To jest, on jest, ona jest....

Avanti Italia goes to Poland. Molly and Annabelle Dawidow were part of our Avanti training in Searcy last August. Molly and her husband run the Bible Institute in Sopot, Poland, and the two women have come up with their own syllabus and their own methods for teaching English using the Bible. They had many interesting things to show and teach us in August, and so Jillian and I have been wanting to go up there and experience their process for ourselves. We took a ten day trip to Poland!

We left beloved Italy on Thursday morning, December 3rd from Pisa. I had made the Ryanair reservations about a month before we left for Jillian, Kyle, our friend Phyllis, and myself. What I didn't realize was that Phyllis was bringing a checked bag AND a carryon. Oops. We had a connecting flight in Frankfurt (most of you already know what horrors that place has always held for me) that was scheduled to depart one hour after we landed. Which would have been close even if we all had just carryon luggage, but it was almost catastrophic in Phyllis's case. So we landed, were shuttled to the main airport, and then we flew! Not on a plane, but through the doors of the airport to the luggage claim. Then Jill and I continued our flight to the check-in desk, through security and to our gate while Phyllis and Kyle waited for the suitcase. Jill and I made it through about 5 minutes before the flight desk closed, so we had little to no hope that we would ever set eyes on Phyllis and Kyle again. Of course, in a moment such as this, something ridiculous would have to happen. Some kid comes up to Jill and tells her that he needs to check the size of her bag and weigh it - this is after we have gone through check-in and security. Luckily all was in order, but it gave us a scare. Then, while anxiously waiting at the gate, we see the crowds part, and Phyllis rounding the corner just out of the security line! Running through the crowds, yanking on her coat while toting her not-too-small carry on, she finally caught up with us. But no Kyle! They stopped him in security to search him. Arrrghhh! Just then, they announced that they were boarding our plane. We had priority boarding, so Jill and I went ahead and got in line. Still no Kyle. Finally, just as they were taking my boarding pass out of my hands, Kyle comes through the door. By then, however, the other passengers have formed a huge line, blocking the path to the priority line. So everyone has to wait as Kyle pushes his way through the crowd, saying "Scusi, scusi"...in Germany. Then the flight attendant asks if there are anymore priority boarders, and Jill proceeds to explain to her in Italian that there are two just right over there. ahhahaha! We were a little bit frazzled! But we made it onto the plane!

Little did we know that our flight would be re-routed. Instead of landing in Gdansk where we were scheduled to land, we had to land in the city of Poznan due to the weather. The flight attendants informed us that a bus would take us from Poznan to the airport at Gdansk. Sadly, Poznan is about 5 hours away from Gdansk/Sopot. Also, at the airport information desk they didn't seem to know what bus we were talking about at first, and then they told us it wouldn't be here for another hour. So rather than waiting for an hour, riding five hours on a bus to arrive at a destination that we weren't ultimately headed for, we rented a car. And droooove to Sopot! We arrived at midnight - Molly had already prepared a lovely dinner for us, as she thought we were arriving earlier, so we had a nice leftover midnight meal. :) Craziness! But we made it, and that's the important thing.

So we stayed in Sopot at the Bible Institute for the next week, teaching English lessons learning the things that Molly had to teach us. It was very, very helpful, and I feel like I will be able to use the things I learned and apply them to my lessons here. I made friends with a lot of the students, and I was sad that we were just staying a week. They were all so sweet and intelligent. Several of them remember when the Harding chorus came and sang in the local competition and won, so that was a neat thing to have in common.

During our time in Sopot, we were able to make some day trips to the nearby towns of Gdansk and Malbork (which has a medieval fortress which is the largest brick building in the world). And then our time in Sopot was over! It went by so quickly. We left early on Friday morning on a train to Torun on our way to Warsaw. Torun was a neat town - the home of Copernicus and a gingerbread museum. We really enjoyed seeing it. And then Warsaw! Warsaw is an amazing city. So much history there. If you ever go, you have to go see the Warsaw Rising Museum. Trust me. Also, we got to see our friend Ivo! He used to live in Italy when he was little and returns there once or twice every year. But he is Polish and lives in Warsaw, so he picked us up from the train station and ate a late dinner with us. It was nice to get to visit with him. The next day, we went around and tried to see as much as possible - impossible to do in just one day. But we got to see a lot of interesting things. It was cooooold! In Sopot it wasn't too much colder than here in Italy, other than there being no sun during the day. But in Warsaw there were snow flurries and wind. Brrrrr. We flew out Sunday morning at 6:15am. Yippee. We were sad to leave, but happy to see beautiful, sunny Italy again. What a great trip.

