This is a video Josh put together so that you can see some of the faces that participate to the Valentine dinner. Half of them are member of the church and half are just contacts. But we realized pretty soon that there are so may marriages not working the way they should in both type of couples...

In Sicily often the husband is the one that doesn't allow the wife to talk or have an opinion either and this reflects even in the christian life. While getting ready to take pictures the couples were asked questions like when was last time you went on a date together or when did you last take a trip together, as a couple. Some of them said that they had NEVER gone out in their entire marriage! I am sure that if anyone asked " when was last time you said I love you to wife" we would have had a lot of silence...

I am glad we were able to put this together first of all to be a blessing to some of the couples that have not had a time alone in a long time, second because we were able to get into some lives that were struggling and wanting some help but didn't know how to ask.

Next month Josh will be gone for two weeks in the US, one week he will be attending a conference, the next one he will be one of the speaker at a mission conference put together from Lakeside Church in Florida. When he gets back we will have a special night with some of the couples that were at church at Valentine's dinner, the movie fireproof will be projected followed by a message from the word of God.

January and February

The 14th of February our church hosted a dinner dedicated to "couples in love". There were some couples from church we also had 9 couples of non believers. We had dinner together, played games and then we had a time where the word of God was taught. As a result a couple came to us wanting a Bible study and we saw many broken hearts crying out because they aren't working the way they should.

We were invited to a dinner the next day by non believing friends to keep talking about marriage and its difficulties. We are trying to translate some material so that we can use it for Bible studies for couples.

This is a picture of the group of couples invited to the dinner

We were so blessed by a lady from church that took our kids. Thanks Maria!

We had arranged a bench for the couple to take a picture. So that they could have a memory of a special time together. It was sad to hear of couples that do not spend time together and have not had a special alone time with their spouse in a long time.

Josh decided to bring the girls up on mount Etna for a couple of hours, they played a lot and went sledding and also were so lucky to see a fox really close.

Instead of making a snowman they decided to make a snow angel!!

Here you have a picture of the Volcano and the group of cool people that went up to the mountain. Rina and Francesco were here to help at the Bible school during two classes, they come from Mantova and are good servants. since they were here without a car Josh decided to bring them up to the mountain. They all went up after school, had a picnic, played and fed a fox!

We are so thankful for both our kids, they are pretty smart and very advanced for their age, here you have a message that Benedetta wrote for me while we were at church. She is only 4 (5 in April) but is picking up how to write mostly by herself. She usually writes in italian but that day at church she wrote me this message by herself....we are proud!

Hannah had her 7th birthday this year we celebrated it at church with her friends from school and friends from church. It was fun to see her around her friends and we were able to give out coloring Bibles to all the kids that came. Josh helped a lot since I cannot do much because of the pregnancy.

I did spend some time making Hannah her birthday cake :)

Last month in January I went to the USA to take care of some things related to the green card process, the trip went well even if it was hard to go without Josh and the girls. I was so blessed to have my sister with me. It was her first time to the US and she loved it, she loved the food and the places we visited. We stayed with my friend Katie in California and had also a chance to see Grace Community Church.

Everything went mostly well till we got to the airport in Rome. There I fell from an escalator and at that point my sister was supposed to leave me and I was supposed to keep going to Sicily. Time was tight. I was in a rush to get to my gate and when I was hoping to be able to sit down and rest they started boarding the plane. I realized in the meanwhile I was having contractions.

I called Josh to let him know what was going on but at that point I was scared and worried and my mind was on trying to make it to Sicily as fast as possible. The doctors response was that everything with the baby was ok but I needed to rest a bit. Since then contractions have been coming and going. I am in my 7th month and I have two more months to go. Resting is not easy when you have two kids with lots of energy and ministry still requires a certain amount of commitment. But please pray for us, this is one of the hardest pregnancy I've had and one of the hardest time for our family.

December 2010

At the end of November Josh's parents came to visit, stayed for 13 days, took care of our kids while we left for a vacation. When we came back we celebrated together an early Christmas. In fact in the pictures below you can see our half decorated tree :)

The kids had lots of fun with grandma and grandpa, they played at the playground, baked cookies, went shopping, took walks, watched movies...ate cookies with cool-whip...:)

grandma and grandpa with Hannah and Benedetta

After Josh's parents left, we had only few days to pack again and go to Naples where we had an appointment at the American Consulate concerning my Visa. We stayed at my uncle's house, had two very long days but at least two positive good things that came out of it were lunch at Ikea and that we finally got a permanent resident visa for me. So now I won't have anymore problems with going back and forth to the States.

