Tuesday, December 8, 2009

A week end with family


Me and my mom on Mt. Etna


This week we were blessed by a visit from my family. They arrived on Saturday morning by bus (after traveling all night)and stayed with us through Tuesday night. It was really special to have my dad come to church on Sunday. It was his second time ever being in church. I told him that he could have stayed home if he wanted and we could have picked him up after church for the potluck. He said that it was okay in coming but didn't want anyone to push him to become like us. So he came for the service, Josh preached, and he stayed after for lunch too. My mom was super happy because it was her first potluck in 23 years with my dad present.
Michele, dad and Josh

On Monday we went on mount Etna, and were above the clouds. It was a nice warm day but there was snow on the side of the road so the kids had fun playing and throwing balls of snow....and falling into it too!!! We enjoyed local foods and made some of our typical foods too...:) We enjoyed their company and most of all trying to share the love of Christ to my dad. Pray for us that we can be a light and that God can take away the veil from his eyes.

(at the potluck)

(family picture with my dad, mom and little brother)

Please keep in your prayer the Christmas dinner that we will have on Saturday and the caroling that we will have on Sunday. Also during this time of the year the church usually distribuite christian calendars and we have 800 of them, so please pray for all of those who will receive the word of God trough the calendars.
Carmela for the fam

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Thanksgiving outreach and more...

Last Saturday we had our Thanksgiving dinner. We as a family and people from the local church invited many people and we are thankful for all those who came. We also invited some of Hannah school friends and it was good to see them there.
Josh started with the history of Thanksgiving and in between turkey and dessert Marco (a co-worker) gave his testimony and Josh used a children's story to share the Gospel.
It was a very good time and we had good one-on-one conversations.
Gabriella(the sister of a believer) went up to Josh after the story off Thanksgiving and started asking him questions about his faith. Gabriella comes to the English lessons and she has never once come to anything that the church organized before the english lessons and this outreach. So seeing her there was already a blessing but than hearing her wanting to get to know us better was even more fantastic. Last week at the end of my english lesson Gabriella came close to me and we were chatting and in telling her about me and Josh and how we met. Faith came up in conversation and I was able to share my testimony with her.
There is also another lady that comes to the english lessons with her son, her name is Fiorella, she has had good spiritual conversations with one of our coworkers and was challenged to read the Bible more and deeply.
So we had a good time and good opportunities to show Christ and we are very thankful for all of what god is doing here in Acireale. We are sorry not t have pictures to post yet! Josh forgot to take pictures and so did I...:)
This month will be busy with many events. We will have another oureach in 2 weeks. It will be a Christmas dinner and a day later we will be caroling in the main square of town...and that will be quite interesting because Italians don't carol!!!
This coming Sunday we will have AGAPE, it is what we usually call our potluck. My dad, mom and brother will be here. I don't know if my dad will come to the service but he will be there for lunch and as you know he is not a believer, so my prayer are that he will decide to come and that God touches his heart.
Later on this month Josh's dad and mom will come down to spend Christmas and New Year together.
other prayer requests are:
  • for us and the kids...I think we are still adjusting, I notice it in some of the kids reaction, so please pray that the Christmas break can help us get in our routine and family habits.
  • we got our car back finally, we had to pay 300 euro more but the car still doesn't work right. So please pray for provision and wisdom to understand what we should do next.
  • family health