November Notes

Well, you can definitely tell it is finally winter here. Not by all the falling, changing leaves and crisp autumn air, but by the endless, endless rain! haha. The rain is posing a problem, as the Bible School clothes dryer is broken down - it's hard to get dry around here lately. We have an outside clothesline that we try to use as much as possible, but it rains and the clothes don't even have the chance to dry. Ah well!

This has been the month of weekend trips! The last month of October we went to Aprilia, a town about 40 minutes outside of Rome, for the youth retreat there, and it was great. The new guys got to meet a lot of people and make contacts that way, and we got to see some of the friends that we had already made. We ended up caravaning with 3 of our Italian friends - 2 from near Ferrara and 1 from Vicenza. Also Lindsay came down from Vicenza to ride with us. Harding let us borrow their van so that we could all drive down together - 9 people in the van and 5 in my little Panda car.

The very next weekend, Ryan, Laura, and I were back in the car and on our way back to Rome! They were invited to visit by the church there. We stayed at the house of Vittorio and Tonia Vitalone, who are such welcoming and gracious hosts. Their daughter Virginia and son Riccardo also made us feel very welcome. We had a great weekend - me seeing people again and they meeting them for the first time.

Then I had a weekend off of traveling. On Sunday the 14th we attended a concert organized by Robbie Shackelford that was held at the Florence church. A quartet (accompanied by a percussionist) of 2 different types of saxophones and 2 different clarinets played, and they were very good. We had lots of visitors and several of our students from the Bible School came.

Then just this last weekend, the two married couples (Ryan & Laura, Jessica & Eric) and I (driving) went to visit Vicenza. We left early Saturday morning and arrived in Vicenza by lunch time. We were invited to eat with Francesco Fergnani and his family (wife Lorenza and two daughters Miriam and Anna)....and let me just say that we ate well. A little tooooo well possibly. After lunch we drove to a nearby town to watch our friend Marco (who attended the youth weekend we held here at the Bible School) play in his soccer game. Then we drove back to Vicenza and met some of the young people from the church. We went and walked through downtown Vicenza and then ordered pizza to take back to Lindsay's apartment. We were housed by different families of the church - Jessica & Eric stayed at Marco's house, Ryan & Laura stayed with a young couple named Cristian & Sonja, and I had a sleep over with Lindsay, haha! On Sunday we attended the church service, and then Laura & Jessica went upstairs to help Lindsay with the kids' class while the rest of us stayed in the adult class. For Sunday lunch we were invited to Marco's house, and we ATE! His mother made a FANTASTIC meal that I think I am still full from to this day. We had pasta, delicious meat and potatoes in a kind of mustard sauce, spanish salad and coffee. It was a real shame that I was the one that had to drive home afterwards, because all I wanted to do it curl up and take an awesome nap!

On our agenda now are the preparations for our Thanksgiving meal. We have invited our students and some friend to eat with us Saturday night, and so now we are in the midst of grocery shopping, cleaning, and cooking in order to get ready for it. It's going to be a blast, with about 50 people in attendance. Happy Thanksgiving to everyone back stateside! We will be thinking of all our friends and family during this holiday season!

Summer goes by in a blur, and Fall is off like a shot!

Well, that's definitely it for summer folks. Our classes have officially started back up, along with all of our other regular school year activities. We are all fully loaded with individual classes on Monday - Wednesday, plus this year we have added a beginners' grammar class which is offered every Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday night at 9:00pm. Last night, the teachers (Ryan, Angela, & Andrea) had about 15 students, which is pretty incredible. I was a little sad at first about not having all my old students, but I decided it would be better for them if they had a variety of teachers rather than listening to same old me all the time. :)

We've also started back up again with the English Conversation class that we teach at the Florence church building. It's every Thursday night starting at 6:30pm. We have an hour lesson with grammar and conversation, and then we offer our students a simple meal that we cook there at the church. We then invite them to stay for our Bible study - in Italian - which starts at 8:00pm. We've had good response to this class, and several of our students from this class have visited the church. One of our members is a regular student of ours - Sveta, a lady from Russia, who married an Italian (who is originally from Naples). They have an adorable 4 yr old daughter named Lisa. :) The new workers have been great in helping out with this too!

Other than our English/Bible studies at the School and the Church, we have many other activities that we are involved in. I go once a week to a nearby daycare (same one as last year) and teach English to the 3-yr-olds and the 4-yr-olds. This is a little bit of a change from last year, when it was Jillian and I both teaching only the 5-yr-old class. They are so small, and the 3-yr-olds are only just beginning to learn their colors in Italian! So we are moving slower, but this week was the first week and they did a great job paying attention and repeating what I said. Some of them were so into the coloring sheets that they colored holes right through their red apples. :) So that is my schedule for every Tuesday morning from 10 - 11:30.

Also, we are partnering with the Harding Students once a semester to have a Storytime hour at the local Scandicci library. For four consecutive weeks each semester, we teach vocabulary, read a short book, and then have an activity planned to go along with the story. It's a lot of fun, and we've had great turn-outs. This week we have 40 kids aged 5-12 registered, and we are planning on doing the stories of "The Three Little Pigs" and "Little Red Riding Hood". Harding is responsible for two of the weeks, and we are responsible for the other two weeks. And again I would like to thank those of you who have sent children's English books to donate to the library - I asked the librarian about them last week, and she said she can barely keep them on the shelves! They are so grateful for the books - they only had a few before this summer, and now they can actually have a section of them at various reading levels. Thank you!