Coming back we were approaching the Christmas season and in Italy in the schools it's time for school plays...

Hannah had hers first and she was one of the servants of king Herod. I was impressed with the costumes for the play...Hannah was just a servant so I had an easy time just borrowing a dress (an angel costume from a friend!!) It was a nice play, one of the best I have seen in the last few years.

At the end of the play the mom in charge of presents for the kids asked Josh to dress up as Santa Clause and he accepted. It was a fun time also because the outfit wasn't made to fit Josh!!! That same day we were able to give our own present to the teachers: a calendar with a daily verse and message and some cookies that we had been backing.

This is a picture of Hannah with the main teacher (on the left) and the religion teacher(on the right).When we started the school year last year we had opted for not taking religion class. But then Hannah had to sit in class for two hours and draw pictures quietly. We felt so bad for her. She didn't want to leave the class because she had just found a group she enjoyed being with after the move and didn't want to try to get out and be with another group of kids that she didn't know. She also felt like her friends didn't think she loved Jesus( maybe they had told her something about it) so she felt the need to bring to school her kids Bible to demonstrate that she knew Jesus and loved Him!!! We ended up talking to the teacher, explaining our faith and putting her in the class, she was soooo happy and we have been blessed by the decision and it has been a good time to respond and reflect on diversity of faith and what the Bible says with our own daughter.

Hannah in her play singing and dancing

The servant near the king Herod

The day after Hannah's play we had a big outreach in church: a Christmas dinner. We had lots of people there, the believers helped with the food and decorations. The evening started with the white elephant game and then we moved on the dinner.

This is the youngest baby in our church: Andrea. His dad got saved last year and now he and his wife come to church regularly. She is not saved yet but we can see progress in her life.

Jaqueline and Orlando

This is a couple from Brazil, they were already believers. Orlando plays soccer on the cites professional team and we are blessed by having him attending our church. Pray for their growth.

More faces from the dinner. The guy with the tie is Johnny, one of our coworkers. Here he is at a table with some of the people attending church as members and some that come just here and there to discover the truth.

Francesco e Sara

Francesco got saved last here and Sara comes to church every now and then.

Pam (on the far right) and her unbelieving family

This was our table at the dinner. We had invited some parents of Hannah's classmates. We have been trying to reach in these families with the Gospel in the last few months.

At the dinner Josh and I sang a song: While you were sleeping of the Casting Crowns translated by some friends of ours near Perugia.

Marco, our coworker, shared the Gospel using a kids' story

Benedetta had her play also. It was something a little more simple than what Hannah did, but she enjoyed it and we loved to see her on stage.

reciting a poem on the microphone

Benedetta and her friend Giulia

This is the nativity scene that the city hall put together in the main square of town. My family was here for Christmas so one night Josh, myself my dad and Benedetta went down town to look at not only the nativity but also at the Christmas bon fire...it was very windy that night so they started the fire but put it out right away.

A photo shoot of us and my family on Sunday morning. My dad came to church and this is a blessing! We had a good time and ate a lot and made many things from my hometown that I cannot find here in Sicily.

Wishing you all a happy New Year

Carmela for the fam

Autumn with the Daugereaus

October was a very busy month. We travelled all the way to Sant'Agata sul Santerno, near Ravenna (northern Italy), left our kids and drove down to Chianciano for the annual Focus Conference. We spent 5 days there and were blessed with the teaching, helping out with practical work at the conference and with fellowship. Then we had to drive back to my sister's house and stayed there for two days. We enjoyed spending time with family but mostly we were excited to see Carlo, our brother in law being baptized. It was a good testimony for everybody there.

When we came back Josh attended a week at the Academy finishing a class he had started 3 years ago.

On the 31st of October we hosted a Bible Character Party. We didn't have many kids but were able to have Bible story, memorize Scripture and sing songs. Obviously the kids dressed up and we all had fun!!! There were two friends of Hannah and Benedetta and then a family came that attends church. He is a believer but she is not. Vanessa (the mother our girls' friends) was excited at the way we teach Bible stories, she said "wow that's why kids don't complain about coming to church!!!"

Last week, Valentina, an english student, has asked to start a Bible study and that is awesome!!! We will probably start next week. Pray that God can do a mighty work in her heart and her family.

We have started an english class with the kids from Hannah's class so please pray that we can get more opportunities to share the Gospel with their parents.

A wonderful news....

