It started out as a chilly, rainy day. We got on the bus and headed to campus as we do every day. We were all sitting there, chatting, and I was looking out the window when all of a sudden it began flurrying (snow flurrying that is). Being from Florida we don’t exactly have snow days so you can imagine my surprise as I’m staring out at this winter wonderfulness! When we arrived on campus it was actually snowing! We were all so excited and were laughing, dancing and taking pictures. We had so much fun even though it was SO cold.  As we were walking home that afternoon I couldn’t help but be very grateful to the Lord for His creation and faithfulness. 

“For great is your love, reaching to the heavens; your faithfulness reaches to the skies.” Psalm 57:10

My favorite day of the Month!

Last week a conference was held for all Western European, Eastern European, Russian, and Namestan (countries such as Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, etc) missionaries that work for Campus Crusade for Christ International. It was an event to pull staff from the north eastern hemispheres together to discuss ministry. We were able to share innovative and creative ways that each country is using to reach students. We heard successful stories of students asking Christ to come into their lives and learned how God used their method to reach these students; we heard not as successful attempts of reaching students and listened to how God taught and grew the team from their experience. Our teams were able to pray for one another: pray for God to water the seeds He is planting, whether we personally witness the growth or not; pray for specific needs of each team, and specific needs in the ministry; pray for specific students that the Lord is reaching, and all others who are yet to know Him. We were able to share encouraging testimonies of students from each country who have come to know Jesus personally this year, and pray for God’s spirit to continue to build them.

It is truly miraculous to listen and give witness to the ways in which God is moving in the North East. As in the States, ministries are facing many trials in this trying economic period, but the perseverance of God is prevailing. One by one, soul by soul, He is saving lives. Thank you for the opportunity to attend this conference and learn about what’s happening in this region of the world. Our hope and role as a missionaries and friends abroad is to give you as much insight on God’s movement overseas as we can send your way. If you have any questions about ministry in Salerno or another country, please let us know and we will be joyful to answer them.

My teammates and I attend two different churches. One meets at 11 AM and is a twenty minute train ride away in a small ville named Battapaglia. Another begins at 6 PM and is a smaller church in Salerno, reaping the name “small church.” Pastor Antonio, the pastor in Battapaglia, is a very warm and honorable man, and we have grown close with him and his family through our relationship with MLK. One of our team’s favorite day of the month is the first Sunday of the month. This is a day of celebration for the congregation in Battapaglia, and a perfect opportunity to gather and fellowship over a long lunch. On this special day when the service ends, the women in the church walk home to retrieve their home cooked meals, and the men stay to help rearrange the room to seat everyone at a table. When all return, we are seated and a church member stands to bless the food with prayer. We then commence with light-hearted, yet rich conversation over cuisines from the heart of Italian mamas. In Italy, the most valuable way to connect with people is around the table, and, thus, this afternoon creates beautiful community of family and friends gathered to share a meal and comfortably enjoy each other’s company. The picture above was taken this past Sunday at the February celebration in Battapaglia with my teammates Amanda, Halley, and Lacey Mai, and our Italian girl friends Rosita, Serena, and Ilaria.

Our hope is that this blog greets you with joy, and is laced with love from God. It has been almost five months since our arrival in Salerno, and we said good-bye for now to you at home. Although we are distanced by miles, you are never far from our minds and hearts. Thank you for being bold supporters of encouragement and love. Thank you for being interested in and supporting our mission in Salerno. We have said it before and we will continue to say it from the depths of our heart, God could not use us here without you. Thank you beyond words, and may God bless you!

Breanna Allgood

So up until this past week I had never really experienced the whole “Italians will be offended if you don’t finish your food.”  I mean yea, a lot of our new friends have fed us A LOT of food at their different gatherings but I’ve usually welcomed the food and probably eaten more than they thought reasonable (bread basket anyone?).  Well that all changed last Thursday night.  Our neighborhood pharmacist (farmacist) Frank who’s Farmacia (Pharmacy, I like the Italian spelling better, it makes so much more sense than a silly “ph” making the “f” sound) is right next to our apartment had been asking us for months to go get pizza with him, so us girls finally said yes to Thursday night.  We brought Bentley along as our guy to keep us safe.  Farmacist Frank (as we have grown to call him) brought along two friends too.  And so began an interesting night.  I went already deciding I would only eat a little pizza because I had been sick all day with a nice little bout of stomach ache and dehydration (yea!)…boy was I wrong.

