News and prayer information from Richard and Pinuccia Wilson

We have been in Australia for a few days now, with just the last effects of jet lag to go away yet. Although it is hard to distinguish between the effects of jet lag, and of having small children who wake up a lot earlier than you would like to. In any case, we have been able to do a fair bit with our family already, and we are already seeing improvements in Stefania’s English as she gets practice at making up sentences.

Today and yesterday were Stefania’s and Daniele’s big surprises for the trip. Last time we were here they got to know some Australian culture, and we brought some DVDs back to Italy with us. So in Italy they have been really enjoying the Wiggles and Colin Buchanan over the last 16 months. [For my non Australian readers: they are famous singers of children's songs.] And so have Pinuccia and I – since it has been 18 years since I lived in Australia, and I didn’t have children, I had vaguely heard of these two artists but I had never heard them perform or knew much about them. But they have been part of my inspiration and idea sources for the songs I have been writing for my Sunday School children. Before we left to come to Australia, I saw that both of them had Christmas concerts on at Sydney whilst we were here. So yesterday afternoon we went to the Olympic Park to a Wiggles’ concert, and today we went into the city for a walk around and some shopping, and for a concert by Colin at the cathedral. It was a joy to see the pleasure and the excitement beaming out of our children’s faces as they realised the nature of their surprises – one of the joys of being a parent, of course, is to give joy to your children. It was all fairly tiring for them, and us, and tomorrow we will have a rest day at home (although that does include a trip to the nearby park and one to a swimming pool). In fact, Daniele went to sleep half way through the noise and lights of the Wiggles’ concert, and then again just before Colin’s concert so that he got only the second half of that one.

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.

Although there has been good warm weather for a while now, as there was the annual church meeting last month, today was the first time that we could hold our monthly church lunch at the park this year. I find that they are some of the more enjoyable church activities, as we relax, and talk and play together. And of course we eat well also! Although it is a bit difficult with two small children, as needing to keep track of and follow them both reduces the possibilities of talking with others. This time there was a few extra people, since they was a visit from Open Doors, and about a dozen people came from church in Alto Adige, the part of Italy between us and Austria.

It has in fact been a relaxing, family orientated week end. Apart from the fact that my in-laws are here, there was a public holiday on Friday, so Pinuccia and Stefania were at home, and we took the opportunity to all go to the circus together. Tomorrow the teachers at Stefania’s school have a trade union meeting, so we will all be together in the morning. Then we have to take Daniele to the hospital in the early afternoon for a post operation check up (although he is still fine). Apart from that, it will be more visitors time, with the director of ECM Australia staying for 3 days, and then Pinuccia’s aunt, uncle and some cousins visiting on Sunday.

Daniele arrived at the hospital at 7.30am, was in the operating theatre at 8.30, and then left the hospital at 5.30. The surgeon discovered that the problem was not an undiscended testicle, but the testicle did not exist at all. So he just removed the tissue that should have made it, fixed the another, and Daniele will go through life with only one. But he reacted and recovered well. He had already woken up from the anesthetic when they took him book to Pinuccia after the operation, and after a couple of drips was eating and running around with his usual energy. And now, tonight, he seems just normal; we just have to be a bit careful around that region of his body for a week. Thanks for all your prayers for this.

Main prayer point this week: Daniele’s operation which is due on Tuesday morning (European time). Pray that it will actually happened this time, that he doesn’t get sick or there are other unexpected obstacles like the other times. It will actually be a bit easier to organise this time, because Pinuccia’s parents are staying with us (the third lot of relatives in the past month), so that we can leave Stefania in bed whilst I drive Pinuccia and Daniele to the hospital, and then get back in time to wake up Stefania to go to school.

Today the Sunday School kept me busy. It was my turn to do the lesson for the middle class, so that kept me out of the second half of the service. But I also had to do some videoing of a song that we will use at the end of year presentation. So in the first half of the service I was with the youngest and middle classes, playing the keyboard, running the video camera and recording the audio on my computer at the same time. This all meant quite a load to carry into church and to set up. Then after the service we invited the middle class to our house for lunch, and in the afternoon did some more recording and videoing. So now I have quite a bit of video editing to do to put all the pieces together.

Daniele must have figured out that his operation is coming up, because he promptly got sick and has had a fever for the last three days. The operation is still 10 days away, so it should pass and he should be well enough by the time it is due to take place.

At last night’s Bible study, we had reports from two of our travellers who had come back to Trento this week. One was the lady who God had prepared to work with the Chinese people at Trento – see this post for the original story. Last month she was in Hong Kong, but also went to China to visit her priest friend, where she also ended up talking to a group of 40 university students about the Gospel. As she said last night, if someone had said to her 4 years ago that she would be teaching the Bible at Trento and evangelising university people in mainland China, both in Mandarin (which she didn’t know), she would have laughed at the suggestion. But God has prepared her to do wonderful things for him. The other person was one of a group of 8 people from the church who went to a big European youth missionary conference (about 6000 people) in Germany over Easter. Since she has only been a Christian for a year, it was a big change for her after just being involved in the church at Trento, and in some Italian GBU meetings.

The other news, which I will remind you about again later, is that Daniele has been booked in for his operation again (our fourth attempt), and it should be on the 28th. So today he had his pre-operation blood tests, and next week will be check by the anesthetist.

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.

My regular readers may have noticed that I have been off the air for the last few days. Unfortunately, on short notice my old server could no longer host my site, so I have had to transfer it to a new server and reconstruct the site there. It is mostly up and running now, although in the Italian part of laparola.net (which is the main part of the site) there are still a couple of things I need to fix up. In this blog, I lost my last post (which was written after my last weekly back up) and for some reason all the categories of the messages.

To catch up then… The main point of the lost post was that Daniele’s operation was cancelled again. This time it was because he had a cold and was all blocked up, which is not a good time to have a general anaesthetic. So now we will try again in Spring.

Then last week I was in Madrid for one of the regular six monthly meetings of the leaders of the mission. (I usually have problems with my web sites when I am away, and it is hard for me to do anything about it.) The meeting went well, but it was the worst trip I have ever made. I have to go Verona-Rome-Madrid when I make my trips there, and there was industrial action by the ground staff of the airport at Rome which delayed everything. On my way to Madrid, the plane gave up waiting for the luggage to be loaded and left anyway, so all the passengers arrived with nothing. My bag arrived the following morning. On the way back, the plane was late and I missed my connection to Verona, so the airline put me in a hotel to get some sleep (although I didn’t get there until 1am), and I caught the first flight on the next morning, which was also one hour late. But I did get home by 1pm – which did create some problems for Pinuccia and her work as well.

Anyway, it is all back to normal again now, and this week should have all the usual events and I hope no out of the ordinary problems to look after.

It was back to normal work this week – even to the extent that the Rovereto Bible study got cancelled again, as two of the members were away. On the other hand, the Wednesday night group grew with a new member (actually two, but one was a transfer from another group). So it is getting close to the usual maximum size, which the other two groups at Trento have already gone over. As well, on Thursday the ladies’ Bible study (that Pinuccia leads, although this month someone else did the study) had a record attendance of twenty women.

The other news is that Daniele’s operation has been scheduled for January 27th, so hopefully it will happen at the third attempt.