News and prayer information from Richard and Pinuccia Wilson

During the week I paid my first visit to the international students’ group of the church, which is run in English. In the past it has usually been around half a dozen people, although it has been growing in the last couple of months, and there were 14 there when I went, which was a pleasant surprise. It was good to see, once again, that when there is the need and opportunity to reach out in a new way, that God provides the human resources necessary to develop this witness – an American couple recently moved to Trento. Pray that this group will continue to grow, and will be an effective ministry in all the world as the students return to their home country.

This group was the last one that I visit. So now I will start over again going to most of the groups to see how they are going, and encouraging and challenging them.

For the Sunday School, today there was the annual Christmas market to raise funds for a school in India. Pinuccia and the other teachers worked a lot to prepare for that, so are happy to have a rest from that now. Although now we will have to start working seriously on the preparation of the Sunday School camp in June/July.

There has been a lot of Sunday School activity lately, which means mostly more work (and pressure) for Pinuccia, although I have been involved as well. Last Sunday afternoon there was a reunion meeting from last summer’s Sunday School camp. Although Pinuccia was not at the camp this year (as we were in Australia) she went to the reunion whilst I stayed home with the children. The reports are that it went very well, with something both for the church children (who learnt something new about prayer) and for those not from the church (who learnt about the Gospel).

Next Sunday there will be the annual Sunday School market, selling biscuits and bread sticks to raise funds for a school in India. So yesterday the production lines were at work, with some children making biscuits at one house in one of the valleys, whilst others came to our house to make the bread sticks. I travelled up and down between the two places, ferrying children and supplies, and filming for a video.

At the same time, Pinuccia has been trying to start to get next summer’s camp organised, at least to decide when and where it will be, and who will be helping out. It has been difficult to get this done, and in fact still has not been decided, which together with the other Sunday School activities has left Pinuccia a bit frustrated. I doubt it will be much better this week, with the market to organise, but hopefully it will be done before the Christmas break.

This weekend was another busy time in the family, with a guest staying. She came to do some training for the Sunday School teachers, which lasted all day Saturday. However we did not want to leave our children with another family for the whole day, so I missed the afternoon session to retrieve them. But it was a helpful time for us all, both in what we learnt and the issues that the teachers were able to discuss together. Then on Sunday both Pinuccia and I taught a class of the Sunday School, and in the afternoon we kept the discussion going with the trainer and the family of one of the other teachers that we had invited for lunch.

Next weekend we will get to rest a bit more, being hosts instead of guests for a meal, and then going to one of the rare services in which neither of us have a commitment, and so can listen to what is said. During the week there are instead the usual regular meetings for me, plus visits to some of the other small groups and other group leaders, to help them in their ministry.

Today there was the meeting that I had been looking forward to for a couple of weeks. And rightly so as it turned out, because it went so well. We had invited the five university students in the church, and the GBU (the national university movement) staff member for north-east Italy who came from Bologna, to lunch, to talk about the forthcoming rebirth of the group at the university. So I could sit back and – well, I won’t say relax, as we did all the organising and hospitality. But it was a privilege to be able to facilitate this meeting together. It brought back happy memories of when I used to go visiting students to help them with their groups at the universities. As I come to grips that I am not as young as I used to be, and I can’t do (well) everything I used to do, I thank God for the possibility to help others and so still be involved in what I still believe is important. And I thank God also for Pinuccia, who shares the vision, and spent a lot of time in the kitchen to help this meeting to be a success. Anyway, tomorrow there will be a introductory meeting of the group at the university, with the first Bible study in a couple of weeks. It has been great as well to hear the stories of how the students have been finding others – Christians and not – who want to come also.

Next weekend Pinuccia and I will be swapping roles. Someone will be coming from Turin to do some training on Saturday for the Sunday School teachers, and staying for church on Sunday when we have also invited another family for lunch, so that they can speak together about the Sunday School. So I hope to be able to spend a lot of time in the kitchen, so that Pinuccia is free to help the training event and also learn herself about leading this ministry better.

As the school/church year continues to start up, there were a few more firsts this week. Stefania survived her first week of school, although the morning wake ups started to have an effect towards the end of the week, as the excitement was no longer enough to wake her up early. Daniele on the other hand started complaining about going to preschool – because he wanted to go to infants’ school instead, like his big sister. But when we bought him a lunch box like Stefania’s, even though he does not need it, he was a bit happier.

In the church, I lead my first study for the Wednesday night group (after an introductory meeting the week before), and the first meeting for the Saturday afternoon group. There was also the first church leadership team meeting for the year, and some time catching up with the new leaders of the English language Bible study group. Today was also the first Sunday School lesson of the year. I have been promoted from the “middle” to the “big” class. It was a bit difficult, as with anything new I did not know how it worked, and there were some problems from external causes as well. But I will be seeing the other two teachers tomorrow night, so hopefully I will be able to get a better idea for next time.

This week I will be away from Thursday to Saturday for the annual prayer days for the mission in Italy, which includes time reviewing and planning for each of us individually and together as a group. So you could pray that it will be a helpful time for us all, as we submit to God’s leading.

When I wrote last week, Pinuccia had a job, but for after-school care, which she wanted to avoid in order to be with our children. On Tuesday night so got an offer from another school for a job during the day, so she gave up the first and took that one. Then on Wednesday night came an offer from our local school at Lavis, so she gave up the second job to take up that one. The job is not perfect, in that it is full-time and we prefer part-time. But that means that its other imperfection – only for a month and not a year – is actually an advantage. At the beginning of October she should be offered another job at Lavis, which we hope will be part-time. So on Thursday Daniele and Pinuccia went to pre-school together for their first day, and I had an almost empty nest at home. “Almost”, because infants’ school does not start until the 12th, so I look after Stefania (and try to do a bit of work) whilst the others are at school for another week.

