News and prayer information from Richard and Pinuccia Wilson

With the two public holidays this week falling on Easter Monday and the following Sunday, we did not get much benefit from them. But with school on holiday for Pinuccia and the children for eight days over Easter, we did get the holiday feeling. Especially with the eight relatives visiting at the beginning of the week. So we went to the lake one day, and Verona the next – holidays and enjoyable, although not terribly relaxing, as we looked after all these people.

Today there was more running around for me trying to juggle commitments. In the morning there was church, which included doing some things to organise the youth group meeting at our house next Saturday and the end of year Sunday School spectacular on the 15th. Then it was to the park for the monthly church picnic – always one of the highlights of my month. However this time I had to get Pinuccia to give me a lift at 1.45 to the town next to Lavis, where there was a festival and I played in a concert with the band. Just after I finished and had started walking home, Pinuccia rang to say the family was coming to visit the festival, so back I went to wait for them. And then we had a pleasant time together.

Now that there is less than a month to go until our flight to Australia, the other activity to start this week is the preparation for our time there. I already have thought a bit about what I want to say about our last three years in Italy and our future here, but I have to put it in a bit of order and prepare the necessary support material.

If last Sunday was a bit relaxed, staying at home to look after Stefania, today is the opposite. With nine people in the house all week, the first challenge was getting them all ready and to church on time. I was able to participate in the first half hour of the service, then drove for an hour to the airport at Verona to pick up three more relatives – my brother- and sister-in-law with a nephew. By the time we all got home and the typical Sicilian family Sunday lunch feast was prepared (including a few Sicilian delicacies brought specially for the event by the three new arrivals), it was lunch at 2pm. And was still lunch at 3pm. After a special home Sunday School, since it was not on in church today for Easter, we left at 4pm for a walk around Trento. Now the Sicilian women are all in the kitchen preparing dinner (women’s liberation never reached Sicily), which is going to be fairly late as well. But early in any case by Sicilian standards, where a 10pm dinner is not unusual, and later still in summer.

After a week of tiring ourselves out being tourist guides with the current guests, we will probably exhaust ourselves completely in the next two days, with a trip to the lake tomorrow and to Verona on Tuesday. The first group of guests leave on Tuesday evening, the second group on Wednesday, then it is back to normal with school resuming on Thursday. But with Pinuccia’s parents remaining for a few more weeks, who are a great help around the house and with the children.

I’m sending a message earlier than usual this time, since I’m at home instead of church this morning. Stefania had a bit of a fever when she woke up, and Pinuccia had to go to church to teach at the Sunday School, so I get a bit of father and daughter time.

This week will be another big one, although not for church events. It is going to be a family orientated time, with Pinuccia’s parents, two nieces with one boyfriend coming to visit, to be joined next Sunday by her sister, brother-in-law and nephew. Then on Tuesday and Wednesday most of them will be going back to Sicily, so I have 4 trips to the airport at Verona to make in the next few days. Pinuccia’s parents will then remain for a few more weeks. The whole family is pretty excited by this visit, and with eight days of Easter holidays for the pre-school, we will have a lot of time at home to enjoy with them.

Having the anniversary on a Sunday, like we did today, doesn’t happen often, but it makes it a bit different, a bit easier to celebrate. Especially since today was the annual town festival at Lavis. So after church, and after I played in a concert with the town band, we could have a pleasant stroll together as a family in the festival atmosphere. We could even celebrate as a couple towards the end of the day. We got some ice cream from the best ice cream parlour in the area, which is downstairs from the first house we lived in. So after the children went to sleep, we indulged in some fine gelato together, like the day after our 0th anniversary.

A busy few days, caused especially by a two day celebration for Pinuccia’s birthday. It took us a couple of days, because we had to fit in some some visits from a guest, with some combined church/mission meetings, and the youth group meeting at our house. We were also supposed to take Stefania to a practice for her dancing school’s part in Thursday’s parade for Carnevale, but with everything else going on we forgot all about it… But Pinuccia enjoyed her stretched celebrations. It was interesting to see Stefania really understand now what celebrating someone else’s birthday means, so she did some things for Pinuccia of her own initiative, rather than only what she was told to do.

With a virus hitting the Valsugana again, the a lot of the children of the cell group there were sick, whereas ours (being at Trento) were still well. Hence we were the only family that were able to go to the meeting of the group yesterday, so it had to be cancelled. This meant however that we unexpectedly got one of those rare events, a free Saturday to spend with the family. Since it was a fine day, and a couple of days ago it had snowed in the mountains (but rained at Trento in the valley), it was perfect for a family outing to the ski fields, which we had not managed to do yet this winter. And Stefania did remember a few days ago that we hadn’t, and reminded us. We didn’t actually go skiing, but did get to make a snow man, throw snow balls, and ride on the toboggan.

Apart from the usual activities, this week’s main event is the (roughly) monthly youth group meeting on Saturday afternoon. It will be at our house, but I will not be leading it this time.

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.

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.

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.

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.