A time of retreat...

The past couple of weeks have been a whirlwind of fellowship! First, we met with other pastors and workers from the Fellowship of European International Churches (FEIC) in Caorle, Italy. Here are a few glimpses of our time there. It was so wonderful to meet people (some missionaries, others workers from different churches) from all across Europe. I also got to see Terry & Ruthanne Hoggard, missionaries that my home church has supported for many years.

Those of us at the FEIC retreat enjoying gelato in Caorle!

 The beach in Caorle

So glad Terry convinced me to try this frozen coffee drink. I never drink coffee, but I really enjoyed this!

Here we are with Ulla May (from Finland) getting ready for a bike ride!

 Part of the city

 The rocky coast

 You never know what color the houses will be here :)

Or what material they will be made of! These are thatched fishing huts on the edge of the city. People still live in them today.

 This reminded me of home!

I love stopping to smell these flowers wherever they are!


This past week, we headed to Tuscany for our Assemblies of God field meeting...where all the A/G missionaries in Italy come together for meetings and fellowship. I was blessed to meet these missionaries this past November at our last field meeting. It was such a privilege to see them again before I leave Italy. I had the opportunity to talk a bit about my time here and they prayed for me. It's hard to believe I have just 15 days left before my "term" here is over and I head back to America. God has done so much!

San Casciano, a town outside of Florence where we stayed

The beautiful Tuscan countryside

Part of the old city wall

Preparing to enjoy some dinner! This is AJ, Warren & Laura's son (so sad I didn't get a picture of the Van Dolsens). In the background you can see the Trementozzi's...our area directors.

Kurtis Denton and Rick Forker...lone rangers for the time being since their wives weren't able to join them. We missed you, Amy and Angela!

Randy & Diane McGehee, missionaries in Florence, who organized the field meeting! They even had bread, olive oil, chocolate and flowers waiting for us in our rooms! Bravo McGehee's! :)  Harvey Skinner is in the middle of the McGehees...he and his wife are missionaries in Milan.

Bob & Lynne Rose, missionaries in Rome

And of course the missionaries I'm serving with, Steve & Patti Gray

A town we visited called San Gimignano

A city of towers

I'm so glad I got to see the Peretti's again before I left Italy!

And the McGehee's...I miss you guys already!!!

Now, vacation bible school/english summer school classes started this week in full force! Packing every day pretty full before my departure at the end of the month! The Lord is faithful to give us strength when we need it. Hallelujah!

A look at children's church...

We have lots of fun with our kids in children's church! We just finished up the curriculum we have been going through with them. It was called "Life of Christ." We had an activity or game to start off with, told the children a bible story which had power point pictures that we projected up onto our "big screen" for them, had a puppet show, a memory verse, coloring pages, and then they got to enjoy snack! With children from numerous different cultures, who don't all speak English, there is never a dull moment around here! :) 

This is Patience...she likes to teach the bible story sometimes.

Enjoying the puppet show!

Boys from the youth group who faithfully put on the puppet show for the kids every week! Hardly any space for them back there, but they were such good sports! Thanks, Noel & Gelvin!

Enjoying snack!

This is Phoebe, who also faithfully helps us with children's church every Sunday! She is such a sweetheart!

These two will be in children's church before you know it! :)

Jacob (Fleur & Richard's son) & Michelle (Kofi & Joyce's daughter)

They are so cute!

Now we have started something new with the kids. They stay down in the 'sanctuary' with their parents for a couple of worship songs, then come up for kids' worship. I think our new Sunday school curriculum is entitled Beginning Explorers. It's been quite fun as we've had our very own "Sycamore Sam" come to teach the children the bible story each week. In addition to the bible story, we have prayer time with the kids, activity/game time, a time where a "real-life" story is told that goes along with the bible story, memory verse, coloring/activity pages, etc...and of course, we still feed them snack :) 



Danielle is always up for an adventure...like becoming the part of Sycamore Sam each week! :)

Jesus said, "Let the little children come to Me and do not forbid them;

for of such is the kingdom of heaven."

Matthew 19:14

Reading, writing...and UNO!

I had been adding to this post and saving it, but just remembered I still needed to publish it! Sorry! As the summer sun and warmth are coming on strong here, the kids aren't showing up in sweatshirts and scarves anymore! I thought you could still enjoy these pictures though! :)

Our after-school program finishes up here soon. We're hoping all of these kids will return for our vacation bible school/English classes this summer!

Listening intently to the story...

Keren Precious Espiritu, who is affectionately called "Lala"

 A couple of boys who are also in our class are missing from the photo. It's so hard to get a picture on a day they're all here together. We work around the kids being involved in other after-school activites besides our program. 

Hello!

My girls!

As you can see, Lala and Chiara are joined at the hip!

We had read about Jonah and the whale.

I saved their artwork on the board for a couple of weeks and we just wrote around it...

Can you see little Jonah in their mouths?

On Fridays, we quit our lessons a bit early to play games...educational games of course :) Uno is one of their favorites!

Deciding which card to play...

Victory! :)

 
The other boys weren't so excited about Junior's victory :)

This is Stella, with her adorable baby daughter. Stella helps us on certain days with the after-school program.

"Show me Your ways, O Lord; teach me Your paths."
Psalm 25:4