I got to catch up on a little bit of the culture shock that I haven't had yet in Italy. Polish! What a daunting language. The title of this post is about all I picked up while I was there...I learned to say some other phrases like "thank you" and "hurry up" (for Kyle), but I only know the phonetics. It was kind of tough to be in a place where I couldn't communicate WHATSOEVER. While I'm not fluent in Italian, I can communicate. I guess I'm just going to have to make sure that this never happens again. It's going to take a long time to learn all the languages of the world, so I think I'd better get started now...on to German!

A Little Piece of Home

Well the holidays are certainly here! What a fun time we have been having. Strangely enough, Italians don't celebrate Thanksgiving - go figure ;). So the Bible School decided to host a Thanksgiving dinner of our own and invite some of our Italian friends along with our American friends here. What a party!

We had it on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, seeing as most Italians work on Thursdays, but the preparations began on Thanksgiving day proper - lots of cleaning, shopping, and cooking! Thursday we cleaned the dining room from top to bottom, moving couches, wardrobes, and other furniture. We also made a trip to the Metro (kind of like a Sam's), bringing home two over-sized shopping carts full of supplies. The next day we fired up the ovens, producing mass quantities of.....desserts mostly. The most important element in any Thanksgiving dinner! Also on Friday, our friend from language school, Tracey, arrived to spend the weekend with us. What a guest! She helped us cook, clean, wash dishes, and decorate. She was so willing and such a great help to us. Mom has requested her presence next year in advance. :) We made cherry/pear crisp, a huge pumpkin pie, clam and spinach dip, and the beginnings of dressing. We woke up Saturday morning and finished the checklist of dishes - chocolate pies, sweet potato casserole, sweet tea (very important - this is the only thing Tracey couldn't help with, seeing as she is from the north ;) ), corn, peas, mashed potatoes, fruit jello salad, and of course the three turkeys. Whew!

It was a great night - we had 32 diners including ourselves, and it was so much fun to spend time with our Italian friends and to introduce them (or re-expose them) to an American cultural tradition. It was worth every minute of preparation, and I wish we could do it again tomorrow!

Non COSI giovane -Not THAT young....

I didn't realize how much I missed being around kids! Jillian and I have started teaching at an "asilo nido" (daycare) down the street, and it is simply a blast! Here in Italy, kids start going to daycare early - this one has ages 3-5. I had met Gabriella, the maestra, only once before - she had stopped by the bible school when I was the only one here, and she requested that we come to her class once a week to teach the 18 5 yr olds English. That sounded like fun to me. After all, I have taught that age group before in a bible class at College Church. (Good memories, right Ali? ;) ) So we agreed that we would.

So, our first week.
We worked on teaching materials the week leading up to the first session - just basic colors and animals for the first time. We really didn't know what to expect, or how much material we needed to fill up an hour and a half. Jill came up with teaching them "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes" in case we needed something a little more active to keep their attention. We reached the gate the first day, were buzzed in and greeted by Gabriella, and entered the classroom. So many little faces! I don't know if you are aware of this, but all Italian children are born adorable. It is impossible for them to be otherwise. We were introduced as "le belle ragazze che non parlano italiano" - "the beautiful girls that don't speak italian". I'm still not sure if I'm supposed to take this as a compliment. I began by teaching them the colors and holding up corresponding sheets of colored paper. They were very thorough when I asked them to find things in the room that were a certain color - down to their neighbors shoelaces or my yellow hair. They picked things up so quickly and seemed to be having so much fun! But asking a five year old to memorize things for a long period of time is never a good idea. I could tell they were starting to get restless, so next Jill taught them "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes". And they LOVED it. Please take a moment right now to watch the video attached to this post, and feel free to laugh out loud. Well, we did it about 3 times just to learn the words, and then we repeated it 3 or 4 more times. It was so cute. (Side note: the next day I was walking to a friend's apartment and couldn't figure out why my knee muscles were sore...then I realized it was because of a children's song...please see title of post) And that pretty much took up our hour. The teacher had them all sit down and color a circle in their favorite color, and then we came around and helped them right the name of the color in Italian and English. If you don't already know, teaching is hard work! I don't know if I could do it all day like they do. It takes a lot of patience and repetition.