As many of you already know from my facebook page, we have a wonderful news: we are expecting a baby. Our due date is April 24 and right now I am midway trough my third month. We had a hard beginning in fact two days after finding out that we were going to have a baby, my sister lost hers, so our good news was embraced by sadness and sorrow. It took us a few weeks before we were able to tell her about our baby. Hannah was very shocked by the news that my sister had lost her baby. With the pediatrician we think that this was her first time really facing the meaning of death and the fear of loosing a cared one would wake her up many times at night crying and showing insecurity. We are so thankful to the Lord 'cause it seems those bad dreams or insicurity have passed after many talks and hugs and cuddles!

In August I took a class at the Academy on Old Testament Survey, it was very good to be back at school and see that I am not too old to learn yet:P For that week Josh stayed at home and took care of the girls still trying to do his job.

He also took a class at the Academy.

In August we had the opportunity to see Valentina ( one of our English student) and she came up to the Academy one day during devotion time. She is impacted by the way we live our christian life, so different from the catholic way of the law! We have offered her to have a Bible study so that we can see what we believe in the prospective of what the Bible teaches...please pray that she would be willing to read the Bible together and that the Lord can work in her heart.

This past week we had a team of 16 from the USA. They came to help us with some phisical work at the Academy and evangelism. It was such a blessing to have them, my girls enjoyed some american speaking around them (there were some older kids too) and their English kind of came back! They transformed the center working more on the layout and then did some distribution in the streets of Acireale. They were ready to do more mime and open air programmes but the weather wasn't good. The first Sunday they were here we organized an outreach picnic with the church and they performed a mime, and gave some testimonies. we had a good group of non believers that were able to hear the Gospel presentation. Praise God.

We are almost back to our normal routine, school started and slowly other activities are starting too.

Today Josh went to the hospital for a few days to do a sleep test, Hannah is wearing a soft cast, so please pray that God would give me strength for this week because right now I feel overwhelmed with all that is waiting in front of me this week. We will also be getting things ready to leave next Sunday after church for the Focus Conference( the one that our mission organizes for italian elders) and then spent a few days with my youngest sister. Her husband will get baptize the next week end. If you remember Carlo, our brother in law, after a few weeks from the marriage came to visit us in Sacile with my sister. While they were there on Sunday, they asked Josh to have a Bible study with them because they weren't able to come to church in the morning. So that afternoon after the Bible study Carlo gave his life to Christ and since then he has been walking faithfully in his christian walk, he has found a church to fit in to and is involved in it. And now two years and few months later he is going to be baptize. It will be awesome to be there and share that joy with them.

July Fun

Midway through July we left for our vacation...we went to see my family on the south east coast of Italy. One of the very first days our family wanted to go with us on a trip to Vieste a wonderful town on the Ocean with white cliffs and beautiful see. We were really tired because we had arrived the day before but enjoyed spending time with family. My uncle's family was there too and we had fun swimming and playing together.

A view of Vieste's cliff

This year because of the Soccer World's Cup Benedetta and Hannah got into the Waka Waka song that was the official song for the games. So in this picture Benedetta is showing everybody how to dance it!!!

On the way back from the Ocean we went to the woods nearby and had a picnic there. We were going to grill there but because of many fires happening in the area they were not allowing anyone to grill anymore so it was a good thing we didn't bring just meat but also sandwiches otherways we would have been starving!!

My dad and Josh

On the way back we passed by a natural area where they have lots of deer so Benedetta and Hannah were able to feed them with grandma (who showed them how to). I have to say that Benedetta was braver than Hannah in this!

While down in Puglia (the region where I used to live) we went to see an amusement park. It was a small one but big enough for our kids to enjoy the day and have lots of fun. Hannah was brave in going on rides where even momma didn't want to go. Benedetta was too small in hight for most of the fun rides so she got to spend time with mommy on the carousel and many other little kids rides!!!! She kept saying to Josh, "can we see if I am too small again?"

We didn't know they were gonna have this funny game with water so they had to play in their underware for lack of bathing suit. We could't pass it up being that it was such a hot day.

Our precious Hannah becoming older...

Benedetta in "it's all about me" pose!!!

We found caramelized apples and we couldn't pass it up either. For some, it was the second time trying but for most of us the first. As you can see Benedetta loved it even if Josh let us know that it was not a real one because it wasn't real caramel...:) well it was good and that is what counts right????

We really had a good time in the two weeks spent with my family. We were able to rest, visit and have fun at the same time.

Now we are back home in Sicily and we have already started our routine back again. There is a class up at the Academy on Pastoral Counseling that Josh is attending than next week I will take the class on the Old testament.

Thank for everything and especially your prayers.