News and prayer information from Richard and Pinuccia Wilson

Today is packing day, getting ourselves and the car ready for the trip back tomorrow. This time we will be doing the whole trip on the road (apart from a short ride across the straight from Sicily to the mainland). 1500 km in 18 hours, which we will be doing in two days, spending tomorrow night in a hotel near Naples. Pray for a good trip, especially for the children.

In our time in Sicily, we have done what we wanted to do, including getting some rest. We have had some good time with family and friends as well. Earlier this week Daniele’s third birthday party was a success. I even managed to get a good day at the beach, at our last time there yesterday. Being on the Mediterranean Sea, usually the water is flat, and personally I find swimming there as exciting as having a bath. But sometimes the wind creates a bit of movement, and yesterday there were 30-50 cm waves. This usually frightens the Italians, who don’t like the water like that and don’t go swimming, but it was just enough for me to go body surfing and catch a couple of waves.

When we get back to Trento, it will of course be back to work for me. Apart from catching up on a few things that I have left undone whilst I am away, the next couple of weeks will be mostly dedicated to preparing Bible studies in Acts to do in the next few months, and getting a new version of my Bible computer program out.

We have been here in Sicily for a while now, and have a couple more weeks to go. It was constantly 40 degrees for the first part, although for the past few days there has been a cold snap, with a bit of wind and temperatures only reaching 30 degrees. With this heat, like most Sicilians we remain indoors most of the day, and around 4.30pm think about going out. We go to the beach two or three times a week (which of course the children enjoy), and often have late nights (as here people usually have dinner no earlier than 9pm) with family and friends. So Stefania and Daniele have been going to bed often in their clothes, going to sleep whilst we are out or in the car going home. At least it means that they sleep in late in the morning, so we are getting some good sleep as well. No more 6am wake up calls, like at home! We have already had family get togethers for the birthdays of two of Pinuccia’s siblings and her parents’ anniversary. Now we are planning for Daniele’s birthday party next week, in which we will recruit a “rent-a-crowd” of some children of Pinuccia’s cousins, so that Daniele can have some “friends” at his party. I’m also looking forward to my niece’s baptism next week. These holidays though are a bit hard on Stefania and Daniele. They enjoy playing with their cousins (even though they are all older), and going to the beach or the park. But the rest of the time they are a bit bored, especially being stuck inside with the heat. Stefania quite regularly tells us that she wants to go home.

I have also been able to get a bit of work done, at least keeping up with my e-mail. But I have also been able to make some progress on some projects I brought with me, updating my personal web site, creating some resources for my Bible study computer program, and doing some preparation for the Bible studies I will be leading in Acts when I return.

We arrived back at Trento yesterday afternoon after a long trip (36 hours from door to door), but it went smoothly. At least until the last part, when we got caught on the highway from the airport to our house in all the traffic going to ski, so that was a crawl. We were of course fairly tired from the trip. But there have been some friends staying at our house whilst we were away, and are leaving tomorrow, so they have been looking after us whilst we recover and get back to normal (thanks guys!).

We do have a bit more holidays left, as Wednesday is a public holiday which also marks the end of the Christmas/New Year period. So Stefania and Pinuccia both go back to school on Thursday. It also means that I do not have any Bible study groups meeting, although on Thursday night I will be going to the church committee meeting, and Friday is back to band practice again. I will therefore have a bit of time to catch up on some things I could not do whilst in Australia (mostly some corrections and improvements to my Internet sites), and to start preparing some more Bible studies that I will be leading in a few months’ time.

The main reason for this trip to Australia was to visit family, and of course Christmas Day this week was the big opportunity to do this, with all the family together for the first time in 18 years (since I moved to Italy). So it was great to be able have a traditional Wilson Christmas again. And for Stefania and Daniele, for the first time. They also did a lot of “bonding” with cousins and other relatives, which was good both for them and for the relatives.

We are now however already towards the end of our trip. On Friday afternoon we will be taking the plane home, so pray for our farewells and the long journey with the children.

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.

We are in the middle of packing for our departure for Australia tomorrow afternoon. Although I must say that we have found it a lot easier packing for a visit in summer, there are a lot less clothes to take. So in fact we have almost finished, and tomorrow morning we will pack the things that we will be needing in the next few hours. In the meantime, this morning will did all our goodbyes of our jealous friends in church.

The main events this week where the talks by Carl Trueman. The three talks on Tuesday were well attended by people from the church, and from nearby churches (ie up to 200km away) who came to hear him. The people I talked to found helpful the depth and clearness of his theological and practical thinking. Then on Wednesday afternoon there was a talk for the city on Calvin at a Catholic study centre. There were only about 10 who were not from the church, but they seemed interested in what was said. In any case, it was good to proclaim what we believe in public in the city of the Council of Trent.