When we got to the ristorante, Farmacist Frank told Amanda that he would just order the best food the resturant makes and we could all eat family style.  The first to come out was glorious pasta fajioli (sp? who knows) which is def a fav among us.  I served everyone around me,but apparently not to the Italians liking because I gave everyone way too little.  Frank and Frank (his friend) kept yelling “forza forza!” like come on come on eat more, so we heaped more pasta on our plates.  They were shocked when I stopped at 2 helpings.  I don’t think they were impressed that Bentley only had 3 either.  Then came pizza, eggplant parmasian and roasted potatoes.  We were all a little full after the pasta and were not exactly diving into the pizza, but Amanda understood what Frank and Frank were discussing in Italian and immediately told us to EAT PIZZA because they were getting offended we weren’t eating it.  (yea i know tought life we live, forced to eat amazing pizza, but we were full and i was already starting to feel sick).  Then the best part came after we forced down the pizza….FISH.  But first they had to show us the fish before they cooked it because who doesn’t want to see the uncooked fish they are about to eat, complete with eyes?  Turns it, it was baby anchovies.  After we got a looksie, they went to cook it and brought it back out.  Frank heaped generous portions onto our plates and the Italians watched anxiously, waiting for us to devour the delicasy.  I tried but I couldn’t…something about fish and a sick stomach just does not mix.  I put a forkfull in my mouth, gave Sarah Love and breanna a fake thumbs up and swallowed it whole.  Everyone was doing the whole move it around my plate and maybe it will look like I ate it, but they didn’t buy it.  I heard Frank say he was OFFENDED, literally offended…guess we should have felt guilty?  But we made up for it when they brought out dessert…Amanda and I pushed our full, sick feeling stomachs aside and ate our dessert and finished off Frank’s.  Then they finished off the meal by bringing us an entire bottle of limoncello and wanted to take us out for caffe afterwards.  CRAZY

All in all, it was an interesting Italian experience.  I left feeling sicker than ever, but with a great memory of the Italians just wanting us to enjoy their culture.  It’s all part of “Learn a new world” I guess.  I’m pretty glad God called us to a country where Learn a new world includes people being offended if you don’t eat all their food.  I always thought it was just a myth that Italians would really get offended if you didn’t finish your food, but as we found out, they don’t play when it comes to dinner…man what a great country!

-Halley

Ciao friends!  We are doing great here in beautiful Salerno.  The dreaded January and February rainy weather has not been nearly as bad as we thought it might be.  Two weeks ago, we went to the annual Mid-Year Conference held in Nerja, Spain.  It was a wonderful week, full of vision, encouragement, great leadership, and some great relaxation time!  All the teams from Europe, Russia and the Middle East were at the conference, so it was great to hear how ministry was going in all these very different places.

One of the best things about the conference for me was (besides the awesome breakfast and dinner buffets) the renewed sense of hope we came away with.  Sometimes I forget even why we are over here, trying to learn Italian and somehow communicate the Gospel to these Italians we meet.  Some verses from Revelation 21 were read and were very inspiring: “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea.  I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.  And I hear a loud voice from the throne saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them.  They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.  He will wipe every tear from their eyes.  There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” Revelation 21: 1-4   I mean wow, that just gives me chills!  It is so powerful.  What a great sense of hope to know that God is going to win and make all things new and that our work is not in vain.  We are so thankful to have people like you praying for us and supporting us in this mission God has called us to.  We are excited about this semester, especially as students are finally finishing up with exams and can meet and hang out with us!  Please pray that we will continue to have divine appointments and great conversations.  We have had some amazing opportunities with Italian students, studying the Bible and talking about spiritual things.  I cannot wait to see what God has in store for us this semester and I hope you are excited to!

