News and prayer information from Richard and Pinuccia Wilson

This week was a continuation of what was mentioned in the past couple of messages. In the Wednesday Bible study group, we continued talking about our vision and plans for the Rovereto (and other new) church plants, and in the Saturday group we started this conversation. In the family we kept talking about the choices for Stefania’s schooling next year. We still have not quite reached a final decision, although since the deadline for enrolments is tomorrow morning we will be deciding soon. During the week, Pinuccia also hosted and chaired a planning meeting for the church children’s camp in June. We will actually be in Australia and so not at the camp, but Pinuccia is helping the people who will be running the camp with its organisation.

A couple of things for this week. I will be at Madrid from Tuesday to Thursday with ECM meetings, so life will be a bit harder for Pinuccia as she takes over my roles in the family as well. On Saturday afternoon there will be a missionary meeting in the church. This is part of our emphasis on mission in our church this year, and especially in the next 3 months. Both the world wide mission that we should be involved in, and the local mission of our church, that is the church plant at Rovereto.

It’s already time to start thinking about school for next year (ie in September)! This week we received the forms for Pinuccia to apply for a relief teaching position, for Daniele to return to preschool, and (the big one) for Stefania to go to infants school. We already have to make some choices for Stefania, as there are a few different possibilities for hours and programs at the two infants school at Lavis (which are about 100m apart, and even closer to home than the preschool is). We have already thought a bit about it, but next Thursday there is an information evening, so I will listen and ask a few things, and then we will hand in the forms for the next phase of Stefania’s life.

Not only did each of the other three family members get their forms for school next year, but they all got the flu as well. No doubt they caught it from preschool, as a large number of the children and teachers were missing by the end of the week. I am still resisting! It was not only at our school, as there were three children out of a possible 22 in the two younger classes of the Sunday School today – although not all were sick, some were absent for other reasons. So I will try again to do my lesson next week. Yesterday was also our monthly day without commitments, which we have kept free to do something together as a family. We had planned to go to a children’s theatre together, but it turned out instead that we could only be sick together on our family day.

We have made it back home, after another small adventure. Not as big as the volcano induced odyssey a few months ago, but enough to keep us relying on God. We were supposed to leave from Catania airport at 8.30pm, but due to fog there where no flights arriving or leaving. After having our flight cancelled and reinstated a couple of times, and the lifting of the fog, we left almost 6 hours late, and finally arrived home at 6am this morning instead of around midnight. Doing this with two small children kept it more interesting, although as I said in my comment on the April trip, I thank God that they travel so well and did not complain even once. Stefania and Daniele then slept until almost midday, missing the first day of preschool after the break, but Pinuccia had to go anyway in the afternoon to work – so far she has survived.

Our last day in Sicily was also marked by a typical extended family lunch together. This time however outside on the veranda, where many started complaining about the heat. Not usual for the middle of winter! Sicily certainly has some advantages compared to the rest of Europe. But if it is a bit hot in winter, you can imagine what it is like in summer. Anyway, it was good for all of us to get some vitamin D before returning to Trento, and also for the children to have the opportunity to run around and play outside, which they rarely do here because of a lack of both sun and nearby open spaces.

So now it is back to work, although I still have quite a bit to catch up on before I can get into the normal activities. This Saturday afternoon there will be meeting of the Youth Group, which will be the first time that I will do a study with this group, so you could pray for that as well.

Today was the Sunday School’s Christmas market, raising funds for a school in India. It went well, with the children understanding and presenting the needs in other places of the world, and how much they have to be thankful to God for. I get the feeling that this generation is a lot more socially aware than I was when I was their age. It was a lot of work for a lot of people, and of course Pinuccia had a lot to do supervising everything. I looked after a lot of the practical and technical details, as well as the song that the children sang. It was a good thing that I kept to my policy of never trusting technology, and had brought along a back up of everything. Because the church computer was not available, and I had to use what I had brought with me.

In this period there are, of course, a lot of end of year and Christmas activities. Pinuccia, Stefania, and Daniele had their school end of year concert/presentation on Wednesday, and I the band Christmas concert on Saturday. There should have been a meeting for the Ladies’ group in the church as well, but it got cancelled because of the snow. This week we have a few more thing to wrap up, and then early on Thursday morning we will be leaving for a couple of weeks in Sicily with Pinuccia’s family. Pray for this time away as well.

Half of the bread sticks that were cooked

This weekend was bread stick time. Whilst one group from the Sunday School was making biscuits in another location, a group at our house put their hand to bread stick making – all for a good cause, which will be mentioned in next week’s message. So after a lot of rolling and twirling, and 7 hours of continuous oven operation on Saturday afternoon, we had about 400 bread sticks in four different varieties. Then on Sunday afternoon it was time to sort out the various types, separate them into packets of 8, pretty up the packets and put labels on them. All good fun and a good time working with others, especially with the children and youth who came.