With my Bible studies for this week cancelled due to these conferences, I had enough time to finish off and release the new version (7.13) of my Bible study computer program. So now I can take a break from that for three weeks as well – apart from replying to the e-mail questions I will receive, at least those that I will be able to reply to without my computer and my books.

I should however be able to keep up my blogging on borrowed computers, so I should be writing about the trip within the next week.

The main non regular event this week was on Saturday afternoon, where the two older classes of the Sunday School worked on preparing for next Sunday’s market day in the church. They created wrappings for home made goods (that some people in the church had made), plus signs and other things for the sale, and practised the new Christmas song I wrote. The goods will then be sold at the “market” after church next Sunday, with the proceeds going to the school in India that the Sunday School supports. The good thing is that the children understand that this is the point of the market, with some lessons on giving that have accompanied these preparations, and they pray that a lot of money will be raised for the children in India. So you too can pray for next Sunday.

The other news that I have not mentioned here yet is that we will be in Australia on an “unofficial” visit for Christmas. Thanks to my parents’ frequent flyer points, we will be leaving on December 16 and returning on January 2, to spend some time with my family. So there will be no talks or meetings to go to. But there will be lots of things to do, and lots of Australian things to show to Pinuccia and the children (especially those that are harder to do in winter). So we are all looking forward to this trip, and are starting to prepare for it. I am looking forward to my first summer Christmas in 18 years, like the good ol’ days.

Today we were back in our church, and it was good to see our friends again. There was also another pregnancy announced (back to five pregnant ladies again, after one birth took place during the summer). Suzanne Bikker, our new missionary at Rovereto, was also there, having lived here for a few weeks now. I had a bit of work to do, as most of the musicians were away, so I was asked to fill in on the piano. I was a bit rusty, not having played in a service for perhaps a couple of years, but it went well.

As I said in my last message, we will be away again this week for three days for the ECM Italy prayer days, with Suzanne, and another couple and a lady in two other places in northern Italy. I was hoping to get some good Bible study work done this week, but it is going to be hard with the three middle days taken out, and some other commitments we wanted to get done before school starts (a check up for Daniele at the hospital, and his programmed 2 year check up with the doctor; renewing our identity cards; getting some other documents that the bureaucracy requires; and a meeting on Friday morning where Pinuccia will find out her job for this year). Then on Saturday morning there will be a book stall at Rovereto as well, and on Sunday afternoon there will be an informal meeting for all the church members and contacts in the Valsugana. This will be partly to introduce the new Saturday afternoon group in the upper Valsugana which I will be starting and leading, so the whole family will be going there. With the newly announced pregnancy, we are now at 6 couples, with 9 and two half children under the age of 4, which will make it very interesting!

We are all back at home now, after two days of travelling of 11 hours and 10 hours. But at least the children were very good in the back of the car the whole way. Now I am busy catching up on accumulated matters, and tomorrow will be able to get to work on the studies that I need to prepare. Although I won’t have much time to prepare them, before I will have to start using them in the groups at the beginning of next month.

Whilst we were in the car on the way home, Pinuccia get the call that she has a meeting on the 28th to find out what job she will have this school year (that starts on the 1st). This creates a bit of a problem, as we were planning to have the ECM Italian prayer days then. But we were expecting that problem, and all of the others knew that we might have to change the dates. So we will be away from Tuesday to Thursday next week with the other ECM missionaries in Italy, to pray and talk about our ministries together.

We are more than half way through our time in Sicily, and are more or less relaxed. The first week in particular was very busy, out every day night until late to catch up with various relatives and friends. But since then it has become a bit easier, and the children have adjusted a bit to the different lifestyle (in Sicily in summer people have dinner around 9pm or later, whereas at home we start to put them to sleep at 8.30). It has also been good to be able to participate in various family milestones: Pinuccia’s sister’s birthday two Mondays ago, her parents’ anniversary and brother’s birthday last Monday, and Daniele will be celebrating his second birthday the Monday after next. His birthday is actually on Saturday, but on the Friday afternoon and night there is the wedding of one of Pinuccia’s cousins, so the whole extended family will be present there.

The highlight for the children however is probably going to the beach about every second day. With temperatures always in the high thirties, and often in the low forties, we go around 5pm (like most of the locals do) when it is a bit cooler for a couple of hours, but that is enough to not tire everyone too much. Stefania likes wading out until the water gets up to her neck (since the beach is on the Mediterranean Sea, not the ocean, there are no waves), whilst Daniele plays in the sand on the water’s edge.