We have got through another busy week, including three sermons, three interviews and a presentation yesterday. It was good to spend some time at the Bible colleges during the week, and I was able to create a bit of interest amongst people to go to Trento to do church planting. They are still students, and then would have to prepare and raise support, so it will be a long time before anything comes of it, if it does, but the interest is there.

Now we will finally get a bit of a rest, with 4 days in Queensland from Friday to Monday, visiting some of my relatives and just (weather permitting) sitting on the beach. The rest will be very appreciate, because it has been hard going in the last few weeks with meetings and preparing for meetings around Sydney. Not quite so restful will be the two day trip in the car there and another two days back, especially with the two children, so pray for the journey as well as some good time to relax.

Yesterday was another heavy day (as Sundays often are on deputation), with more than three hours at two church services in the morning, and then another almost three hours in the afternoon at a recommissioning service at our main supporting church in Sydney (Carlingford Anglican). But the afternoon was very encouraging for us, reminding us of the support and care that others give us. Pinuccia especially was starting to feel a bit of deputation weariness, due to the constant movements and repetitiveness, and the fact that she does not understand a lot of what is said in meetings, but the meeting helped to cheer her up and remind her why we are doing all this. It had an effect on the rest of us as well: I lost my voice at the end of the meeting, and Stefania was so tired out that she went to sleep in the car at 5.30pm and didn’t wake up until the following morning - she never sleeps so long.

This coming week is Bible college week for me. On Wednesday I will be representing ECM at a mission exposition at Moore College, and on Thursday I will be speaking at both of the campuses of the Sydney Missionary and Bible College. These are important meetings for “recruitment” - the most likely places that we will find people during our deputation time who are interested in serving at Trento in the future. We are also visiting friends for dinner one night, going to a prayer breakfast on Saturday, being interviewed and preaching (a sermon I still need to prepare) three times on Sunday, plus some time with my family, doing some tourism, and some work with the mission.

I did the talk at the cathedral yesterday afternoon. The talk itself came out fairly well at the end, after slaving over it for a few days, and by Wednesday I had become more comfortable with doing it - thanks for praying for that. There wasn’t a lot of public though, about 20-30 people, of whom a large majority were people involved in the evangelistic campaign or with the cathedral. They had been about twice as many people at the talks at the beginning of the week, but in general it seemed like the pilgrims didn’t want to see down to listen to a talk for half an hour. Just talking with people worked a lot better however. They were having about 1000 pilgrims a day going through the cathedral, and the staff tried to talk to as many as possible and leave them some literature. Since the pilgrims all had some religious interest, it was easy to start up spiritual conversations with them, and that part of the campaign was more effective than the talks.

Note: I wrote this message last Wednesday, and only just realised that by mistake I had saved it rather than publishing it. So he it is anyway, which will help you understand the other post of today.

I was asked yesterday to do a talk at St Andrew’s Cathedral on Friday 18th, on the occasion of the World Youth Day, on Can YOU experience God directly? Certainly. It is rather short notice to prepare a talk on that, and it will take a while to do since I will have to think it think, and I don’t have a lot of time in this period. So pray please for the preparation, and that the talk will have a good effect on those who listen. There is more information on the series of talks half way down the page http://www.cathedral.sydney.anglican.asn.au/ (although as I write it hasn’t been updated yet to include my name).

We have had a bit of free time in the last few days, which have been good for getting the talk for Friday finished. I just have to go over it a couple of times now to practice it. I am feeling a lot more comfortable about doing it now, than when I accepted the invitation - thanks to those you prayed. I also went into the cathedral yesterday to hear one of the other talks in the series, and to get a feel for what is going on.

We also took advantage of these free days to do a bit of tourism - with the prayer week last week we had not had much time to relax together as a family lately. So had a great day catching a ferry across the harbour, then having a picnic in a park on the foreshores with play equipment (Stefania’s highlight, although she enjoyed the boat as well).

Now we have another busy few days. Tonight (Wednesday) there is dinner with the family, then on Thursday small groups to speak at both at lunch and in the evening, and another family meeting in the middle. Then on Friday lunch there is the talk in the cathedral, Saturday night another family dinner, and then on Sunday we will be speaking at two services in the morning before having our recommissioning service in the afternoon. Keep praying for energy and enthusiasm for all these meetings, and that there will be new partners for the work at Trento as a result.

