarket on the way home to get the food for the evening, we got home at 6.30pm, half an hour before the others arrived. So we were a bit late getting the dinner ready, but it all worked out well at the end.

Today was quite busy as well, but a bit more relaxing. As well as church in the morning, in the afternoon there was the annual fair day for our town, Lavis. My band did put on a concert for the occasion, but since I have not been able to go to practices for a while I didn’t play in the concert. But the whole family did go to the refreshments that were put on afterwards, to say hello to my friends there that I haven’t seen for a while. Then we went for a walk through the fair, trying to negogiate our two strollers through the crowd.

Tomorrow will be busy as well, with another trip. We will be all going to a meeting about 1.5 hours south of here, at the other end of Lake Garda, for a get together of most of the ECM missionaries in Italy. Then on Tuesday it will be back to normal again.

I have finished my first week of studies for the new year, with the groups on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and the teenagers on Saturday (although Pinuccia did the study on Saturday, and someone else on Monday). And Stefania and Daniele survived the first week with me as well! I also managed to play in a concert – since they moved the practices to Tuesday, I haven’t been able to go for a few months, but with a concert on Saturday they had a special practice on Friday. So I went on Friday evening to learn the songs, and then up to a town in the mountains (in the Val di Non valley, one of our church planting areas) to play. It was also good to hear that the Chinese group has changed meeting time from Sunday morning to Sunday afternoon, so that the Chinese lady in the congregation can attend and lead it. So yesterday she led it for the second time; speaking with her about it after the service, it was obvious how much God had made her mature in the last couple of years so that she could lead the group.

There has of course been more time with the family in the last few days, although on the weekend it was also mixed with some of my other normal commitments. On Saturday the Youth Group had its usual monthly social event, which happened to be cooking. So when we got around to planning it and realised my mother would be here, we decided to advertise that there would be an internationally renowned cook to help. So the teenagers made a pavlova, which certainly went down well at the lunch after church today, even though no-one else had ever seen one before. This afternoon there was also a small concert by the band with a few marches to accompany a ceremony here, so my mother and brother got a chance to hear us play and see me in my handsome uniform.

For the second week in a row, and only the third time ever, there were over sixty adult regulars in church today – plus (lots of) children and visitors. This creates a big problem with the hall we are using, as it is very hard to find room for all to sit down, and the lunch after the service was hard to do as well. So keep praying that we can get over the few hurdles remaining in order to have our own meeting place.