On Monday nights, we are back to our Bible studies at the Bible School. We had our women's Bible study every Monday last year, and this year the guys have started a men's Bible study. We have several English students that are coming to the Bible studies, adn they are really a blessing to our work here. We generally meet together at 6:30pm for a simple meal and then begin our study at 8:00pm. Right now we have about 12 women and 12 men that are coming.

We have a few new additions at the Bible school. Peter arrived Tuesday, and started language school yesterday! He barely had time to breathe before he was right there in the thick of things. Also, we have a new puppy! Her name is Zoey, and she adds a lot of life and joy to the Bible School.

There is always a lot going on around here, and God is blessing our work! We have some wonderful students who are genuinely interested in studying the Bible and who have such kind, giving spirits. Thank you all for your love and support - we have such generous, wonderful people who help to make all this happen. God bless you!

The Newbies

Our numbers have gone from 4 to 10, and soon to be 11!! Yes, that's right. The new workers are finally here! Angela was the first to arrive, shortly followed by Andrea, then Jessica & Eric, and the day after Laura & Ryan. So in a very short time, our daily habits and goings-on here at the Bible School have changed pretty dramatically.

Now, naturally I had some misgivings as to whether this would be a mostly positive change to our routine. It's much more difficult to manage and work with 10 people as opposed to 4, and anytime time you throw strangers into the same house to live, work, eat and breathe together there's bound to be some tension and uncomfortable situations. I was very excited for the new workers to get here, but at the same time I was a little uneasy about how it would go down.

Absolutely no reason to worry! There has been minimal if ANY conflict since they arrived! They are all wonderful, helpful, and friendly people, and I can tell already that I'm going to love working with them.

After the two girls had been here for about a week or so, and the couples 2 days and 1 day respectively, we hosted a youth retreat. I was feeling bad for the two couples - coming off an international flight, with jet-lag, and being put in a situation where you don't know anyone and don't speak the language.....you can see how it could have been stressful. But they jumped head first! They were so wonderful with the Italian kids, and fortunately many of the Italians spoke English pretty well and were glad of a chance to practice. It seems like everyone went away having had a wonderful time.

Yay for new workers! :)

Precious puppies…and their problem

Oh my word. Whoever knew such a cute ball of fluff could be concealing an attitude the size the Alps and a curiousity that WILL NOT be satisfied? I’m talking puppy here, people.

Now, I’m no stranger to the puppy scene. We’ve had dogs all my life, and while I will admit that my parents and Erica were mostly responsible for the most recent ones, I also worked for a veterinarian for close to 3 years. You see a lot of puppy traffic in a vet clinic, and a lot of the clean-up and emergency trips to the vet that go hand in hand with owning an adolescent canine.

BUT. It is a WHOLE different matter actually LIVING with the puppy. Like I mentioned, I am house-sitting for a woman who is on vacation in America for about a month. Two weeks before she left, she became the owner of not just her current 4 yr old Labrador, but also of a then 3 month old Labrador puppy. And let the games begin.

She called me two days before I’m supposed to house-sit to let me know that Izzy (that’s the puppy) has eaten mouse poison, and had to go see the vet. They were pretty sure she would be okay, but I would have to take her for a check-up the following Monday. No problem, I can handle a vet’s office – albeit that an Italian vet’s office isn’t exactly like an American one, and that I don’t necessarily have all the vocabulary in that particular area. But no worries! Another learning experience.

So the owner leaves, and I begin my 4 week residence as plant-waterer and dog-feeder/trainer – because naturally she is not house-trained, being a 3 month old puppy new to the house. House-training in of itself isn’t going so badly – she is getting better and better, and it is only when she goes to the bathroom in the house while looking me in the eyes after just coming back from a 30 minute walk that I get very frustrated with that aspect.

About the 4th day on my own, I climbed the stairs to find thin glass shards throughout the hallway. Wonderful. I continue on the bedroom to discover a broken lamp complete with busted light bulb on the floor. Signing, I went back to the hallway to clean up the glass, and there was the puppy, looking at me. So I gave her a disappointed face and finger shake and scolded her, and proceeded to pick up the pieces. I guess she wanted to help me, because she snatched up a piece and swallowed it down so fast I couldn’t even react quickly enough.

Back to the vet’s office. This was on the Wednesday after the Monday when she had her check-up for the mouse poison incident. I was at the vet’s office every day that week and had to feed her a special diet of soft bread, mashed potatoes, paraffin drops, and a little bit of meat (prescribed by the veterinarian for flavor). But the danger passed thankfully, and she was her old mischievous self as soon as we got home.

She has taken on as a new personal mission the destruction of the household plants, so that’s been fun. I keep finding leaves, potting soil and stems strewn across the carpet and in unlikely places (the bed). She tried to start chewing my shoes, but after she chewed a section of my jelly shoes – BIGTIME NO!!! – and was strictly reprimanded, she hasn’t done that again. Poor jelly shoe. It will never be the same.

Even with all the chaos and confusion and cleanup, I love having them around. They are so fun, and sometimes there is nothing like having a dog for company. And so I will plod on in this discipline, mess to mess, plant to dying plant, until I overcome or am overcome!

Gone country…Italian style.

Well, I’ve done it. I’ve had a major breakthrough, and I’ve done it! I can now pick, handle, wash, cut, slice, dice, purée, and stew tomatoes - without feeling nauseous!