It was mostly an at home week this week. First of all because none of the non weekly meetings I often have came up this week. And then the Wednesday Bible study was the first casualty of the snow this year and got cancelled. So I had an extremely rare five nights at home in a row, from Sunday to Thursday, until Friday when there was band practice (and a bit of snow, but not enough). Even this weekend was unusual, being the one Saturday every month in which there is neither the fortnightly Bible study group nor the monthly Youth Group meeting. So we took advantage as a family, with open day at the fire station yesterday (which the children were excited about), and the annual market day at Lavis today (which Pinuccia finds a bit more interesting).  Last night there was also a concert in town put on by the social arm of the church, which saw quite a few guests and visitors.

Next Saturday however it will be back to work. The Sunday School children will be cooking bread sticks (at our house) and biscuits (at another house) which will be sold on the 19th to raise funds for a school in India. So we will be busy preparing and doing that, and then half way through I will have to sneak out to go to the Bible study that will be on at the same time.

One of the advantages of leading a Youth Group is getting to do all the fun activities that you would not otherwise do. So this afternoon I went ice skating for the first social activity of the group that we started a couple of months ago. It is interesting discovering what gets you excited and joyful. For me today it was finding myself skating with a group of 10 youth (between the teenagers of the Youth Group and some of the older Sunday School children), and three adults committed to making sacrifices to help the youth grow in their faith and in their relationships. After years of seeing one or two or three youth go through the church at a time, with few peers to give them support, it was exciting to be with this big group who really look after each other. It is a big indication of the changes that the church is going through.

Another activity of the week was thinking about the coordination of the ministries of the church. With lots going on and no-one knowing everything, due to the growth of the congregation, it is easy for us to run into problems. So for example we managed to organise three different activities for the same time next Saturday week, and quite a few people would have had to go to all three. So I with some others have been working on ways to coordinate better the special events, but also the normal running of the various groups in the church, so that we can serve God together. I will now be the central information point for the organisational aspects of this coordination, although the ministerial aspects will still depend on the elders and the church committee.

I had a lot more time with the children this week, as Pinuccia had a meeting after school on Thursday, then on Friday when there was no school so the children were home, she had to go out both in the morning and in the afternoon, and then on Saturday another 5 hours in the afternoon/evening for a church meeting. So it was fun doing things with Stefania and Daniele in these last few days, especially as they regularly get new interests as they come across something different. Last week it was astronomy, this week it was firemen, and tonight they started on fashion shows. And today it was also Sunday School, which was gratifying for us. Stefania had her usual lesson this morning, whilst Daniele, who had a slight fever from a cold and stayed home with Pinuccia, had a personal Sunday School class. At lunch time they asked for another Sunday School class, so in the afternoon we did the lot together: prayer, singing, lesson, craft, prayer. It meant that I was able to repeat the lesson that I had done with my class this morning. Hence I was finally able to teach, not once but twice, on Luke 5, which is a great passage in Italian. Peter says, “I am a sinner (peccatore), leave me”. Jesus replies, “No, I won’t leave you, you instead follow me and I will make you a fisherman (pescatore) of people”. So Jesus changes everything: instead of being sent away he invites us to him, transforming us (as is needed to come to him) from peccatore to pescatore. I first thought of using this word play more than 17 years ago, when I heard someone that was learning Italian mix up the two words. And I have been waiting since then for an opportunity to teach Luke 5 and use it. Finally I’ve done it. Even better, the children understood and appreciated it.

We had a successful first study with the Youth Group on Saturday afternoon. It is always a challenge to get all the teenagers at the same place at the same time, and then back home again, as they are spread out in three corners of the province, and most travel about an hour each way to get to the meeting. But they want to make this sacrifice, which is encouraging for us. So keep praying for this group. It will also not be easy to plan future meetings, because Saturday afternoons for the next couple of months will be full with other church activities – including the Bible study group every second week which I lead, which we need to dovetail into the program of the Youth Group. More about the special church activities in the future, as they come up, but next Saturday afternoon at Rovereto there will be the annual national meeting for an organisation that promotes prayer amongst women for their children and their schools (Moms In Touch). This movement is having keep a big effect on our church, helping many to pray regularly with others.

Various happenings for this week and next:

1. Next Saturday afternoon at our house there will be a meeting for the new Youth Group. It will actually be the second meeting, but the first that I will be going to (since I was in Spain last time), and the first study. So for me it feels like it is just starting now. So please pray for this time together.

2. Yesterday I received the following e-mail:

I wanted to tell you that I have begun to study the Bible, using your Internet site. I am happy to be able to count on your help.

Just an encouraging remind for me that my site on the Bible (http://www.laparola.net/english.html) is used and helpful for Italians to get to know the Bible better. Unfortunately in this period, with a lot of Bible studies to prepare, I am not able to work on improving the site, but it is sitting out there in cyberspace doing its job anyway. And I do keep up with the e-mail correspondence that I receive as a result of the site.

3. This week turned out to be astronomy week at our house. We were reading one of Stefania’s books to her, and it started talking about stars and planets. She was really interested, so we found other material (books, DVDs, a planetarium program on the computer) on them, and she really enjoyed all of it. Unfortunately, when we went out to look at the real thing, we were just able to see one star. It is a problem with living in the city, especially with 2000 meter high walls (the mountains) blocking out most of the horizon. We will probably have to wait until we go to Sicily at the end of the year before we can get her to admire God’s handiwork in the heavens.