News and prayer information from Richard and Pinuccia Wilson

We arrived back home from Sicily on Friday afternoon. Just enough time to get unpacked, sort the house out, and have a bit of a rest, before the other three go back to school tomorrow. And I get back to preparing Bible studies, other meetings, and programming. As usual, a lot of our time in Sicily was spent with friends and relatives, eating a lot and having late nights. The nights certainly disrupted the children’s usual life style, although in some ways it did make life it a bit easier for me. I tended to go to bed at my normal time, but with the children exhausted and waking up a lot later than usual I could catch up on some rest and sleep in a bit, and still have time to get some work done before the rest of the family woke up.

This morning in church we heard a report from a group of young people that went to a large (3000 people) youth missionary congress in Germany over the New Year. There were eight from the church who went, together with two others from other churches at Trento and who attend the GBU group at the university. Since most of the participants read this on Facebook, I won’t go into the personal details. But it was great to hear each one of them say what they had learnt and experienced at the congress, and what helped them at this particular moment of their walk with God.

Finally, a message that I received late yesterday:

I read the Bible every night thanks to your mailing list and I am grateful! I had never read it before, except small pieces when I was a child, without understanding anything. How many questions that arise, and how many answers I find! Now I understand. Thank you, I would like to shake your hand and hug you with this e-mail.

We are back, after a good trip in a relatively short 36 hours from door to door. The sleeping patterns are still not quite right, as we all wake up early. But we go to sleep at the usual times, so it just means we sleep less without getting tired. Maybe the extra light and heat of the summer is a shock to the system after two consecutive winters.

It was fun to see the children get more and more excited as we got closer and closer to home, to the point of seeming to go mad from joy as we walked down the last stretch of road from the local train station to our house, greeting neighbours and friends from school as we went. Of course, the big highlight for them was returning to all their toys: it was like 5 Christmas and 5 birthdays all rolled into one. It seemed that within ten minutes that had pulled every single one of their games and toys out onto the floor.

Today is was of course back to work. With many away at the moment, I had to preach: the first time I have done that at Trento for a long time. Despite the jeg lag, I did survive. It did help that it was a sermon I had already done 4 times in Australia. So I just had to translate it and think of some different examples, which I had been able to do before we left. And at least I had not lost too much Italian, since I spoke Italian with Pinuccia whilst we were away. Only once did an English word almost get out. It was good to hear what had been going on in our absence, and finding out about changes in friends’ lives. I was encouraged to hear of a growth spurt in the Val di Non group, which doubled in size with a lot of new faces after struggling for some time. The church at Rovereto has started renting a room to meet in, and people from both churches have been preparing it. It was great also to see a lot of faces in church that I did not recognise – I will have to find out in the next few months if they were visitors or new people in the church.

This week I will be trying to get some preparation done for the start of the Bible studies in a few weeks’ time, as well as doing some computer ministry. However, with both children at home, and a desire to make the most of this summer time with them, I might not have as much time as I would like. Pinuccia will also be offered some jobs on Friday and Saturday, from which she will have to decide what she will be doing this year. So please pray that she will be offered the perfect job again this year, as she was a year ago.

We have now finished all of our official meetings and commitments. This means a bit of a sigh of relief and relaxing. It was good to go to church this morning, and just sit and listen and talk casually with people! We do have a couple of things to do in the next few days: visiting some friends from Trento now living in Sydney, and going to the Christian book shop and trying to resist the urge to buy, since we already have too many things that will have difficulty fitting into our suitcases. The test will be on Wednesday, when we start packing, with our departure set for Thursday evening. We will then be landing in Italy on Friday morning. So you could pray for this trip, as well as thank God for what we have done as well as have received in our time in Australia.

Another big Sunday today, with three sermons (at least it was the same sermon three times, which was a bit easier) and a presentation to do, and two trips back and forth across Sydney to get there. But it was good to be able to thank those who have been supporting me for so many years, and report back to them how God has answered their prayers for us lately.

It is also celebration time for us, with Daniele having a long weekend of parties for his fourth birthday tomorrow. On Saturday afternoon he got taken out by his uncle, and that evening there was the extended family party. Today he was given a cake by the church that we were visiting. Then tomorrow there is our family time, and then a small party in the morning with a rent-a-crowd of party goers. Since Daniele’s birthday is always when we are away, either in Sicily or in Australia, he never celebrates with his friends, but just as we do in Sicily we have managed to get together some children and other people that he knows for a party. Now we just have to figure how we are going to get the presents into the suitcases to take back to Italy.

With 10 days to go until our departure, we have finished our major meetings now. However, there are still 6 small groups where I or we will be talking at during this coming week. Then we will have finished all our presenting. You could also pray for Reachout, an important missionary conference next weekend. I will be going on Saturday to help out at the ECM stall, to talk to people who are considering missionary service.

Like most holidays, our time in Queensland tired us out! There was a lot to do between visiting relatives (with a highlight being seeing my 95 year old grandmother again), and being the tourist at the zoo, at the beach, and other places. And the weather in Queensland did not disappoint once again, with wonderful sunny and warm days. It will have to do as our summer!