This may not seem like a big thing to most people, but I’ve had a lifelong hate-hate relationship with those red-skinned squishy things. Not really that big of a deal in America (free country), but in Italy – land of the tomato lovers – it’s a big deal. I’d say a good 90% of their meals contain tomatoes in some form or fashion – my own personal culinary nightmare.

I don’t want you to think that I’m so immature that I just REFUSE to this poor vegetable. I honestly try to taste them once every few months or so, just in case my taste buds have changed without my knowing it. I also think that I have a slight allergy, not just an aversion, towards them. But for Italy’s sake I try.

I owe my breakthrough to my current past time of house/garden/dog-sitting for Elizabeth Whatley, the director of Pepperdine’s study abroad program in Florence. She is gone for about a month to America, and I am here to keep an eye on things while she’s gone.

She has a beautiful old, restored villa in the Tuscan hills right outside of Florence, complete with garden, flowerbeds, a small stream running through the backyard and two chocolate Labrador Retrievers. I am responsible for watering and gathering the produce from her garden, as well as taking care of the two dogs – one four years old, and one FOUR MONTHS OLD. More to come about that at a later time.

And so, I have picked cucumbers (with glee), eggplant (ignorantly – who grows eggplant in America? I think I ate it twice before I came to Italy), and the dreaded tomatoes. So there I was, with about 40 fresh, ripe tomatoes on my hands, and absolutely no idea what to do with them. Normal people would slice them up with olive oil or mozzarella cheese for a light salad, put them over lettuce, eat them sprinkled with salt. No, no, and NO! I can only eat a tomato that has been good and cooked. So I cut those babies up, blended them together, and stewed them together for 3 or 4 hours, and I made homemade pasta sauce with things right outside my back door! It was the most delicious sauce I’ve had in my entire life. ☺

Welcome to Italy

So we have adopted a phrase that has helped us a lot during our transition period into the Italian lifestyle and culture....one that covers situations of many kinds, even if they are seemingly absurd and unbelievable in our American eyes. For example.

Back last July (you know, before I was even IN Italy...), I applied for my VISA to be able to come, just all part of the Avanti process, and I was told that it would take just a few weeks for them to ship my VISA (and my passport) back to me. Well, many sleepless nights and unanswered phone calls, faxes, and emails later, we arrive at the day before my departure is scheduled. Can't get a hold of anyone at the Consulate - I even try calling the Italian consulates in different states, important states, like Washington D.C. and New York. You would think powerful sounding political states like that could make things happen. Nope. Neither could my congressman. Going to sleep that night, I had pretty much lost all hope for making it out of the country the next year, let alone the next day. One thing happens to change this. My dad makes one phone call FROM Italy, gets through, and gets my VISA shipped to my aunt's house where I'm staying which arrives at 7:30am, just one small hour before I'm supposed to be at the airport.

Apparently, you're supposed to leave a self-addressed envelope when you go to fill out the application. Apparently I forgot to give one (and apparently they forgot to ask). Apparently my VISA had been ready and waiting since two days after I applied for it. Apparently they just let it sit there with my passport for company, waiting for.........? Me to call? Me to fax? Me to email? Yeah. And that was my first introduction to the phrase that says it all....

Welcome to Italy.

And there are so many things, some small, some big. You must apply for a permit of stay, waiting nine hours in a freezing waiting room to go up to the window (tricked into thinking that this is really the window you want, not just a window that gives you a number to a different wait, different window) just hand them some papers, be given another appointment time, wait 6 more hours on a different day - but oh wait the electricity is out that day so you go back another day.

Welcome to Italy.

Mom wants to paint her kitchen red, so she goes to the paint store. No, no, no, kitchens aren't supposed to be red, red is not a good color. She can have cream, white, or light gray.

Welcome to Italy.

Florence 20 years ago: Tram.
Florence 15 years ago: Tram system removed.
Florence 10 years ago: Maybe the tram wasn't such a bad thing, begin rebuilding of tram system.
Florence as of last December: Construction finalized on tram.

Welcome to Italy.

Mom had several 60 year old women offer to blowdry her hair, because they were afraid she would get sick going to sleep with her hair wet.

Welcome to Italy.

And other crazy, crazy things. But on the other hand....

Poppies in the springtime and fall...

Italian cuisine....

Tuscany.....

Downtown Florence.....

Warm, friendly people....

Welcome to Italy. :) It's worth it!



**This post is part of an effort attempting to placate a certain friend who says my blog is static (CLIFF). Follow-up critique anticipated. :)

Momenti sul Monte 2010: The Camp Longing Returns

As many of you know, summer camp has been a part of my life for many years.....it all started at Camp Wyldewood when I was about 11 or 12. I was driving to the Retreat Center on my way to community basketball practice, saw that field of horses, and the rest is history. I began volunteering (really just being pesky and trying not to be in the way TOO much - this stage lasted until I was about, oh, 16) every summer at the Wyldewood stables, arriving at 7:30am and working all day doing stable-y things and also maintenance work (clearing pastures, repairing fence line) until it was time to go at about 5:30pm. And I loved it! I did this faithfully for 7 straight years, finally making it onto the glorious summer camp payroll for my last two years there, since they couldn't legally pay me until then. But I loved it and learned a lot about horses and just plain hard work.

Then I missed a few years when I went to college, spending the summers of 2004 and 2006 in a little foreign land called Italy.