We made some noise, obviously, and the other teachers of the younger classes apparently noticed. As we were leaving, they stopped us at the door and asked us to come to their classes for 30 minutes every week after the 5 yr old class. So the week after, Jill went to the 4 yr old and I went to the 3 yr olds - we didn't have quite the same effect there. They are a tad bit too small to appreciate English. My class had only just learned the colors "red" and "yellow" in Italian, so it was a little hard getting them to say them in English too. Just a lot of big-eyed staring faces. And one little girl who talked the whole time, babbling but not really saying anything, laughing at herself when she apparently said something funny, nodding at me as if I understood - the teacher didn't even understand. Oh well. They are fun to be with. :)

Fun times in an Italian daycare!

Yay! Sono ancora giovane!

Well, this last weekend was a trip! Jill and I headed to Aprilia for the weekend, which is a city about 40 minutes from Rome. The church in Aprilia hosted a youth convegno or retreat which included all the young people ages 16-25 from all the churches of Christ throughout Italy. Yes. I just barely made it.

Jillian and I were hosted by the di Pietro family - Donatello, Laura, and their son Riccardo. I had made met Riccardo at the regular annual church convegno in August, and it was nice to spend more time getting to know him. :) They have a lovely home, and we felt very welcomed by them.

We arrived on Friday evening at about 5 o'clock, and we were met by a member of the church named Valerio. Soon afterwards, Riccardo came to pick us up and take us to the church building. We were the first ones (besides the kids from Aprilia, of course) there! Riccardo was in charge of transporting people between the church and the train station, so we rode along with him for a while. By about 8pm, there was a pretty good number of people there, and we had a welcome service and ate pizza.

The whole next day is kind of one big blur! :) I didn't really know anybody there - Riccardo I knew the best - and it had been a while since I spent the entire day speaking Italian. And what a humbling experience that was! I do pretty well in Florence, speaking and understanding, but it was a whole different ball game with 35 young Italians speaking lightning fast and in all the different dialects. So between trying to meet and get to know people and trying to understand what they were saying....let's just say my brain has felt better. And my pride! :) The day was organized and run by the youth group at Aprilia, so they led songs and prayers and introduced the convegno. The main discussions were led by Titus Robinson, an American missionary living in Vicenza, who is acting as their unofficial youth minister. The theme was "Giovani Insieme: Siamo noi la futura" - "Youth Together: We are the future".

Sunday was great too, as we got to meet the church members and have a potluck lunch with them. I knew some of them also from the August convegno, so it was good to renew those acquaintances. Also, they have a chorus made up of members of the church! Laura and Donatello are part of the group, and they sang several hymns in Italian, which was beautiful! About halfway through the concert they broke out into the English rendition of "Go Down Moses", which made both of us very nostalgic. I can't tell you how many times I've heard that song performed by first my high school chorus and then the Harding University chorus by many, many of my good friends. I couldn't help but smile like a fool the whole way through.

After the potluck, we hopped back on a train and headed back to Florence. What a neat feeling, getting off the train at Santa Maria Novella and feeling like you're at home! So, all in all it was a great weekend, and we made lots of new friends and contacts with some young Italian Christians. Giovani Insieme!!

For Such a Time as This

Helloooooooo from Florence!

Well, as always, I hardly know where to begin. Our days are filled, and we are always busy doing something. However, when I sit down to write about it, I have the hardest time remembering exactly what I did!

My English lessons are going very well. I have 8 students that come faithfully every week to learn....from me! Sometimes that is hard to believe. I would like to tell you a little about them. I will give you a little portrait of each of them throughout the next several blogs.

I have one girl that comes that is 15 years old, and she always can make me smile. She is pretty quiet at first, but she usually warms up pretty quickly. We have very similar tastes in books, so that has been fun to talk about and discuss. I think she will go to see a movie in English at the Odeon with Jill and me. Also, she is very smart and remembers everything! I will try to quiz her over a Bible passage that we have read, but it's pointless, because she gets every single one correct. (I have found that to be true with most of my students, though.) We are studying Mark together, and it's so fun to be able to see small improvements already. Also, we just started reading The Magician's Nephew, the first book in The Chronicles of Narnia series. She's really liking it so far - although we are only on Chapter 2 - and I'm excited, because I know what a great sense of accomplishment I felt when I read my first book in Italian. And I get to help somebody else do that! Anyway, she is wonderful, and I always look forward to our lessons.