Well, although Thanksgiving isn’t an Italian holiday, we definitely celebrated here! This year we decided not to have a full blown outreach because we’re having a Christmas dinner.. so we had a family style Thanksgiving with just our team and a couple of friends. I was so surprised at how American it was and how we were actually able to make almost ever typical dish. It was amazing!! We had a 35 pound turkey, dressing (stuffing for all you northerners/Floridians), green bean casserole, corn casserole (kind of), pineapple casserole (Halley’s specialty..soo good!), beef brisket, sauteed veggies, cranberry sauce, biscuits, gravy, pecan pie, pumpkin pie, cookie pie.. and probably some that I left out. Needless to say, it was a feast! It was definitely a taste of home and I was full for a good 24 hours. We ended up having a whole day of togetherness starting with an aperitivo (for Italians it’s like an appetizer hour) with all kinds of yummy goodness and watched last year’s Macy’s Day parade on the projector. Even though I missed being with my family at home, it was a great day and made me so  thankful for my team!! PS. I am done with American food for a loong time! Italians know how to do it right. Basta.

As for Bentley and I, after a month of sleeping on the Valliquette’s fold out couch (which was actually really fun), we are finally feeling settled into our new apartment! It is such a blessing. It actually feels like home now and we’re able to cook at home and have a place where we can really live life in if that makes sense. It is the most typical Italian apartment ever.. with frescoes on the ceilings and the bedroom walls, a woman downstairs whose always cooking amazing smelling foods who will talk your ear off (even though you can’t really understand you), and a lady next door who sings out her window really loud every Saturday morning. I love it! Only in Italy.. I’ve really come to appreciate Salerno lately and just the Italian culture in general. I love the baci’s, the order of eating foods (not mixing anything and always eating salads last..definitely not southern!), the limoncello, the squillo’s (when you call someone and hang up just to let them know you were thinking of them), how noone’s ever in a hurry to get anywhere.. and I could keep going but I won’t. Life here’s not always glamorous and definitely not convenient here, but it’s so simple. I like that. Ok, I am done : ) Ciao!

Sarah Love

We have had an interesting week on the campus of the University of Salerno at Fisciano. For the past week or so students have been rallying and getting ready for the big protest that was to take place Thursday on campus’ in Rome, Florence and Salerno. Students and some teachers have been protesting the raised tuition price that will go into effect soon implemented by the government. It’s been neat to see students rally together for a cause and given us an opportunity to reach students and ask questions. On Thursday, after an odd morning of cancelled classes and a bit of chaos Breanna, Lacey Mai, and I set out to ask some probing questions about the protest. Some of our questions were: What are the students protesting? Do you think things could actually change? What do you think would make a difference? (Or really WHO could make a difference — in our minds and hearts we believe Jesus is the answer). The first two girls the Lord led us too were first year students who just “happened” to be literature and political science majors. These two girls were contemplative and passionate about the government and history. (Not to mention very astute as one of them bluntly asked, ” If what we were trying to convey is that religion (Jesus) could change things?” We answered yes and continued to have a thought provoking conversation. As we parted ways with the girls we prayed that the Lord would stir their hearts and minds with thoughts of Him and that He would draw them in.

One more thing about our day: As we walked to the bus stop we quickly found out that the bus’ were striking too! So that meant that we would be walking home ALL 10 miles! We stopped at a good friends house and used the facilities and then started the long trek home. On the way we enjoyed some gelato at a place that had over 100 flavors! Then the Lord blessed us with a bus stop that had a running bus that took us home. So what could have been 10 miles ended up being 1 1/2 miles.

Answered Prayers:

-Praise the Lord for finding a great place for the Crawfords!

Celebrations:

On October 30th our wonderful teammate Breanna Allgood turned 23!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!! We love you!!

Love and Blessings,

Jamie

the Team

This is The Salerno 2008-09 Stint Team.
We Have 12 people here on the team now… 10 in the picture. The team consist of Jutty and Abbey and the two kids of UCF, the Crawfords from somewhere in Mississippi, Mario from Fresno St., Tyler, Halley, and Lacey from Miss St. Natalie and Jamie from UCF, Breanna from Alburn, and Amanda from the other other Florida School, FSU.

Last night we hosted our first BBQ at the Fourteen Lions.  When you put great food, great company, and the fact your in Italy in the equation your in for a pretty good time.  Along with a lot of laughs we were also able to have some very meaningful conversations with a few students.  Our goal for this outreach was to introduce ourselves and let everyone know why we are here.  We also tried to show off a little bit of our Italian which went well for some and not so well for the others (me). Apparently being from MS and having an accent doesn’t translate very well when trying to speak Italian.