I had thought my summer camp career was over - after all, as far as duration goes, I was well into retirement. I had other things going on in my life (making money for college unfortunately had to be towards the top of the list), and I wasn't even considering working at camp anymore. However, I was called out of my retirement by one Ross Cochran and the wonderful camp he directed called Camp Tahkodah to fill the position as Head Wrangler for the entire summer. Now, as much as it is denied, there exists a competitive banter between these two camps, and I accepted the job with some mixed traitorous emotions. But man, what a blessing that camp has been to me. I have met and worked with some of the most amazing people in those cabins and have made many close friendships that I know I will have for many years to come. I learned a lot about working with people and children of all ages and backgrounds, God, faith, teaching, and so many other things. Not to mention that I got to be around horses ALL day, one of my favorite pasttimes. I was very lucky.

And so, after working at Tahkodah for three consecutive summers, I had graduated college and was already looking forward toand getting ready to start my work in Italy, done with college, done with camp, and ready to start new things. I've already written about most of the things I've done since I've been here, which for the most part are things I had been expecting to do. Camp was not something I was expecting to participate in again....at least not in a counselor position. But it seems that maybe camp just has to be a part of my life!

Lindsay Walle and I were invited to be part of the staff at the Italian Church of Christ summer camp, which is not usually a service opportunity for most Avanti workers as it requires a certain level of language skill and not many workers study Italian before starting Avanti. And once again, I was so blessed by camp. The camp is held at a facility (no log cabins for italians!!) that is in the Marche mountains, on the east coast of Italy - so beautiful, and wonderful weather! I'll give you an overall setup to give you an idea of what it was like. It was divided into two, one-week sessions.

The first was for kids ages 6-13 and we had 71 participants, which means we were packed full. We were also a little understaffed - I think we had less than 20 staff members - which means a week-long marathon! This was our daily schedule:

8:00 Wake up call
8:30 Breakfast
9:00 Room Cleaning
9:30 Morning Devotional
10:00 Bible Class
11:15 Activity Period
12:45 Lunch
2:30 Rest time
3:30 Sports period #1
5:00 Snack
5:30 Sports period #2
6:45 Showers
7:45 Dinner
9:00 Evening Devotional
9:30 Evening Activity
11:00 Lights Out
11:30 Everyone Asleep


This was the schedule for both weeks, except the older kids got a little later bedtime. Our theme for the first week was "The Fruit of the Spirit". Each day we concentrated on one of the "fruits" and had a biblical story that coordinated. My responsibilities the first week were co-teaching a class (in ITALIAN, mind you!!) of 23 10-yr-olds (18 of which were energetic little males), arts & crafts (a new experience, which including planning the activities the day before), and then I was also in charge of taking the kids that didn't want to play sports on hikes during both activity periods in the afternoon. The first week was....a little more stressful than the second week, for a few reasons.

1. There were 71 kids.
2. I had to teach and communicate pretty much 24/7 in a foreign language.
3. We had no counselor orientation, so I was unaware of the fact that most of the water faucets in the building do not provide drinkable water. Oops. So some children (whom I provided with the water) and myself drank who knows what substances until I was informed of my error....on Thursday.
4. Something else that I wasn't told is that the camp is located in the middle of a National Park, and so all the bouquets of flowers we were picking for the cooks were illegal. Caught this mistake a little sooner. On Wednesday.
5. We were understaffed.

But it was so much fun, and I had some people from my church that I got a ride there with - Julie Giordano and her two girls Michelah and Deborah. The last night we had a "banquet" which consisted of grilled meats and watermelon outside, and then a end of the week show, displaying all of our many talents and projects that we had worked on during the week.

During the second week, we had 23 kids ages 13-18 and our theme was "Facing Your Giants". And let me say that I had so much fun with them, too. It is a different dynamic of fun - more like hanging out with friends most of the time. We had some excellent classes - I did not teach, but I participated as an "assistant" in the oldest class. My parents were also at the second session - Mom worked in the kitchen and Dad was a counselor like me. Dad, Roberto, and I all helped out with the Chorus/Theater group during the activity period, which was really neat. The kids recited some Psalms, and then for Chorus Dad had translated the songs "The Joy of the Lord" and the newer "Our God is and Awesome God" into Italian and we taught those to them, which they really liked. The last day two of the older boys ended up being baptized, which was wonderful. We didn't have a pool or river or any large body of water, so the men brought out an old freezer and filled it with water and that's where they were baptized. :) To make it even more special, one of the boys had almost not been allowed to come to camp on account of some past behavioral problems. He even admitted that this year he had planned on causing chaos at camp...and then to have him decide to be baptized! It was wonderful - I don't think there was a dry eye in the whole place. Then we went on to have a huge water/mud fight which was delightful. We cleaned up from that and had our cookout and talent show.

It passed so quickly, and I can't even begin to tell you every wonderful thing that happened there, but hopefully this gives you an idea of the great things that happened and how special a time it was for us all.

Tempo estivo...

Well, well, well, hard to believe! Another month gone by and me not writing anything! Let's see if I can fill in some of the gap...

The new Harding group arrived about May 17th, so it's been fun getting to know them. We've already had them over for a BBQ and pictionary night - great times!

On May 24-26th, I went on a mission trip to Bondeno (close to Ferrara) and Milan with five other church members, some from the Rome area, some from Puglia down south. We met with the young people, cleaned the kids' class in Milan, and Vittorio and Franco gave a few seminars. In Milan we worked some with the three Harding girls doing the "Let's Start Talking" program, which was fun. It was a great trip - I loved getting to know my fellow travelers better, and I got to meet and help a lot of new people...not to mention practicing my Italian.