Well, today was our last day of language school. We are official graduates of the Lorenzo dei Medici intermediate 3 and advanced classes. It was sad saying goodbye to our teachers and all the people that work there - we are friends with both of the baristas, as we did our homework in the school bar every morning. It is also kind of liberating having all of our mornings free for other things now though. We are planning on starting to work more at the church building.

We will go tomorrow morning to the Questura Ufficio d'Immigrazione to get our permesso di sogiorno - finally! We had an appointment there on Wednesday, but when we got there the electricity was out! So they told us we had to come back another time. Boh. Beverly, Debbie, and Rachel leave tomorrow for some traveling, so we will drop them at the train station before we go to the Questura.

I'm excited about the youth convegno next weekend in Aprilia! I think it will be a really good experience for Jill and I, and it will give us the chance to get to know some young Italian Christians. We will be full-submersion Italian, that's for sure! The members of the church are going to host us in their homes. Yahooo!

Also, the Florence church (along with the churches nearby, such as Prato and Pistoia), are hosting the women's conference next year! The conference is in early March, so we have been having meetings to discuss the innerworkings on Saturdays. We have decided on Esther as our theme (thus the "for such a time as this" heading), and we are very excited about it!

Let me know if there are things in particular you are curious about, and I will do my best to write a good description! Love you all!

I DID IT!!!

Once more, proof that I am just a little bit nerdy: On Monday, Wednesday, and Friday Rosa cooks lunch for us and has it ready by the time we get home from language school. Very wonderful. Then we all sit down together and chat - always in Italian, because Rosa CLAIMS that she doesn't speak English. I am still skeptical of this. Anyway, last week an amazing thing happened. We were sitting there talking, and I was telling Rosa about something that had happened earlier that day, and.......I correctly used a sentence in the imperfect conjunctive tense!! Weow!! Now, I know that may not seem like a big deal to most of you, but it was a milestone for me. It was the first time it came relatively easily - that is to say without scrunching my nose, lowering my eyebrows, and squeezing it out of my brain.

My school decided that we are improving as well. They permitted us, after completing the intermediate 3 class in september, to sign up for the advanced class this month. We started the class on Monday: Jill, Cecilia, and I are all together again with the new addition of Camilla (Colombia), Isabella (Boulder, CO), and Kamal (Egypt). Also we have one of our teachers from last month again - Luca. He teaches us all four hours this time instead of having two different teachers for two hours apiece. So much fun!

Gramma still hasn't arrived, because of some trouble with her medication. I think everything is worked out now though, and she is planning to arrive Monday. Yay!

We have been having our women's Bible Study every Monday night, and that has been a really good thing. This week Ermenita's birthday was on Monday, so mom and tracey baked her a cake and we surprised her after bible study was over. Also there were flowers!

I have ten Italians studying English with me now. Whoo! And more asking all the time. We're having to tell them that we won't be able to take anymore until November, when we are finished with language school. Haha, in language school today, we also learned some idiomatic expressions that involve animals. I thought it was a fun exercise, so I did the same with one of my more advanced students. It's funny, because they have a lot of the same ones we do! There was one in particular today that really made me laugh. I told her that in English we have the expression "that's a long row to hoe". And she looked it up last week and today she told me that they have an expression that means the same thing: " Che brutto gatto a pellare" - "What a (hard) cat to skin!" Bah hahah.

Some things coming up:

Jill and I are hoping to go to Poland at the end of November/beginning of December to learn the program that Molly and Annabelle Dawidow have developped. We will be teaching English up there for about a week. So exciting!

Also there is a youth retreat (with relief I discovered that we are still considered "youth") for ages 18-25 organized by the young people in Aprilia - a town close to Rome - that I hope we will be able to attend.

We're having fun hanging out some with the HUF students, doing projects at the church (like decorating the bulletin boards ;) ), learning Italian, and going to Bible studies. All is well in Florence!

I THINK I still remember English....

Well, I can hardly believe it's been almost three weeks since I last posted something! The time is flying by. But at the same time, it feels like Jill and I have been here for so long - I feel so comfortable and happy here.