Today there was the first morning service of the church at Rovereto. Having 15 out of about 70 adults leave the church should have left quite a few holes in the hall at Trento for our service, and maybe a feeling of emptiness. But quite a few new people have started coming in the meantime, so although the numbers were a bit down on the average, they were not much lower. So there was not much of an empty nest feeling at all.

Another highlight of the week was participating this afternoon in the anniversary celebrations of the federation of the bands in the province of Trento. Not all the bands could come, but in any case being a part of a parade of 60 bands dressed in various colourful uniforms was fun. And then the final concert all together of well over 1000 people in the main square of Trento was spectacular. It made me dream of a future event, when all the 60 churches that will have been planted in all the small towns spread out in the province, will come together at Trento one Sunday for a celebration together and to worship as one.

This week about half of the church groups will be restarting, including for us the Wednesday night group and the Sunday School. Pinuccia is also running a Sunday School teachers’ meeting tomorrow night, and I will have a meeting for the Youth Group leaders later on. So pray for this restart of activities as well.

There were two particularly noteworthy events in the past couple of days. The first was a picnic for the Youth Group after church. This was to wrap up the group’s activities for this school year. But personally, it probably wrapped up as well my youth ministry for good. The person that I have been leading with this year will be taking over, and someone else will be helping her. Of course God might think differently, but I can’t see myself being directly involved in that age group again – I am getting a bit old to hang around teenagers now. I am thankful that once again I was able to start something new in the church, train someone to take over, and then leave for other ministries, which is what my primary role in the church is. I thank God also for the 13 years of youth ministry that I have led, spread out over six groups in the past 28 years, and for the many opportunities that he has given me to serve the people in this groups.

On Friday there was my annual meeting with the two church elders, to talk a bit about the church in the past year and in the next year, and more specifically my role in it. So we talked especially about the various groups I lead or have general oversight of. With the changes in the church due to the church plant at Rovereto, and the people who will be serving there instead of at Trento, my role in the church will be a bit different. I will not be leading anything new to replace the Youth Group, so will have less regular commitments. I will instead be more involved in the help I give to the other groups, regularly visiting them and talking more often with the leaders. Especially the new generation of leaders that are coming up in the church. So I will not in fact be completely leaving the Youth Group ministry. But I will be helping the leaders there rather than being directly involved in the lives of the teenagers. I’m looking forward to this change as a new challenge, something different to do rather than continuing to do what I have done for the past few years.

We just had our recital weekend. First there was the end of year production of the dance school that Stefania has gone to this year. Two hours of children learning to dance… Stefania wanted to pull out, because she was scared of dancing in front of an audience, so it was a good teaching opportunity about depending on God. Then there was the annual Sunday School presentation, which was a time for telling the church what God has been doing in the lives of the children this year. It was also a time to say goodbye to quite a few children: some who are going to be the Sunday School at Rovereto, some who are moving away, and some who will be “graduating” to the Youth Group (and which made one of the parents a bit emotional, realising her little girl was not so little any more and would be leaving the Sunday School). So there will be a noticeably smaller Sunday School next year.

It is only the beginning of May, but the end of year activities have started up, even though the summer break does not begin until the beginning of July. On Tuesday we had our first family rite of passage, as Stefania received her “diploma” for having completed pre-school, in preparation for her starting infants’ school in September. Then next Saturday Stefania will be participating in the end of year recital for her dancing school. It is the first of what I am sure will be many similar events. On Sunday there will be the end of year presentation of the Sunday School. For us this is a big event, because Pinuccia and I are both heavily involved in the organisation and preparation. It is mostly ready, although I still have to finish up a video. It will also be the first Sunday School presentation for Daniele, and he and Stefania have a small part in the choreography of the song together with the rest of the class of the smaller children.

There should also be some preparation for our time in Australia. I said last week that I should have been starting this week, but it just did not happen. I don’t see it happening this week either. Hopefully once the Sunday School presentation is out of the way, I can start work on it.

On Monday there was an important day for my ministry this year: I completed the preparation of the Bible studies that I am doing in Acts, and of the outlines that I prepare for the other group leaders. This means that until the church activities restart in September after the summer break, I just have to go over my notes for each study that I will do. Hence I will have a lot more time for other projects, especially developing the LaParola web site and computer program, that have been more or less static since last August. It did not quite work out this week however. Partly because there were some other small jobs to do, like catching up on some ECM business and replying to e-mails. And partly because there were a lot of extra commitments this week: I visited the Tuesday cell group to talk about the Rovereto church plant, went to the church committee meeting, and did a Sunday School lesson. So I ended up with five nights out in a row, which I have not had to do for a while. But this week is looking good, with just the normal Wednesday night Bible study to go over, and the study for the Youth Group to prepare. So I hope to start an intense period of computer ministry.

One advantage of doing the Sunday School lesson (for the 7-10 year olds) is that every time Stefania and Daniele ask to receive the same lesson on Sunday afternoon. (They get a different lesson for the 3-6 year olds in the morning.) So Pinuccia and I get to do a two child Sunday School, which we love doing.

This week is also the beginning of a seven week campaign from Altrimenti, the social-cultural arm of the church, with the first of five public meetings on the theme of “Liberty” on Thursday afternoon, and a mime show at the theatre on Sunday on “Human Rights”. Pray that we would in this way reach out to our community.