Also, we have been hosting an art group from ACU since May 31st, and they are fantastic. I've never met a sweeter, more thoughtful group of people. They insist on helping to clean up after dinner, are always very gracious and thankful, and to top it all off, a ton of fun! They spent 3 weeks in England before coming here, and they will stay in Italy based out off Florence until July 2nd, or sometime around then.

A sad thing that happened is that Jillian left to go home on June 2nd, and we really miss having her around. But we are happy for her and Travis and their new engagement, and we wish them all the best!

I'm getting ready to participate in the kids' summer camp starting June 27th for two weeks. For the first week, the younger session, I'll co-teach a Bible class and do arts and crafts with Lindsay. The second week I will be a co-teacher also teach English to the older kids. I've missed camp life, and I'm excited about experiencing it here in Italy. I know it will most likely be different from Camp Tahkodah and Camp Wyldewood or any other American camp, but it's going to be great, too!

And then one of the highlights of this past month was that Meredith came to visit me!!!! She stayed for one short, wonderful week, and I had so much fun with her. It felt so normal having her here, and I was very sad when she had to leave. Stinky David and D.C.!! Just kidding....but seriously.... ;)

And the summer's only just begun!

My First Book Tour/Into the Land of the Mafia

What do you think of when you hear the words "Sicily", "Palermo", "Southern Italy", "Cannoli"..... Jim Woodroof's Southern Italy book tour, of course.

And what a tour it was! Grandaddy is here in Italy speaking about his book "Between the Rock and a Hard Place", which has recently been translated into Italian. Many churches throughout Italy requested that he come and speak to their congregation, and so a book tour was in order.

We started out our trip with the church retreat in Velletri - a small town near Rome. The retreats are sometimes the only times that we see certain people of congregations throughout the country. We had a good turnout at this retreat. Jillian, Lindsay, and I taught the kids class Saturday morning. We sang our own Italian rendition of "The Lord Told Noah" and talked about the story of Noah. Then we had all the kids draw their own ark with their favorite animals. And of course there was snack and outside play time! We had some good presenters, and also a representative from each church stood up on Saturday evening and gave an update on their respective congregations. It was a good time to find out what everyone was up to and all that they were involved in.

Sunday morning we left Velletri and drove to Aprilia, where Grandaddy preached the sermon for that morning. They have an amazing congregation - so welcoming and friendly. I always enjoy visiting there. We were invited to stay and eat with them at their potluck, or "Agape", which we did willingly! :) Then their chorus had a rehearsal, and they sang for us and did a wonderful job. Grandaddy really enjoyed that.

From Aprilia we drove on down to Naples. We arrived there at about 6 or 7 Sunday evening, and Grandaddy spoke again to the congregation there. Unfortunately that was all the time we could spend in Naples. We grabbed a pizza (and let me tell you, they deserve all the pizza-hype that they get!) and headed on to our hotel on the Amalfi coast.

Now the Amalfi coast is a beautiful place. Unfortunately, reaching it at midnight, in the rain and cold and dark, with a crazily winding road, we didn't see very much of it. We spent a peaceful night, and then left the next morning after breakfast. Still beautiful, despite the clouds!

Our next stop was the ferry! We boarded the ferry and landed in Messina on the island of Sicily. How beautiful Sicily is! It was different than I had remembered from our HUF trip there. We drove on towards Catania, stopping in Acicastello to meet Anna Maria and Alan Earhart for dinner. It was so good to see Anna Maria (whom I knew because she had lived in Florence before) and her new baby! Well, new for me...I guess he is a year old or so. :) And I met Alan for the first time. We had a good dinner with their family and then drove on to Catania to meet our host families.

Jillian and I stayed with the Cammarata family - we are good friends with their daughter Melissa, who is about our age. They were so hospitable, offering us every convenience and providing anything and more than we could ask for. Such sweet people! The next day, Melissa took us around downtown Catania, showing us the duomo, the main theater, the fresh fish market, and also her university, which is a former monastery. It felt like we were in another country, not just in the south of ours! Everything was a different artistic style from Florence - the Baroque style is very ornate and detailed. It felt a little like being in Spain. Melissa had to leave us for a few hours, so Jillian and I decided to take the tour bus around the city - which ended up only costing 5 euro! amazing!

From Catania, we went and saw some of Agrigento and the Greek temples they have there. Unfortunately, all we could do was drive through as we were short on time. Then we were on our way to Palermo. We also got a very warm welcome from the church in Catania, not to mention the best take-out pizza i've ever had in my life. :) After dinner about 10 of them walked us back to our hotel. It was so nice to meet all of them! We also took a bus tour of the city of Palermo, which is beautiful! Lots of shopping, theater, and beautiful outdoor places. We were sad to leave after only a day, but we had our reservation on the overnight ferry to Naples.

After an evening of card games and after eating a RATHER expensive dinner in the cafeteria, we all went to sleep in order to make sure we were up by the time we had to disembark. We reached Naples at about 6:30 the following morning, got in our car, and headed back to Florence! We were so glad to be at home and eating lunch with Rosa by 1:00pm.

It was a fantastic trip! We met lots of new people and visited many congregations (several of which I had never visited before). And our six-seater Fiat Multipla got us there and back, safely, soundly, and comfortably! :)

Andiamo allo zoooooo!!

Well, last weekend was a crazy, fun-filled blur!