Jillian and I have 8 or 9 students each at this time, and all of our lessons fall on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. We meet for an hour with each student, and I am really enjoying getting to know my students. I like figuring out what they enjoy studying, and different ways to get keep them interested. I have one female student especially who is very interested in studying the Bible and learning more about the church in Florence. She comes at 9:00pm and usually she stays for a couple of hours. I am really enjoying our time together. I invited her to come to church with me sometime so that she could see firsthand what we're about, and she was definitely open to that. Lessons are always interesting, because every student is different, and they are also all on different levels in their English abilities.

We are working on getting a service project together that the HUF students, our English students, and hopefully some Italian students can get involved in. We are having the HUF students over for a devo, meal, and AI info session on Sunday night. I have invited a few of my English students to come and practice their English, and I think a few of them want to.

Friday is Rosa's, the AI cook, 25th anniversary of working at the Bible School! She is wonderful, and she works so hard to feed us. We love her and appreciate all that she does for us.

My gramma is coming to visit! She arrives next week, and will probably stay with us for a month. Yay! Also my friend Beverly Rose will be arriving soon - the middle/end of October. It's always nice to see people from back home.

Our Thursday night Bible studies at the church have started up again. Dad is wanting to start a conversational English class at 6:30pm, have a light supper with our students, and then invite them to stay for the Bible study at 8:00pm. Hopefully we can get things in order to make that happen.

All in all things are going wonderfully here! Thank you all for your love and support - we feel it in so many ways. :)

Il primo giorno della scuola...!

Yikes! It feels like a very long time since I've had a first day of school! Jill and I are riding with Dad into Florence to drop Kyle, Liz, and Phyllis off so they can catch a train for their 7-day cruise! Then Jill and I are off to Lorenzo dei Medici to become Italians. Or at least to hopefully learn some Italian and not sound quite so American. :) I hope the teacher doesn't call on me!

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Well. Obviously, the first part of this post is from approximately one week ago. And I forgot to finish it on Monday. I was hoping to have skillfully kept you in suspense by inserting that line of asterisks, and then informing you of the rest of my day at school. So much for my clever intentions!

Nevertheless, language school is going very well! I love, love learning language. And both of our teachers are really great. We have two different teachers every day: Luca teaches us for approximately an hour and a half starting at 9am every morning, then we have "una pausa" for twenty minutes, and then enters Silvia for the remainder of our time. I find Luca's section a little more challenging, because he tends to deal more with the grammar....and also possibly because he talks a mile a minute. :) There are two other American girls in our class, and we have enjoyed getting to know them. Their names are Cecilia (yes!) and Tracey. Cecilia is from Connecticut, and Tracey is from New Jersey - they are both studying abroad through different programs, and they are just a few years younger than Jillian and me. Another fact about them that interests me is that they both also study French! I like knowing that other people share my pain of mixing up languages. :)

Another big accomplishment this week was setting up our English lessons! We will be begin meeting this week, starting tomorrow. There are many, many things going on always, and it is hard for me to remember all of them. If you want to know my schedule in more detail, send me an email at ewoodroof@harding.edu and I will share my google calendar with you. :)

We just returned this evening from the Women's Convegno/Retreat, a great weekend spent getting to know many Christian women from all over Italy. This year it was held in Aprilia, Italy, a sea-coast town near to Rome. Our theme was "Unity without Uniformity, Differences without being Divided". We prayed, studied, sang songs, played get-to-know-you games, and ATE together. I must admit, it was pretty exhausting - it's pretty tiring getting to know a whole group of new people in of itself, but even more so when they speak a different language. Luckily I was able to keep up most of the time.

Not so luckily, I seem to have forgotten all nine years of my French education. There was a French girl at the convegno with whom I became friends, and I tried to speak with her a few times, but all I could think of was Italian! This will be remedied, and I plan to brush up on my French (just a quick review of nine years) so that I can send her messages in her own language. Although, she happens to be fluent in English and speaks well in Italian too. Quelle domage.

Like I mentioned before, we have many goings-on this week, but I will write about those later. In the meantime, I am looking forward to commencing with language school and also to the arrival of the new HUF students! I realize that I have an atrocious absence of pictures since my arrival, but don't worry - I have been taking pictures and hope to get around to publishing those soon. :) Love you all, and let me know about things happening over there! Ciao ciao tutti!

