a need for the gospel

ciao tutti! (aka hello everyone!)

i hope this post is finding everyone well. i cannot believe i have been gone for 2 weeks already! the time has absolutely flown by! i am missing everyone back in the states, but i am having the time of my life right now. i mean, i live in florence, italy...really? it's funny because we are all still saying stuff like that. none of us have actually grasped the idea that we live in a foreign country. i wish i could show you all pictures right now of this place...you would absolutely die. i know it should be sinking in by this point, but i still walk through our little cobblestone streets everyday and praise the lord for giving me this opportunity.

i think that is one of the biggest things i've learned thus far...the lord loves to bless us. we are to live our lives for him, but it is not all sacrifice my friends! i really believe that the lord truly loves to bless his children, and i am experiencing that like crazy right now. not only do i feel completely blessed, but i feel the lord's provision here more than i ever have before. he has provided for me in unimaginable ways, even before i ask him. he is so good.

for the rest of this post, i'm going to describe some of my new friends and ask you to pray for them specifically by name...

julia--this is a girl that i met on my second day of ministry. i talked to her by myself for a long time (as she rolled her own cigarettes...i know smoking is bad for you, but you have to admit, that's pretty cool...haha). we start our "initiations" by telling the students that we are on a cultural exchange, and asking them if we can ask them a few questions about their culture. i started asking julia the questions, about the importance of italian food, family, the influence of the roman catholic church, and what italian students think about god and spirituality. she was very quick to answer all of my questions and flat out told me she didn't believe in god, because she there were so many other things for her to fill her time with. i did get her phone number though, and we are supposed to hang out next week. please pray for a sweet time together, and that she would be able to see her need for christ.

carlo--this is a guy that the agape staff has known for a while, but they haven't seen him at bible studies or anything in about 6 months. please pray for a renewed curiousity about the bible, and a desire to start attending again.

costanza, giovanni, angela, sara, and giacomo--these students were in a big group that my teammate adam and i talked to. we went through the survey with them, and all of them were very helpful and loved talking to us about their culture. giacomo told me that he didn't believe in god because he didn't see the need to. please pray that this belief would be thrown out the window and the lord would rock his world. the others didn't go very deep into their own spiritual beliefs, but we've seen them a coupld times on campus, so please pray that we would get to hang out with them some more and build stronger relationships with them.

nadia--my teammate thecla and i met nadia on wednesday when we went to the liberal arts campus (whoop!) in the center of the city. we were going through our survey with a group of students and she seemed very opinionated about most of the questions. when the other students left, we continued talking to her about what she thought about god. she said that she thought their might be a god but that she wasn't really sure. i asked her what she thought about after-life, heaven and hell, and she said that she didn't really know about that either. so i asked her, if they do exists, how do you think someone gets to either of them. she said that she thought that by being a good person and doing good things for other people, that you would go to heaven. so i asked her, and this might not have been the best thing but i did anyway, but i asked her what she would say if i told her that i thought no one was good enough on their own to go to heaven. she said, "well i would tell you you are wrong." awesome...this conversation is going so well...(definite sarcasm, please don't be confused). then i asked her if i could explain. she said of course, because all italians are very welcoming and respectful of other people's opinions. so then, i got to lay out the gospel for her! i think it might have been the first time that i have actually done that. it was really great. the conversation didn't really go anywhere after that, but she said that she is usually at that campus, so i hope i see her again. please pray that the seeds i planted would spark a ravishing curiosity about the truth of the gospel!!!!

cosomo--this is another guy that adam and i met. we went through the survey with him and found out that he is catholic. you may not think so, but there aren't as many students that claim to be catholic, because faith in general, is pretty lost on their generation. from our conversation, we are pretty sure that he is a believer, and cannot wait to catch up with him. we got his number too, and are going to meet up with him soon! this is so exciting because the agape staff has been praying to find italian believers to one day take over their ministry so it will be entirely italian-run. please pray for this opportunity for discipleship and confirmation of his belief.

there have been other students that i have met, but these are just a few of the conversations that have been completely changing my view of the italian people and the need for the gospel over here! please partner with me in praying for the salvation of all of these students and a revival in faith here in florence. thank you so much for your continued support and prayer. i love you all!

ciao!