Friday, we had our usual daycare class at 10:00. However, we were planning on going to a friend's graduation from the University of Florence, and since we needed to be there by 11:45, we had planned a shorter lesson at the daycare in order to make it by bus on time. Upon arriving at the daycare, we learned that they had a guest (mom) speaker that day, and she was doing all kinds of fun, easy science experiments - e.g. baking soda/vinegar volcanos, guitars made of rubber bands and tupperware, play dough balls and boats to illustrate water displacement in relation to surface area....you know, things like that. :) So we got to see her demonstrations, which was very fun, but only left us with about 10 minutes of English time. So we taught some vegetable names and had to take off.

When we got to the graduation, we were honored to find out that traditionally just family and close friends are invited to this very intense final oral thesis presentation. The graduate has to appear in front of a panel of judges/professors and present precisely within 15 minutes a powerpoint presentation that accurately represents their yearlong project and research, as well as answer any questions the professors might have. Yikes! But Roberta did a fabulous job, receiving full points for her presentation and graduating that very day. It was a very special time for her family, and I felt touched that she had asked us to be there to share it with them.

As soon as the graduation was over, I had to hurry back to Scandicci, arriving exactly in time for my meeting at the Scandicci library. We are in the process of organizing a reading program - which will hopefully involve future HUF students - in which we will have a monthly block of weekly English book readings for the children in Scandicci at the local library. We will choose one book per week, and, with the help of the students, read a book, work on the vocabulary, and play some fun games or do some crafts that relate to the story. The meeting went very well, and I'm excited to start working on it.

And then that night I had band rehearsal.

The next day, I painted a little bit on the downstairs classroom, which we are in the middle of re-doing and which is looking eons better than before. Then I went with Dad, Ermenita, and Matt to Badia a Settimo, a little town very near Scandicci, which has a very awesome Basilica, complete with partial moat and a drawbridge. We had a relaxing afternoon and then when we got back we started setting up for our monthly English movie night. April's feature film was National Treasure - always a good choice - and we had a good turn out. I think about 7-9 of our students were there, not including ourselves.

On Sunday after church, we took all the kids from church to the zoo in Pistoia! It was so much fun. We saw all kinds of animals, and you could even pet and feed the elephants and giraffes and goats. We brought a picnic lunch which we at there, spent a few hours in the zoo, and then went into downtown Pistoia for a gelato. It was beautiful! Very small and peaceful. In the baptistery of the main church, they had an exhibition of all kinds of bells, old and new. A little bit of advice: even if they have a gong set out with all the other play-able bells, complete with mallet, DO NOT PLAY THE GONG. You will get into trouble.

After the zoo, we all went and ate a pizza at Movida near the church and Florence, not getting home until about 10:30 at night. Needless to say we were all bushed, but it was a great weekend spent with some wonderful people. Can't wait to do it again!

Quick trip stateside...

Well, what a great time! I recently made a surprise visit to the States, and it was so wonderful to see everyone. I surprised two of my best friends with the help of a third, saw many friends including my awesome friend JCliffie, got to visit with my family, and spent some great quality time with my sisters and brother-in-law. It rushed by too quickly, of course, but I felt so blessed to be able to be there! Many of my best friends are moving to faroff places before the next time I come home, so seeing them was very important to me. I was in the country for 17 days, and in that time I visited Dallas, Galveston, Nashville, and Searcy! Lots of traveling and lots of fun.

I had a little bit of reverse culture shock when I entered the Kroger's in Galveston - so huuuuuuuuge! And I kept looking for the little plastic gloves to put on in order to handle the produce (Italy), the scales that print the labels (Italy), and it required three people at the check-out counter in order to scan one of the vegetables I was trying to buy - radicchio (Italian, apparently not popular in America). Although, my "mispronouncing" it probably didn't help.

Kroger employee: "Ummmmmm......*flipping frantically through the itemized pricing catalog*..."
Me: "It's called "rad-eek-eo", if that helps you...."
Kroger employee: "Ummmmm......*calls over another employee*..."
Lady behind me in line: "oh, isn't that "rad-ish-eo?"
Me: "...........ummmm, yeah."
Kroger employee: "Ohhh, okay.....still don't know where it is."
Third Kroger employee: "I think it's back here.....yep, there it is."

And I get many strange looks. But it was all good. The lady behind me ended up scanning her Kroger card for me, so we parted friendly. :) But it really is pronounced "rad-eek-eo".

I also gave a small chapel announcement at Harding on April 1st, just showing a short video (found attached to this post) about what I've been involved in for the past seven months here and then I was in the student center to answer questions afterwards. We had quite a few people fill out cards saying that they were interested in more information, so I think it was a good thing to do, if only just bringing the program to people's attention and reminding them about it.

All in all, a great trip, but it's wonderful to see Italy and the Italians again!!! :) I'm glad to be back.

Convegno delle donne, 2010

Well, what a whirlwind of a weekend! As many of you probably know, this year the Women's Retreat for all the churches of Christ in Italy was hosted by the Florence and surrounding area congregations. Members of the local communities met together months and months in advance in order to prepare for what we hoped would be a spectacular weekend. We divided ourselves into various job assignments according to our different talents, such as decorating, song leading, kitchen management, activities, and - my area! - technical squad. :) We put some hard work and elbow grease into getting this thing together, and it was all worth it!

We had an overall attendance of about 65 women, from as nearby as Montelupo to as far away as Sicily. Our theme this weekend was "Per un tempo come questo...", or "For such a time as this...". The planning committee chose six of Esther's admirable characteristics and programmed the discussions and speeches around them. We had three main speakers and one to wrap it all up at the end. We had activities that were wonderful for breaking the ice and getting us prepared for the weekend - we broke into smaller groups which each had to act out in skit form part of the book of Esther. We were assigned animals, and then we were required to make the appropriate animal noise until we found everyone in our flock/herd, etc. Hilariously, Mona Shackelford was given the only donkey assignment, and so when she was walking around to find her fellow donkeys there were none. Hahaha.