Lorenzo dei Medici

Well, as I suspected, the weeks are zooming by! This week we have mostly been taking care of housekeeping items.

Monday, we had an orientation meeting for Avanti, in which several former Avanti workers that are still living in Italy came and talked to us and gave us advice. Kelly, Sarah, and Julie all had really good information for us. Chad talked to us some from a more recent perspective - about things he wishes he'd done differently, etc.

On Tuesday, we spent the day getting the packets that we needed to apply for our "permesso di sogiorno", and also Dad took Jill and I into Florence so that we could take our language test! Ahhh! I was a little bit nervous, as I think was she, because it has been over a year since we have taken Italian. This test was to determine our level and which class they would put us in. We both did well enough, apparently, because we were placed in Intermezzo 3 - the last intermediate class before the advanced.

Wednesday was full of shopping - we got groceries to last us for a while, and also we went to IKEA for things we needed for our rooms. May I just say, that one of my favorite things to eat here is the yogurt? I'm just sayin'. Bianco dolce. :) Although I'm pretty sure it's imported from Germany. Boh. We also had the pleasure of welcoming Phyllis and Liz (aka "Phiz" or "Lyllis" according to Kyle) to Florence. They travel here often, and have made several friends here over the years. They are so much fun!

Thursday was full of errands as well. Phew. We had breakfast with David Shack, who had arrived the night before. He will be around for a while, and it was good to see him here. We put Chad on the plane back to Catania, had a panino and then filed our permesso di soggiorno, which is done at the post office here along with paying bills and many other different things. That done, Jill and I went back to Florence to officially register with Lorenzo dei Medici language school - also to pay for it. ha. We begin classes bright and early on Monday morning. We have two two-hour sessions - the first with Luca, and the second with Silvia. I don't know them yet, but we are on a first name basis already.

We spent most of today cleaning up around the Bible School. We had to clean all the rooms upstairs, since we had many guests from the Convegno staying here. Also, Dad is in the middle of repainting the walls of the classroom downstairs, which is quite a job here. You have to scrape the former paint and plaster off, re-plaster, then sand, brush the walls down, primer, then paint. So far we have two walls down to the "brushing the walls down", so next time we will be able to primer. Woohoo!

Mona and Jonathan Shackelford are both set to arrive this week, so we are excited for that. Also the HUF students are due in about two weeks I believe. Jill and I are hoping to do a few service projects with them every semester to get involved more with the Scandicci community. Anyway, big things are happening soon, and we appreciate all your prayers, thoughts, and support. Love to everyone!

Il Convegno

As I mentioned in my last post, I arrived late on the first night of the convegno. There is a retreat for all the churches in Italy once every year in August, and I was glad that I got here in time for that. I met a lot of new people and made some new friends from all over Italy. I met Ermenita and Melissa in person, who were my facebook friends before I came. :) They were very welcoming and really made me feel at home right away. Ermenita lives and attends university here in Florence, so I will be seeing a good deal of her, but Melissa lives in Catania in southern Italy. She left today, but I hope to be able to travel down there sometime to visit and she wants to come back here. I talked with Adriana and Riccardo from Aprilia (near Rome) quite a bit the last few days, and I have made a deal with them - that when I come down to Aprilia I will teach them English in two days flat. haha!

I believe there were 70-80 people altogether that attended the conference, and it lasted from Wednesday until Sunday at about 3:00pm. The theme was "I colori dell'anima", or "the colors of the spirit/soul". Several men from the different congregations presented lessons to us, such as Vittorio Vitalone from Rome, Tonio Console from Bergamo, and Robbie Shackelford. Wednesday through Friday we had lessons, sang songs together, and ate wonderful meals prepared by Angelo, Mario, Carla, Giovanni, and my mom. Saturday we all went together to a big park with beach volleyball, soccer and a swimming pool and had a picnic and spent the day there. It was very nice - the weather even cooperated and was comparatively cool and breezy.

I met several women from the churches that will attend the Convegno delle Donne (Women's Retreat) in a few weeks - September 11-13 - just outside of Rome. Tonia Vitalone from Rome is in charge of it. Mom, Sarah Bailey, Ermenita, Jill, and I will drive down together from Florence. I am looking forward to it. I believe the theme has something to do with being different but unified. I talked with Tamara Short (a missionary working in Milan) about some ideas for the weekend, and I think it will be a great thing for getting to know all the women.

