News and prayer information from Richard and Pinuccia Wilson

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.

Tomorrow I’m off to Madrid, for one of my twice yearly meetings for ECM leaders there. But this time it will be a bit different, because as well as the usual 2-3 day planning meeting, there will be 5 days of leadership training. So I will be away from Monday afternoon to Tuesday afternoon of next week, which is the longest I have ever been away from the family, and which does create difficulties for Pinuccia to manage everything by herself. Thanks to God she is working at Lavis this year, at Stefania and Daniele’s school, otherwise it would have been almost impossible. Another unfortunate aspect of this trip is that I will miss Stefania’s fifth birthday next week, so her celebrations have had to be delayed a couple of days. But there are positive aspects to the trip as well! I am sure it will help the ECM ministry in Italy and my own work with others.

The other thing that I will miss is the first meeting of the new youth group. After a two year gap, we are restarting this ministry with eight teenagers. However, it is a lot harder to get them together than the old group, both for geographical reasons (two live more than an hour north-west of Trento, two others more than an hour to the south, another half an hour to the east) and because of other commitments (eg most have school six days a week). We have settled on a Saturday afternoon per month for a study, with a few social outings as well. But the only possible starting date was this Saturday, when I will not be there. There is another lady that will be helping us with all the meetings and that we will be training, and another that will be a support person to the group, so they will look after this introductory meeting. Then there will be the first meeting with a study next month. So pray for these meetings, and especially for these teenagers as they pass through an important stage in their life, making many decisions that will have an effect for the rest of their life.

Since activities at church are restarting, today was very busy for me trying to organise, at least in part, three different groups. Today was the first day of the Sunday School, so although I did not have to go to the meeting, I had to help prepare the room before the service, and hand out information leaflets to the parents before and after the service. A big change this year is that we are going to start up a teenagers’ group again, after a pause of a couple of years in which there were not enough teenagers. (We kept them in the Sunday School instead.) So there will be up to eight teenagers meeting once a month on a Saturday afternoon at our house. We also have someone else helping us, and who we will be training in Christian ministry. So I was busy after the service talking with the parents to get those meetings organised. The third group to organise was the welcomers’ group, for a meeting to talk about how their ministry is going. So there were a lot of people to try to get to talk to. The other fact that kept me busy was by birthday today, so there were a lot of “best wishes” that I had to reply to.

The peace and quiet, on the other hand, were due to the fact that it was Daniele’s first day at Sunday School. So I was able to listen to the sermon, the time of prayer, and the end of the service, without having to think about keeping the children entertained. What a big difference!

This week, as well as the Bible study on Wednesday which started last week, there is the first of the fortnightly Bible studies for the upper Valsugana group – the one with 12 adults and 11 children less than five years old. There is also a church committee meeting on Monday, with some important decisions for the future of the church. Pray for that. And on Thursday my mother will be returning to Australia, after a great time with us.

If I was exhausted in my last message, I am destroyed this time. (In Italian they say “destroyed” for very tired, but I have a doubt that you can’t say it in English.) From Wednesday to Saturday this week there was the church children’s camp. With a lot of last minute preparation at the beginning of the week, I was not able to work on the sermon that I had to prepare, as I had been hoping. So despite being tired from the camp, I had to do a late night on Saturday to prepare that. As I result, I have been feeling off all day today (Sunday) from lack of sleep, but somehow managed to get to Rovereto in the afternoon and give the sermon at the monthly service there. Early to bed tonight however!

The children’s camp, with 17 children from 7 to 16 years old, went well. It was a bit frustrating for me, because even though I was only officially half a teacher there (Pinuccia being a half as well, and we took turns looking after our children when we weren’t “on duty” at the camp), there was always the desire to do more and spend more time with the participants at the camp. There were the usual problems (of discipline and relationships) that you would expect from any such camp, but nothing bad, and we thank God for that.

This week maybe I will be able to rest a bit. With the run up to summer, my activities have diminished. For example, the group at Rovereto has started its summer break, as a large number of the group has already left on holidays or other trips. So I will actually be at home more evenings than I will be out, which is quite rare for me.

For a variety of reasons, both Pinuccia and I are quite tired out now. The main reason is that Daniele has for a couple of weeks consistently woken up early, around 6am. Except on the public holiday last Wednesday, and today (Sunday), when we could have slept in a bit, and he woke up at 5.40! You would think that it would mean that he would go to sleep earlier at night, or have a nap during the day, but no, he just keeps going. So the lack of sleep is starting to tell on us. As well as that, he picked the worst period of the year to do this, as Pinuccia especially has had a lot of extra work preparing two meetings for the end of the Sunday School year (although they are finished now) and the children’s camp that starts in 10 days’ time. Then there are end of year dinners and events for the various groups we are involved with in the church, for Stefania’s school and for Pinuccia’s school. I also have had some extra ECM work to do, with a 2 hour trip each way on Saturday for a meeting, and people from the mission visiting the next two days.