We also had three breakout discussion group sessions, one for each of the characteristics of Esther that we chose. I was put in charge of the discussion group for "Fede" or "Faith"....ummm, in ITALIAN! I was very nervous, I tell ya. Being one of the younger attendees and not being a native speaker, not to mention never really having led people older than me in a discussion, were all very intimidating factors. Fortunately, I had help from my friend Laura from Aprilia, who is older and much wiser than I, to help keep the discussion contained when people started going off on tangents or when I had vocabulary malfunctions. :)

Like I said, I was in charge of all the technical elements of the weekend, like the sound, powerpoints, and also the headphone kits we used for simultaneous translation from Italian to English and vice versa. I also was in charge of getting pictures for the slideshow/DVD that we make after every convegno. I had to delegate the filming of the speakers to someone else! Thanks Jill! Does this all sound like anyone else you know? *Sigh* It must be genetic. :)

Dad and three or four other men formed our cooking staff so that none of the women would have to miss out on the fun and important things that were going on. They did a wonderful job and worked so hard. That's my daaaaad! :)

There was a small presentation on Disabilities, and mom and Julie Giordano gave small presentations - Mom for how you should act around people whose parents have disabilities and Julie for how to act when you know people who have children with disabilities. It was a very touching and interesting presentation, and in true feminine style, there were many tears and hankies. :)

Speaking of feminine, you could hardly expect a group of 60 women together for study on Esther and queens and beauty and not expect there to be pampering involved. The planning committee organized that for Friday and Saturday night after the regular program of internal beauty was over that there would be external beauty time! We gave facials, manicures, hand, shoulder, neck, and foot massages, and foot baths. It was a lot of fun - you should have seen some of the older Italian women and how much they got into it!

Overall it was a wonderful weekend, and I had fun re-meeting the people I knew from other convegnos, meeting new people, and getting to know the other young people from different congregations. And so while I was exhausted to the limit by the time it was all over, I was blessed and am a better person for the whole experience. Thank you to everyone who helped make it happen - those who worked publicly and anonymously!

Meglio tardi che mai!

So, better late than never! Sorry it's been so incredibly long since my last post - and I know it doesn't probably help much to say that I've been just crazy busy since then. It also probably doesn't help to have nothing new to show for it. But that's the truth, and so I'm going to go with it. :)

The last month and a half I have kept myself busy with the usual goings on: English lessons, English conversation class, teaching English at the daycare. Also, I am really enjoying getting to know this semester's HUF students. They are really fun, friendly and willing to try new things. They came to our last English movie night, which pushed our attendance to over 50. We have also been to a soccer match with them and an Albanian dancing night. We invited them over to the Bible School for a chili supper, and then later that night we went to the Villa for their Superbowl party. Good times.

Lots of English. In spite of this overwhelming amount of English in my life, I am on occasion forced into speaking Italian. I am pleased to inform you that I have (since we last spoke) made major strides in my Italian speaking skills. I told the story of the Creation to the daycare kids in passato remoto (a fairly difficult tense, which doesn't exist in English and many other language), succeeded in using congiuntivo correctly 50% of the time, and congiuntivo imperfetto correctly 40% of the time and incorrectly 30% of the time. (I know that doesn't add up mathematically. This is because the remaining percentage of 30% is how often I consciously/unconsciously use present tense when I SHOULD use congiuntivo.)

However, being human and American, I inevitably slip. Usually in very silly and unexplainable ways. Here is an example.

**One time in between English lessons, I was chatting with the two boys whose lessons were back to back. We were talking in Italian (since we weren't actually in a lesson), and I was keeping up and contributing to the conversation.

First Boy: *telling a story about something that happened that we had all been expecting to happen*
Me: "FinalMENTE!" ("Finally!")
Both Boys: "hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!" (hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!)
Me: ".........Che c'e'?" (What is it?)
Second Boy: "FinalMENTE!"
Me: "Ho sbagliato?" (Did I mess up?)
First Boy: "No, solo l'hai detto con un accento americano!" (No, you just said it with an American accent!"
Me: "Come devo dirlo?" (How should I say it?)
First Boy: "Finalmente."
Me: "Finalmente."
Both Boys: "HAHAHAHAHA!"

Whatever.


Other then the OCCASIONAL linguistic mistake, things have pretty much gone on as normal around here. I have taken on one more individual student - my schedule was actually full so I added her to another girl's time in order to have a group lesson. I have started going about once every two or three weeks to have English conversation at the school of one of my students who is an English teacher. Last time we learned "I Wanna Hold Your Hand". Classic. I'm still playing with the Scandicci concert band and really enjoying it, and I'm spending time with my Italian friends. On Physical Fridays we are slowly but surely replastering and repainting the walls of the downstairs classroom, which badly needed it. There is always that kind of work/project to be done. We're hoping for some handy boys to come and help dad out with that kind of stuff. :)

We are also busily planning the Ladies' Retreat that will be hosted here in Scandicci on March 5-8, and looking forward to it! We would love it if you could keep this event in your prayers, as well as our projects and activities here at the Bible School.

Life is good, and I'm trying to enjoy every minute of it!

The clarinet, the clarinet, goes diddly-diddly-diddly-diddly det.