Last night, Jill, Kyle Thompson, Ermenita, Chad Fetters, Melissa, Sarah and I went and got Chinese food for dinner and brought it back to the Bible School. We had a lot of fun hanging out and talking. It is fun to hear Melissa say "Sweet Kyle"..... or "sweeet -ah Kihle". Then we played Guesstures together until midnight! Melissa, Ermenita and I were on a team - which was interesting because they would guess in Italian and I would in English. Ha!

Anyway, this is really long, so I will just wrap it up by saying that I am so very happy to be here. Thanks to everyone who helped get me here! Especially Aunt Pam, Uncle Tom, Gramma, and Liz on my trip over - they had many phone calls and video conversations to accomplish. :) God bless!

Che cosa e' succesa?

Well, as most of you know by now, I MADE IT!

I was getting a little worried as training came to a close and my VISA still had not come (Ah!!!). I had tried getting in touch with the Italian Consulate in Houston several times during the two weeks of training in various ways: phone calls, emails, faxes. No luck at all. I did not one time receive an answer or get a hold of anyone. Also Howard and Elizabeth were helping me try to contact them, as I was in training most of the day. I had applied for my VISA on July 17th, and they told me it would reach me in plenty of time - by the first week in August at the latest. We could not figure out what was going on, and I didn't know what else to do!

Well, I had bought a flight from Little Rock to Dallas on Monday, August 24th. Monday rolls around, I still don't have my VISA, and I was supposed to flight out Tuesday! On the way to the LR airport, I try calling my congressman's office, who referred me to the State Dept, who referred me to the Italian Embassy in Washington, D.C., who gave me the same number for the Houston Consulate that I'd been using all along. Weow.

So I flew to Dallas anyway, thinking that if by some miracle my VISA arrived that afternoon, Liz could just overnight it to me. Thank goodness Dad and Mom were on the case too! They had a specific extension number for someone in Houston, called it, and reached someone on the first try. Hahahaha! Ah. Anyway, turns out that my VISA had been ready since July 21st. Another reason it was distressing is because I had left my passport with them, and they were going to mail it back with the VISA. It was partially both parties fault, as I wasn't aware that I was supposed to have left a self-addressed envelope with them to mail to me, and they forgot to ask for it when I applied. Also, they didn't contact me, but left it sitting on a pile there. Good grief! But it all worked out. Dad had it FedEx-ed to me overnight, and it arrived at 7:00am Tuesday morning - in plenty of time for me to fly out from DFW at 11:45am!

Flying standby, as many of you know, has never been my forte. I have always gotten stuck somewhere along the way. This time I got as far as Washington D.C. before I caved. :) I ended up buying a flight from WA D.C. to Frankfurt, to Rome, and it was so nice to know for certain that I would be on that plane! Dad and Kyle met me in Rome and brought me home to Scandicci. Yay family reunion! I arrived late in the evening of the first day of Convegno, which has been great. I will tell you all about it when it is over! Ciao! A doppo!

Il mio telefonino non c'e' di piu'!

Well, the slide into Italy begins!

Training comes to a close on Friday. We have had a wonderful two weeks, with teachers who have taught us SO much. I am lucky to live in a place where there are so many quality Christian men, who just happen to be fantastic teachers to boot. :) It has been intense, I will admit, but we are going so much better prepared! Thank you to everyone who opened their homes to us and fed us amazing meals - in all seriousness, we didn't have the same meal twice, and every single one was DELICIOUS.

Today I also killed my cell phone - literally and once and for all. I canceled my cellular plan, so if you need to reach me, the best way is by email or facebook. My email address is ewoodroof@harding.edu. That felt a little weird...I have had that phone number (and a cell phone) for five years, and now I can't be contacted automatically!! Whatever will I do? Ahh, nothing. A little break from technology will do me good. Provided that I can keep my computer. haha!

If I haven't started packing as of yet, I have at least started "sifting" through things that I want to take, things I can store, and things to take to His House. Plenty of time for all that! Hmmm.

