ciao di firenze!!!!!

ahhhh! i'm in florence!!! this is so crazy...i really can't even believe that i'm here. it is saturday night here and i've been here since wednesday. i'm already in love. since i am not able to get to an internet cafè every day, i decided that i would just journal everyday and share some of my entries with you. so here goes...i guess i'll put in a few days worth here...

tuesday 5/20

well today we left for italy! i'm on the airplane right now flying from dallas to frankfurt, germany. i still can't believe i am actually getting to go on this trip. i'm hoping that it will be everything i have been hoping it would be. i actually don't even know what my expectations are. i hope that it is as beautiful as i have always imagined. i just envision myself sitting in a little cafè, sipping tea and watching everyone walk through the piazza. the last couple of days have been really great. i spent two days at a hotel in dallas at a briefing for the trip. we had some members of the campus crusade staff give some short talks about how to be a team and serve the lord together this summer. they talked about their vision for our summers and how they have described it as the 4 "L's": love the lord, love your team, learn a culture, and launch a movement. i would ask you all to pray that the lord would challenge me this summer to lean to love him in new ways. i want to come away from italy with a whole new perspective. i want to fall in love with my jesus all over again. i really want to love my6 team well this summer too. my goal, and please pray for this too, is to find out how each person on my team feels and accepts love, and really try to pursue them in that way. pray that i would be bold enough to ask everyone directly how they accept love and be able to discern by watching them on a daily basis, what that is. i just want to be a servant this summer and i am praying that the lord would teach me how to do that. also pray that the lord would show me how to specifically share the gospel with the students this summer. today i was feeling especially discouraged about my ability to present the gospel effectively this summer, so i prayed that the lord would give me strength and just use his holy spirit to speak through me. so...he answered that pretty quickly! while i was sitting in the computer room at the hotel, a guy came in and sat down at the computer next to me and started talking to me. he was asking me why i was at the hotel and i told him about our briefing for our mission trip. he said, "oh, so you are a christian?" i told him i was and it turns out that he was jewish, and in dallas on business from l.a. we got to talking more and he asked me a ton of questions about christianity and i got to share the truth of the gospel with him! on the same day that i prayed for strength, the lord gave me a blatant opportunity to practice. praise god. he is so sovereign. i am so blessed.

wednesday 5/21

we arrived in italy today!!! i am so happy we are finally here! thank you all for praying for our safe travel. we landed around 5pm and were picked up by the crusade staff that serves here in florence, and they took us to our hotel. we are staying at the hotel margaret near the center of town. it is so cute and exactly how i thought it would look. i have the best view ever! i stood out there for a while today and played fetch with the neighbor's dog, mattiè. tonight, the permanent staff and the stinters took us to a nice dinner at a restaurant called za-za's. my first taste of real authentic italian food was fantastic! i had ravioli with a creamy walnut sauce that is apparently famous in florence....oh my gosh, it was amazing. on our way home, we stopped and got our first gelato! also amazing. i ordered mine in italian and felt so cool. please pray that my italian gets a lot better while i'm here! that's about it for tonight! buona notte!

thursday 5/22

9am: please pray that the lord would give me and my team the kind of urgency for the gospel that the 1st century church had. pray that i would be like peter, who was so eager to follow the lord's commands and have prophesy fulfilled. i love that the lord gave him such a zeal and an eagerness to be counted among the faithful. please pray that the lord would give be the same heart.
1am: wow! today was such an amazing day! the lord has given me so much joy! i cannot believe that i get to experience something like this. today, we learned how to take the bus, go to the grocery store, and we got our cards to eat in the cafeteria on campus. i got to use more italian today too! please pray that i would understand more and have more courage to use what i know! after lunch today, we went on a scavenger hunt and got to see all of the city. we saw all the piazzas and the other landmarks. my favorite by far has been the piazza di michelangelo. we hiked up to the top and could see the entire city. it was absolutely breathtaking. then, later tonight, one of the guys on my team played his guitar and we did some worship on the steps of the santa maria novella chiesa (church)...oh my goodness! i got to praise jesus in florence, italy, and the foot of an amazingly beautiful church. it was so cool.

saturday 5/24

i'm not going to write a lot today because i think you get the idea. this place is amazing and i am in awe of its beauty. i am so thankful to be here and i hope you keep praying for me. we start our ministry on monday! please pray for "hearers" of the gospel...that is what we want right now...people willing to listen. that is all for now. i love you all. buona notte!

arrivaderci!