Let it be known, that I, Emily Christine Woodroof, have joined the Scandicci band. Yay!

So far I have survived the grueling rehearsals....all two of them.....grueling for me because I'm out of flute shape, and 3 hours is a long rehearsal for me anytime. I'm going to copy and paste a note I wrote on Facebook shortly after my first rehearsal to best portray my emotional state:


"Well, I just experience my first band rehearsal.....in five years. In a foreign language. That's right. I just practiced for two and a half hours with the Scandicci band for the very first time! And it was incredible.

I practiced every day for four days leading up to the rehearsal (even scarier because it was in Italian), and amazingly I could still play my scales. And sightread. Granted, not to the Sarah Covey/Lisa Orpin level, but well enough. :) Despite my having not having rehearsed with a band in four or so years, my fingers somehow still remembered their notes.

But it was with a great deal of trepidation that I sat down in front of my music stand and looked at our first piece. Sitting next to a boy in his sixth year of music conservatory for flute, I will admit I was nervous. And would you believe it? It was something we had played in high school - Blue Bell something. And then the next piece was Pomp and Circumstance (hate that song, but I DO know how to play it!). And we played Liberty March by Sousa. Once the music started playing, it didn't matter that I was the only American (and the only blonde) there. Harding University Ensemble was stamped on a lot of the music that we played. :)

I had so much fun! And it made me so thankful all over again for Mr. Smith and the years he spent teaching me a skill that I can enjoy for the rest of my life."


I also practiced almost every day the next week the music that most of the other musicians had already played before, and I felt even better after the second rehearsal last night. That was a four hour haul, in preparation for our concert that is today. TODAY! I will hopefully have a video of part of the concert to share with you guys, so stay tuned!

Baby Goat at Christmas

What a fantastic holiday season. I can't believe that it's already almost over! As most of you know, Jillian and I decided to remain here in Italy for the holidays - after all we've only been here for 4 months now! Not to mention the frightening flight fees. :) I was excited, mostly, to be spending my first Christmas in Italy. Very, very different than my normal holiday routine being surrounded by family and friends and food. Okay, there was still the food. And friends....and family in a way.

Having decided to keep our English lessons going as long as our students were still able to come, Jillian and I ended up just taking the one week of Christmas and New Years off. We thought that my parents being in the States would cause things to slow down around here, but no! :) I still had a full class schedule (other than the week of vacation), and on top of that we were flooded with the invitations of friends.

For Christmas day, Rosa took us under her wing and invited us to spend Christmas lunch at her house with her whole family. She is a wonderful lady - she is so good at demonstrating that she loves us and the Bible School. She works hard and is a very generous person. In typical Italian style, there was course after course after course. We arrived a little earlier than her family, so we got to help her with the finishing touches on some of the appetizers. There were salmon crostini, sausage and cheese crostini, candied figs with cream cheese and walnuts, liver pate (delicious), vol-au-vents - a type of little pastry with cream cheese, chives, and ham, and she also mixed up some of her own personal stash of ranch dressing that she had brought from the States.

And those were just the appetizers! The next course nearly brought tears to my eyes...and I will admit they did cloud up. She brought out the primo, and she had made my favorite Rosa pasta - tuna and lemon. She had made the noodles from scratch, and then for HER family's Christmas lunch she made my favorite pasta. I attempted to thank her by eating a sinful amount.

For the second course she had prepared baby goat. Dubious at first, I was soon brought around to the idea after tasting the meat. It was delicious! A little stronger than meat that I'm used to eating, but it fit very well for a holiday meat. She served it with roasted potatoes. The Italians aren't usually big dessert people - this was probably one of the biggest differences between my American and Italian Christmas feasts :), but Angela, Rosa's daughter made the most delicious apple cake I've ever had in Italy....and possibly in America. I had also brought caramel corn, as a gift, and that was a big hit. Especially with all the women! :) They were all so welcoming and made sure they included us in their conversations, and were attentive when we didn't understand something. Five hours of hosting Americans, and they were still so wonderful.

The next day we went to Paola's house for lunch. We received the same hospitality and welcome at her house also. She is one of the cooks at the Harding Villa, and I have known her for about five years now. Yet she always amazes me with her generosity. She is one of the sweetest, most thoughtful people I know. On Sunday, Mario from the Florence congregation invited Jill and I, and also a university student named Redi and a member of the church named Mathilde to a seafood restaurant that is owned by one of his long-time friends - and also where he is somewhat of a VIP. :) Mario is just an incredible person. i believe he is in his 70s, but he is still actively involved and supportive of the Florence church. He also loves young people and is always ready to take care of them and welcome them. A couple of days later, one of my students, Veronica, invited us over to have dinner with her family. Her brother Samuele is one of Dad's students. They are both wonderful people, and their parents were as well - no surprise there. We had a great dinner and time with them. Veronica works at the Uffizzi museum as a tour guide in English and French (my hero :) ), and she is also a part time teacher of Art History. I really enjoy spending time with her at lessons, but it was really nice to be able to spend time with her outside of the School.

We were so occupied that I hardly had time to be homesick at all - only on Christmas day and during a family reunion that I missed did I really feel it. So after being continuously showered by blessings and kindness by our friends and family here in Italy, we have taken the last few days just to stay at home and relax. There has been serious movie-watching time - we had an all night movie marathon on New Years Eve - and I have been able to read three books! We are ready for mom and dad to get home, and we are replenished and ready to start up lessons again on Monday. Happy Holidays to all of you there in America! Love, miss, and God bless you all!