Anyway, there were some events I asked prayer for. One was the end of year trip to the lake for the Saturday cell group, which was a pleasant time with others in a similar situation to us (ie all with small children). And the friends from outside of the church that came kept our focus outward looking as well. On the other hand, I have heard on the grapevine that no-one from outside of the church came to the evangelistic afternoon at Rovereto. It will be interesting to hear in the next few days from those that organised it how they will respond.

Two major events to pray for this week:

• On Saturday evening there is a singing worship meeting for the church (although open to everybody), also to learn to sing better and to learn a few new songs.
• On Sunday there is a baptismal service, with seven people being baptised. I think that is the most we have ever had in one year, although they were not all converted in the last 12 months.

This was a week for thinking through the direction of the church for the next year. One important change that was decided was the continued push in the church planting efforts at Rovereto. After the summer break we will move from monthly services to fortnightly services. And then the following year, weekly services, which will mean a group (of the people from Rovereto, as well as some of those from Trento) detaching itself from the church at Trento, to be sent as missionaries to form the church at Rovereto. At the same time there will be further strengthening of the small group that meets at Rovereto, and further evangelistic activities. It is exciting to see this project go ahead. But I will no longer be a direct part of it. With Suzanne Bikker (the missionary who moved to Rovereto last summer) ready to take over the Bible studies, and others in the church committed to serving there, I am no longer needed. I do feel a bit of a loss, after investing about five years of ministry at Rovereto starting and leading the small group there. But it also gives me a great joy to me able to leave it. Leaving the group is what I have been working towards for these last five years. In fact, of the seven cell groups in the church, I will now have started and left four of them, and I am looking to leaving another next year.

This of course means I will have more time next year. Which has quickly been filled up. There has been a slight change in the direction of both the church and of me personally. The church is looking at setting up a series of courses, that cater for people in particular stages of the Christian life (examining Christianity, new Christians, starting to serve, mature Christians), as well as continuing the cell groups that are mixed. So I will be starting to run some of these courses, naturally along with somebody else each time that I will be training to do it next time. The other change is my desire to be not only doing ministry with groups, but also discipling individuals. There are a few people that I have thought of that would be good to meet regularly with, although since the biggest need of the church is to have more leaders for the multiplying groups I will probably concentrate on some possible future leaders. Of course, ending one ministry and starting two others does not work out mathematically, when I already have all my evenings busy. So I will have to actually see how it all works out in practice when these things start happening in September.

Today there was the end of year presentation by the Sunday School after the church service. That kept Pinuccia and I busy, and slightly stressed, for the last week (and more). But it went well, to show the rest of the church what happens when all these children leave the service each week. My class showed a video about the life of Saul (which we had studied this year) that we shot a couple of weeks ago, as they acted out the words to a song that I had written and they sang. It came out fairly well, too. There was also over €500 raised for a Christian school in India, mostly through the children donating some of their own toys, which were then sold. This is a great way of getting them to understand sacrificial giving, since they had to give up something of their own, rather than only raising money or relying on their parents to give them something to give.

After not having been able to listen to five church services in a row in the last four weeks (due to giving Sunday School lessons, preparing the video and another song for the presentation, leading the service or preaching), I am looking forward to having a holiday next Sunday and just sitting and listening. There is in fact the last day of Sunday School for the academic year, at which 8 new children have been invited, and who will start Sunday School next September. That was a very fertile period of 7 months! But I declared myself unavailable for that meeting. Since Daniele is one of the eight, I will even get to listen to the sermon without been distracted by having to try to keep Daniele amused the whole time.

On Sunday afternoon there are also a couple of other important events to pray for. The Young Adults have organised an evangelistic evening at Rovereto, and went to all the schools yesterday morning to hand out invitations. About the same time, the Saturday group for young families in the Valsugana valley is trying to organise an outing together with their friends – although it still has to be confirmed that people can come, it is hard for families with toddlers to be sure about what they will be able to do.

This is the time of year when, between the better Spring weather that encourages outdoor activities and socialisation, and the approaching end of school and church year that encourages end of year activities, there are a lot of extra things to do. Last week Pinuccia was out twice for an end of year pizza, once with the other teachers in her class at the pre-school and once with the women in the church.

This week there is on Sunday the end of year presentation of the Sunday School, including raising funds for a school in India. This is creating quite a bit of work (and a bit of stress) for Pinuccia to organise it. On Saturday, there is a distribution at all the high schools of Rovereto of a magazine and invitation to an evangelistic event on the 6th. I will not be involved in that – not only was I not invited, I was told not to go as I am too old! But it has been great to see the group of young adults very much involved in the organisation and doing of this distribution and evangelistic evening. It is the first time that they as a group have done something like this for others and have served the church (in its vision for Rovereto). There is also this week for me a meeting tomorrow night with the elders to talk about the program for the cell groups after the summer break, and what will be my commitments and responsibilities, and then another meeting on Thursday for all the cell groups leaders to talk about these plans. So looking at next year as we start closing this year.