Home for the Holidays

I spent the last four weeks traveling around, visiting family, and most of all EATING. Good grief. I don’t know if I’ll ever want to eat again.

I flew into Memphis and was met at the airport by dad. We stayed in a hotel with mom that night, and the next day we headed to Nashville to visit my sister Elizabeth. She just moved there last summer, and it was fun to see her house and meet her roommates (in real life, not just on Skype). We spent about 4 or 5 days there, spending time with her and some of my dad’s family that lives there or near there. We ate dinner at my Aunt Beth and Uncle Mark’s house with the whole gang, and it was really good to see everyone.

Then we drove through Searcy on our way to Galveston and spent one night there. In Galveston we visited my little sister and brother-in-law and their two dogs, Kira and Tripp. They have a really cute house that is about two seconds from the beach, where they go regularly with their dogs and/or surfboards. We had fun playing games and….eating. One night we made a full Italian meal – my special potato pasta, tagliata, and salad. Yum!

The next stop was Dallas (or really Flower Mound) where my mom’s family all lives. We had fun there too. We played games and…..ate. And ate some more. ☺ My uncle Tom takes us to a really nice restaurant called Texas de Brazil every year for his Christmas present to us, and it is amazing but a very dangerous all you can eat buffet. Andrea, one of the other Avanti workers, happened to be in Dallas at the same time as us and got to meet up with us for a little bit. She even brought more scarves and ties for Mom to sell at the cooking school, as did Angela.

And then we were back to Searcy! We had Woodroof Christmas in Searcy, and amazingly everyone got to come this year, except for Erica and Justin who had Christmas with Justin’s family this year. Since we are renting our house out and my grandparents sold their big house, we all stayed in the La Quinta hotel on Race Street. The first time that I remember staying in a hotel in Searcy, and a little strange. But we were very comfortable there, and we also reserved the Fellowship Room at College Church, where we played games, ate, and just spent time together. Very fun! The 3rd and 4th of January, Mom hosted another cooking school as a fundraiser for the Avanti Italia program. I believe that there were 30 in attendance the first night and 50 the second night. There was a lot to do, and she, Ermenita and all the ladies’ helping them out worked very hard. Angela even took time away from seeing her family to drive down and help out with it.
I have a special prayer request for you all – the Dawidow family in Poland (whom I stayed with for 2 weeks last December) just lost their son Mikey on January 1st to a massive heart attack. He was only around 30 years old, and he was found by his father that morning. Please pray for them in this terrible situation. They are a wonderful Christian family and give so much to others.


I’m so thankful that I had the opportunity to come home for the holidays this year. I got to see lots of my great friends and all of my family, and I feel so blessed to know that I have people that love me and are thinking about and praying for me.

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. :)