Yesterday on the bus an Italian women asked me something in Italian, and I got confused and told her in Italian that I didn’t speak English. I didn’t even realize it until I got off the bus and Mario told me that the Italians on the bus were confused because they thought I was American, knew I wasn’t Italian, and was telling her I didn’t speak English.

Well that’s about it for now…Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend,

Tyler

Ciao friends!  It is Friday afternoon, one of my favorite times of the week, especially in Salerno.  Even if we have work to do, something about the fact that the week is over is so relaxing.  This was our first full week of going on campus, having meetings, having team night, etc.  So far so good!

I hope you enjoy our blog.  We want to keep our friends, schools, supporters, and everyone in between updated on what God is doing here in Salerno and all over Italy. We have been in Salerno for almost 5 weeks now and are getting close to being completely settled in. God has really blessed us with great living situations and now we are just waiting for Sarah Love and Bentley to be able to get an apartment, so if you are reading this, please pray that they find one.

So our time on campus has been interesting, to say the least. Everyday I am reminded how important prayer is because when I try to go talk to Italians on my own…wow haha.  I have definately been humbled over and over again as I try to speak Italian and end up sounding like a baby…(I think Bryce, Abbey and Jutty’s kid has better language skills than me).  It constantly amazes me though, how the Italians will sit and listen to me ramble in half English, half Italian.  Most will try to help and are usually open to hearing what we have to say.  On Monday, I went with Lacey Mai and Breanna.  Most of our conversations consisted of Lacey Mai speaking beautiful, quite good Italian and Breanna and me smiling and nodding and adding in the occasional “Si Si!” or “Grazie!”  That afternoon, though, we had a good time doing the Salerium cards with a group of students we met earlier.  They spoke pretty good English and definately wanted to help us learn Italian.  So encouraging!  Anyways, with the Salerium card game, you have a set of cards with different pictures on them (sunsets, streets, people walking or studying, guy stuffed in a locker, and so on) and you ask a set of questions like “What 3 cards represent your life right now?”  It is a great way to get to know people and get their views and opinions by what pictures they choose and how they explain them.  On Monday afternoon after campus, we had our staff meeting with our 2 newest additions to the team…drum roll please…Sarah Love and Bentley Crawford!  They arrived Sunday and we are so excited.  I am especially excited as I have found that Sarah Love loves to run AND that she is my gelato favorite twin—Richard and Pistachio! Oh man…ok moving on.  Tuesday was a great day on campus.  Natalie and I met 2 girls–Giavanna and Caralana (ok I probably totally misspelled those names, but you get the picture).  They were very sweet girls.  We asked them if they wanted to do a survey, and they said sure but they only had like 10 minutes until their next class.  We asked them some questions, and they seemed to be really engaged.  When the time came for them to go to class, they said they would rather sit and talk to us than go to class.  We were pumped!  We talked some more and even got to share the Gospel with them.  About an hour and a half later, we had to leave, but told them we wanted to meet again.  They suggested the same time, same place the next day.  We met with them again on Wednesday and they want to start meeting every Wednesday at 12:30.  Please pray for them and for our future conversations with them.  On Thursday, Breanna and I went together on campus. It was interesting because our Italian is at about the same level…but luckily Breanna has a great faith that helped me to get past the fact that I think I need to have an excellent Italian speaker with me or find some English speaking Italians, like the friends Natalie and I met. Our convos on Thursday were all with basically only Italian speaking students. We talked to 2 girls for almost an hour and it seemed like we all understood about 1/3 of the conversation. But it was still great! We were supposed to go to campus today to meet with a student we met on the bus who wants to help us with our Italian. Her name is Anna. But sadly, there was a bus strike, so we couldn’t go today. Oh well.
This was also our last week of our “formal” Italian lessons with Serena. It culminated with a 4 hour long lesson yesterday…pretty exhausting. Afterwards Serena stayed for homemade sushi, made by Mario and our Italian friend Ilaria. Very yummy!
This morning was our Bible study/book study/team prayer time. We are reading a book together as a team called “The Safest Place on Earth” by Larry Crabb. It is a very intriguing and challenging book. It is about creating a safe spiritual community. We discussed it this morning and our team had some great comments and insights. I feel so blessed to have such a wonderful team. I am learning so much from each one of them and also get to laugh ALL THE TIME with them. I don’t think I’ve ever been around such a funny group of people. Well that’s all for now. We will keep you updated weekly! Ciao ciao ciao!
-Halley