PS I just checked my blog, and realised that my previous message was missing, which would make parts of this message a bit hard to understand. I have now published the previous message, which appears has having been posted a bit after this one, even though it was in fact written a week before.

Next week will be another busy week, although not with deputation meetings. It is the annual prayer week for European Christian Mission in Australia, so most of the week will be spent, naturally, in praying. Although there will be a few other activities as well, since most of the ECM “family” will be gathered here for that time. Wednesday especially will be a big day for me. I will be doing a devotional in the morning, then in the afternoon it is time for our personal report and prayer time. Finally in the evening is the “Italian café”, when Pinuccia and I will be presenting more generally our work at Trent. There is also a meeting on Saturday afternoon for all the ECM supporters, at which we will be speaking.
If you are interested in coming to either of these meetings, let me know and I can give you further details. Anyone who reads my blog I count as a supporter, so the meetings are also for you, and are a good opportunity to get to know our ministry beyond what is possible in a short deputation talk.

Last week was a bit more relaxing, at least after the first couple of days when there were two meetings and a lunch with friends to go to. We even had time to go to Bondi Beach on Friday, which we all enjoyed. On Sunday we did manage to exhaust ourselves however, going to services at 7.45 (it was good to be able to sing songs that I knew again! ie that were written more than 15 years ago) and 9.30, followed by lunch with the extended family.

For the next week there are no deputation meetings (one that had be planned for tonight was postponed), although I will nevertheless be fairly busy going to see the family twice, and on Friday being a tourist guide taking the family and someone coming to visit the mission from Europe out on the harbour.

We are back in Sydney now after our trip to Canberra. It was our most intense week of the whole time we will be in Australia, with 13 meetings in 8 days, as well as going to have meals with some friends and getting in a bit of tourism as well. (Stefania finally saw - and patted - her first kangaroo, and now bounces around the house.) It is a lot harder doing all this with a family rather than by myself, but Pinuccia is a great help with the family and with encouraging people to think about mission. She is just as committed to mission as I am. Stefania loved all the changes - each place we visited had new toys and books, so it seemed like every day was her birthday. Daniele coped well also, as well as getting another two teeth and getting a lot closer to walking.
The time in Canberra was useful for encouraging people, and we had some good conversations about mission. And it was good for us to be encouraged and supported as well. Today and tomorrow there are another two meetings and a visit, but after that there will be time to rest again for a few days.

Tomorrow (Saturday) we go to Canberra for 8 days, our first trip of our deputation time in Australia, with three services to speak at in one church on Sunday, two services in another church the following Sunday, and seven other meetings of the two churches in the week in between. So we will be kept quite busy. Pray for energy for us, and that the children will not get too upset by all the changes and moving around. Pray also for these meetings, and for all those in the next couple of months, that we will be able to help to produce “world Christians” and especially support for Trento.
But so far they have enjoyed the time in Australia. Stefania loved our visit today to the centre of Sydney and especially to the aquarium; she kept looking around at everything new. And in the aquarium, at every tank it was “More fish! More fish!”. Daniele on the other hand arrived in Australia and immediately started to crawl - or at least half crawl and slide, but in any case a lot more than he was doing in Italy. The trip has also encouraged his teeth: now the fourth tooth is ready to come up in the next few days.

We have arrived now, a few hours ago. Despite Daniele’s tooth coming out two hours before we left home, the children travelled quite well, and both slept most of the time. Which is more than I can say for the parents! So apart from the jetlag, Pinuccia and I arrived quite tired; I have already had a four hour snooze (and could do with some more, but I will try to wait until tonight), whilst Pinuccia lasted longer than me before going to sleep, but is now into her fifth hour. Anyway, we are happy to be in Australia again.

Whilst we are in Australia, I will probably be updating this blog less often, but I will try to keep you up to date with our movements and meetings, so that you can be praying for those as they happen. But the first will be in 10 days’ time, so we have a period of rest and preparation to begin with. Time to do some tourism to show Australia off to the children, so they understand their origins!