It is an interesting time of year for the weather. Getting closer to Spring, we are getting our first fine sunny days. Which means temperatures in the low tens, but pleasant anyway when dressed well. At the same time, it is cold enough that it snows in the mountains. So on Saturday, when we had a free afternoon, we had a choice of driving a bit up the mountain next to Trento to frolic in the fresh snow that fell on Friday, or playing in the park at Lavis for the first time this year. Since the children have slight colds, and Daniele seemed a bit tired (in fact he slept 13 hours on Saturday night, which must be close to his record), we eventually opted for the park. But it was nice having such different choices. And it was very nice to be able to have not one but two outings altogether in the week. A rare occurrence.

The big event for us this week is that we are going to subject our apartment to some stress testing. We have invited the Young Adults’ group to dinner at our place, and the number of people coming keeps growing. So currently we are somewhere between 15 and 20 (some people have to confirm still), plus us four. It will be a tight fit for us all in our lounge room, especially eating at the same time, but it will be a fun night. Pray that it will be a helpful time for the group.

One of the highlights of the week was a Sicilian dinner at our place, for five couples/families that had at least one person from Pinuccia’s home town. (Although one couple could not make it due to the flu.) Since they are all good friends as well, it was a fun evening, and Stefania and Daniele enjoyed playing the whole time with my ex flat mate’s children, who are the same age. The non Sicilian components, like myself, just sat back and enjoyed the food which the others produced, especially when the talk kept dropping into incomprehensible Sicilian dialect.

On Tuesday, instead of the usual Bible study at Rovereto, there will be a meeting at Trento for the wider group of people interested in and committed to helping the whole church planting project at Rovereto. So you could pray for that meeting, that we would have good ideas, and the desire and dependence on God, to move forward with that project.

Yesterday I played at a concert with the Lavis band, together with three other bands. Before the concert, a member of one of the other bands searched me out. It turned out that he is a happy user of my computer program to study the Bible, had seen that I played in the band at Lavis, and had been waiting for such an opportunity to meet me. As I often say, my program gets used a lot more than I know about.

It has been an enjoyable weekend with the family, because it was one of the few with no commitments outside of the church service. So it was good to be able to spend most of two whole days playing with the children. There was a bit of a snow fall on Friday as well, which meant that there was some snow to play with in the garden (snowmen and snowball fights) this afternoon.

Next week there is one of my twice yearly trips to Madrid for an ECM leaders’ meeting. I will be away from noon Monday to late on Thursday, although I probably won’t see anything of Madrid except the airport, the highway, and the inside of an office. Pinuccia has taken the week off work to look after the children, and that alone will keep her quite busy. She will have a few visits from friends as well to keep her company.

Pinuccia also had a good meeting yesterday with the church elders about the Sunday School, following on from the teachers’ meeting last week, thinking about the future of the children’s ministry in the church. There will be some changes, with no less that 8 new children coming in, taking the number of children from 25 to 33 (that was a very fertile year!). But there will be some children leaving at the other end, having moved into the teenager age range. We want to re-start the Youth Group for these teenagers after the summer, although there are practical problems to overcome (eg the seven teenagers live in 4 different parts of the province, with only two at Trento). But since two of the possible group members are daughters of the two elders, we can leave it up to them to work out when is the best time to meet!

Stefania has had a bit more pleasure in going to school this week, although there were still a few tears some days. And one day, when I had to take Daniele as well when I dropped off Stefania, he started crying because I would not leave him at school with her.

This week it is my turn, with almost everything possible coming up for me at the same time. So I did the Sunday School lesson today, and will again next Sunday as well (I usually do two weeks out of every six). In the middle, there are the normal Bible study groups on Tuesday, Wednesday and the fortnightly Saturday meeting. On Thursday there is the small group coordination meeting that I will lead, with a bit of training to prepare for the leaders of the groups. I also have band practice on Friday, but at least that is more relaxing. The only thing that is missing for me amongst my regular commitments is the monthly service at Rovereto. On Saturday morning, Pinuccia also has a meeting with the elders to talk about the Sunday School ministry, although I will just be looking after the children and eavesdropping there.

It has been a bit of a difficult week for Stefania, who has suddenly started having a crises about going to school. In the morning she doesn’t want to go, preferring to stay at home (and especially with her mother), and crying a lot when we drop her off. What I pick her up again in the afternoon, she always says that she loved school and it was better there than staying at home, but she forgets that by the next morning. So we are praying that she will overcome quickly this crises.

This week most of my commitments restarted – Bible studies on Wednesday and Saturday, band practice on Friday. The only one that was missing was the Rovereto group on Tuesday, which meets this week. It was good being able to teach the Bible to people again! The other two highlights of the week were:
- getting my driver’s licence renewed, and discovering that my eyesight has actually got better not worse since the last renewal 10 years ago, and even since 28 years ago when I first discovered I was slightly short sighted;
- the continuation of our church growth program, with not one but two births on Wednesday. With another baby born just before Christmas, and who we met for the first time at the Saturday group, there are only three pregnancies left (two of which are in the Saturday group).

This week it is Pinuccia’s turn to do some teaching. She is leading a study for the monthly ladies’ meeting on Thursday, and then leading a Sunday School teachers’ meeting on Saturday. It does send her into a bit of a panic, especially as she has less time available to prepare such meetings than I do, so you could pray for God’s help in these things.

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.