After a day of unpacking, washing and packing at our apartment at Croydon, it was off to Carlingford for a weekend of meetings. Today I went to four services – speaking at two, and listening to two with the family. That was good, although once again a bit tiring.

This week, there are a couple of meetings in the first few days, then the luxury of two days off, before returning to Carlingford for the weekend for some family celebrations, and then preaching three times at Lalor Park church.

It seemed that most of this week was spent packing and unpacking. In the first half of the week we had some meetings around Carlingford, where my parents live, so we packed our things and stayed there for a few days. Then we brought it all back on Wednesday to the mission house we are staying at in Croydon. There were some more meetings and family activities out west on the weekend, so Friday was packing time again to move back to my parents’ place for a couple more nights. We left there on Sunday morning, have packed our bags again, to do a trip to Newcastle and back, dropping in on the way to a few friends around the city. So now we are back at Croydon again on Sunday night, in time to send a few loads through the washing machine. Because tomorrow is packing time again, as we head to Queensland for four days of “summer” holidays with some of my relatives. It will not be as hot as what we would have been getting back in Italy, but better than what we have been getting at Sydney lately!

Today was the biggest event for the children of our whole trip to Australia. We took them to a children’s festival at the Olympic Park, where they had fun for hours listening and dancing to the music, playing games, making crafts, etc. And the highlight of the highlight was that Hi-5 appeared and sang during the festival. Hi-5 is one of the major parts of their (small) Australian children’s culture. They enjoy the DVDs they have in Italy, and Stefania even dreamed about them last night, even though she did not know that she would be seeing them today. So when she and Daniele saw them live, they went wild from the excitement and enjoyment.

Another highlight this week for them was the four days of prayer for the mission that we went away to. Usually such a time would be difficult for them, as they would have had little to do and their parents would have been busy most of the time. But there was another family of small children present, and that made all the difference. Because for all the time that they are in Australia, they do not have any friends their own age. They meet lots of children, but going to a different Sunday School every week, and visiting lots of people once, means that they do not form any decent relationships with them. So four days for almost all of the time with other children was just right for them. It was also the first time I have heard them speak English to someone who is not a member of my family, as the friendship formed with the children was enough to overcome their shyness. We are all looking forward to going to visit the other family again whilst we are still in Sydney.

An important meeting to pray for this week is at Sydney Missionary and Bible College on Tuesday morning. As I talk about church planting in Europe, it is an important time to contribute to the students’ reflections on where they might serve God after they finish their studies. And who knows, maybe to do some recruitment as well. Then on Sunday there will be a long day to Newcastle and back to visit friends. There are three other meetings during the week to speak at as well.

With the school vacations this week, we have been busy mainly with holiday activities with the children and preparing material for the next couple of weeks. Thanks to the wonders of modern technology, I was also able to participate in a meeting for the mission with people in Europe, and to prepare and organise some other meetings.

Tomorrow the prayer days for the Australian section of European Christian Mission will be on, so we will be away for four days to pray for the mission and missionaries. There will also be the annual thanksgiving rally of the mission on Saturday at 2pm at Burwood Baptist – you are all welcome to come to that. Then on Sunday there will be the second big Australian surprise for the children, more on that next time to not ruin the surprise.

Part of the purpose of our trips to Australia is to give the children a first-hand taste of Australian culture. So this morning there was a one of the two big events for them: going to a Dorothy the Dinosaur concert, with dancing fairies as well. They are already quite big Wiggles fans, at least as much as they can be having only DVDs and Youtube to rely on, so to see some of the characters live was exciting for them. They were both up the front dancing away. And when one of the fairies personally greeted Stefania, well you can’t get much better than that. They have another big cultural event in a couple of weeks, but that will be another surprise for them, so I won’t say anything else about that now.

Since it is now school holidays, we don’t have any meetings to speak at this week. Everyone said it was not worth us coming during the holidays, as too many people would be away. So we will be going to a few school holiday activities for children instead. There is also a fair bit of preparation to do for the meetings in the following two weeks, which will not be the normal type meetings and so require something different.

Something we are planning now is a day trip to Newcastle on the 24th. I know some of my Newcastle friends read this. If you would like to see us that day, let me know and we’ll arrange a time.

We are back now from our 10 days in (mostly) sunny Canberra. People there kept complaining about the cold, but they don’t know what cold really is! Apart from that, it was great to see friends and churches there. As it was the last city I lived in before I went to Italy, I still have more friends there than anywhere else. It was enjoyable as well speaking at four Bible study groups on successive nights. I like being able to speak to small groups about what God is doing at Trento: it gives more personal contact, interaction, and feedback than speaking to a whole congregation. The children continue to amaze me with their adaptability as well. They were in a home away from home away from away, but just accepted it and enjoyed their time there, as well as not having problems at all the meetings we took them along to. They did of course get their own special times as well. It usually does not take much to satisfy them, so there were quite a few trips to the park. But they did really enjoy Questacon and Cockington Green as well, and kept asking to be taken back there.

Coming up are two more meetings with small groups during the week, and then a weekend with my family, including the Powerhouse museum, birthday celebrations, and a special surprise for Stefania and Daniele. I will not mention the surprise yet, so that none of my readers can ruin the surprise for them.