So it seems I have everything in order! Oh. Except for my VISA still hasn't come. I was told it would be here the first week of August, and I have seen neither hide nor hair. This wouldn't be so detrimental, except that my passport is with my VISA! Wherever that may be. Also the Houston Consulate doesn't exactly rely on any form of modern communication to communicate with the people they work with. By that I mean that they aren't answering emails, picking up the telephone, or replying to faxes. All of which I (and Howard) have done with nothing to show for it. By some miracle, Howard (and I must) believe that it will come sailing into my hands the day before I leave. He says that this happens sometimes. Boh. I am flying standby out of Dallas, so I may have to be there a little longer than anticipated waiting for VISA to come. Gramma will be so disappointed! ;)

I know that everything will work out, and that I will get to Italy, so I am just waiting and praying that it works out SOON!

Abbiamo comminciato!

Wow, things are just going by in one BIG blur! This last week I had some friends come to stay with me to see me before I left - Amanda, Mikey, and Kinch, I had a blast with you! Also, Jillian, Travis, and Cullen arrived Sunday, so the company continues. As if that is not enough excitement for one weekend, I have also been moving out of our upstairs apartment where I have lived for the past two years (aka TOO MUCH STUFF). I am only moving downstairs to a bedroom, but moving is a big deal no matter where you are going. !!

Jillian, Travis, Cullen and I began our Avanti training today! For the next two weeks we will be soaking up as much wisdom and life experience from our teachers as possible. We have class from 8am to 5pm, and our classes include Catholic church principles, the Beatitudes, Italian music and drama (as a form of outreach), and also we are studying how Jesus evangelized the way he did. Grandaddy is teaching two of our classes, and I am loving having him and learning from him. He is so good at making the story of Jesus personal and touching. We also will start each day with an hour of team unity building supervised by Carl Mitchell. There is a couple doing the training with us - Bob and Marla Housby. They won't be doing the typical Avanti program - they will be going to do mission work and work with a church.

We had a great first day, and we learned so much already. The men involved are all wonderful, and we all feel very blessed to have them helping in our preparation.

I must mention that although I love singing (especially hymns in Italian!), I do NOT love singing solo in front of other people. I already knew this about myself, but it was brought to my attention again today. :) Thank you, Mrs. Marla, for also singing soprano, even though you didn't think I was really singing! haha. :)

A variety of families has offered to invite us into their homes and feed us dinner throughout the next two weeks, for which we are very thankful and excited. Tonight for dinner, we participated in the Sharing and Caring outreach program that is through the College Church. They invite people from the community to come participate in a devo and share a meal with some members from the church. I met three interesting and very nice people whom I sat with for dinner. One of them was a refugee from hurricane Katrina, so it was very humbling to hear his story. I was very impressed by the success that this outreach seems to have - I think I heard that their biggest number so far has been 153 non-church members. An experience worth having, for sure!

Two weeks from tomorrow, and I will be on my way!

VISA Application is a go!

Amazing! I can't believe how easy it was. I arrived at the Italian consulate in Houston at 9:15am last Friday morning, thanks to Erica, my chauffeur. :) I signed in, we waited in line for about 40 minutes, and then it was my turn.

Now, I had been a little anxious about this meeting - what if I didn't have all the paperwork I needed? Or if I had some spot on my criminal record of which I wasn't aware? Ah! They could reject me!

Thankfully, it was all very simple and couldn't have gone more smoothly. I had everything that they needed/asked for, and I was only in the room for about 5 minutes with the agent. I was then able to enjoy the rest of my weekend with my sister Erica and her husband Justin. I love Italy!

VISAs and Training

Hello everyone!

Things are really starting to get moving now.  Thanks to all of your generosity and support, I feel that I am ready to hop on a plane right now!  My team member, Jillian, has had a lot of pieces come together lately as well, and we both feel so blessed to starting this together.

In 6 weeks from today, I will be scheduling myself for a flight to Florence.  It's so hard to believe that what I have been praying and looking forward to for so long is actually coming to fruition!  

I will be heading down to Houston the weekend of July 17-19 to formally put in my VISA application with the Italian Consulate.  An added blessing is that my little sister and husband have just moved to Galveston, so I will be getting to visit with them while I am there.  

After that, I have Avanti training with Jillian, Cullen, and Travis.  It starts on August 10 and will last through August 21.  And then on to Florence!

They have me working from the moment I arrive - those parents, they tend to do that. ;)  There will be a conference, or "convegno" that will start on the 26th that I will be able to help with and participate in.  

Until then, I have plenty to do packing up my 23 yrs worth of accumulated possessions and organizing accounts, plane tickets, VISAs.  I hope to see as many of you as possible before I head off into the wide, blue yonder!  :)