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

This semester we have been praying for Italian leaders to be raised up by God to share their faith with others. We decided to have a dinner of about 20 key Students that we wanted to challenge in growing deeper in their relationship with the Lord and to take part in the Great Commission (Matthew 28). Ten students attended and it was amazing! We had wonderful conversations about how they could reach others in their area of influence, i.e. work, area of study, family & friends. Living missionally, this is an idea we have talked about a lot recently in staff meetings. What does it mean to live missionally? I, personally, have been challenged by this question. Yes, I am a missionary but how do I seek to serve and share Christ’s love with those I live with, my family, or my friends? This is the idea behind what we would like students to think about when reaching others for Christ. I encourage you to also ask yourself these important questions: Where has God gifted you? What is your part in the Great Commission?

Tags: Challenge, Dinner, Food, Students

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

That is exactly what Filomena had to say at the end of our conversation. I was walking around campus with Breanna and Halley this morning and as always the nerves were many and the prayers for courage even more. We approached two girls on a bench and they politely told us they “didn’t have time” to talk with us. Our next steps took us over to a fountain where yet another two girls were sitting. My initial thought, sadly, was that they were going to shoot us down because they were obviously a little “too cool for school”. Halley introduced us and after our request to do a survey with them was accepted we all took a seat and started talking.

Often students answer the survey questions, but rarely ask their own questions and we end up having to probe even more to get into deeper conversation. Not today - Floriana had a couple of questions of her own. One being, “how have you seen God change and work in your lives?” Halley shared her testimony along with Romans 5:3-5 (which talks about suffering, perseverance, character, and hope) and it was like the light went on! Floriana said it spoke directly to something she was currently going through in life and that was the first time Filomena mentioned the fact that things do not happen by chance.

They both admitted to never really studying the Bible and we asked if it was something they would like to do. They said yes, but that they had classes that afternoon. I quickly responded by telling them we are available whenever and wherever.

One more question was asked before we ended our time with them. Floriana wanted to know why we stopped to talk to them; out of all the people on campus and even around where they were sitting, why them. I told her that as we walk around campus we pray and ask God to lead us to the people He wants us to talk to. Filomena said it again, “It definitely isn’t by chance that you walked up to us”. Before leaving them we exchanged phone numbers and email addresses (we’re going to write while I’m home for Christmas). By this time, Filomena was late for her class, but she said it was worth having the opportunity to talk with us! They then thanked us over and over again for stopping to talk with them and I walked away amazed at what the Lord had done.

I pray daily that He will lead us to the right people and open their hearts to hear the Gospel, but I’m not sure I always believe He will do it. I am so foolish to think that the Lord of the Universe, my Father, would not care enough to grant requests, to bring others to Him. I was and still am in awe of that conversation and cannot wait to see them again in January. Until then, I ask that you pray with me that our communication over email for the next month will begin a new friendship - one centered on the truths of the Gospel.

19-yahweh

Hi Y’all

I’m a second year STINTer in Salerno, Italy. Many things have changed, but I find myself in constant awe of the same Lord. I feel like I’m constantly on the edge of my seat to see what’s next. I’ve seen some amazing things happen in my life that end up coming back again. Here’s one:

rConnections are good. They make the world make sense. They even entice one to creep further in the unknown abyss of life. I’ve got a story that explains what I mean:
Last Spring, I had to go to the immigration office (La Questura) for an appointment. I had originally been scheduled for sometime last October, but the appointment was missed. All in all, I never ended getting rescheduled until the Spring. I went once with my teammate Tiffany (we thought that the two of us had the same appointment, but you guessed it, we didn’t!). Then I was rescheduled again for almost a month later! GRRR! It gets better! When I arrived on time (maybe even early) for my appointment to get my fingerprints taken and to be announced “officially living in Italy” (funny because I had been there since the previous September!), the computers were not working! I had been sitting and waiting for quite a while and had to sit and wait quite a while to get my appointment rescheduled! While I waited I noticed a man who looked to be of some African descent. He looked to be a man of a very calm, kind nature. However, I am the type to keep to myself in most public waiting situations. I’ll let you in on something right here: I’ve been feeling these promptings lately (the past year or so) to ask people if I can tell them about Jesus in my life. I’ve never done it. I don’t want to, but I have a feeling that’s going to change?

So fast-forward to the next week when I finally have my appointment: the man is there again. I wait and wait and wait. I had been reading the book of Hebrews on my personal time with the Lord and decided to pull it out to finish clearing up the slew of questions I had about how Jesus was enough. I was also battling in my heart and head against the nudge to speak to the people gathered outside of the Questura that morning. As I am praying, the man said to me in English “I see you’re reading James”(which is the next book after Hebrews). I was taken aback, but answered that I was actually just finishing up Hebrews. He introduced himself. I introduced myself. Turned out that he had grown up in Chicago but had lived in Italy for the past 30 years! He too was there to share the Love of Christ with Italians! He had grown up in a Catholic churched family but had never really connected with God. It wasn’t until he was stationed in Alaska with the military that he saw God as living. The doors to the world opened at that point and he found himself with a group called Christ is the Answer. His main connection to the group is through Gospel singing but the group spends much time ministering to people throughout the world in so many different ways.

He was at the Questura with his 22 year old daughter, Serena. She is Italian born of an African American father and lady from India! She speaks perfect English and Italian so we passed the waiting time in both! We found out that she, although she has spent her life traveling all over Italy (they are in Rome at the time) with her family and Christ is the Answer, knows some of the same students I know from the University of Salerno! It was such a wonderful experience (especially because nothing fun ever happens at the questura…not to mention anything so intentional as God giving hope!)

So fast-forward to yesterday! I went to the church in Battipaglia for service. I’m saying hello to some of the students I knew from last year and UP POPS SERENA!!!!

God amazes me! He is so kind to lead us on (even when we choose not to follow). I don’t mean to sound conceded but I can’t wait to see why I was the one at the Questura that day! God is in the business of making connections. With you and with the world. Stand-by…..ound. Here’s one of them:

This year we are really trusting God to surface 12 Italian Students to become Spiritual Multipliers and co-laborers with us here at the University of Salerno. Three Students have already been put on our hearts as Gods answer to this prayer, Anto, Erol, and Andrea.

Anto asked last week if she could start a bible study with the help of the girls to lead it. She said she really feels the urge to read the bible with other students and to have a consistent meeting for this.

Erol is a turk from Ephesus who Nate meet last year, soon after he came to Christ. Well yesterday I was sitting in the bar(or caffe in english) and he found me, I never meet him before, but God wanted us to meet. He is so fired up about God and wants to be as involved as possible with us. How cool.

Andrea Mandato… Well we’ve know him for at least three years, but since last year there has been some big changes in his life. Anyways, last week first he asked us to go thought he Bible, so we started reading through Acts. The next day he wanted to hang out, so we asked him to go sharing with us, and he did. It was really an amazing time for us, to see an Italian at work sharing his faith.

Tags: Students

This past month has been quite eventful. Just getting settled into a schedule has helped us all to start feeling more comfortable on campus, and that is a great feeling! The week before students started on campus we all sat down and planned for the year. Our vision statement for the year is: “Boldly sharing the gospel with students and trusting God to change lives, resulting in a movement of passionate Christ following Italians committed to fulfilling the Great Commission.”

Our vision statement for the first phase of the ministry is: “Sowing broadly with the hope of surfacing potential multipliers while trusting God to align them with the mission He has called us to.” Our hope is in this semester to find about 12 or so leaders, who we can really pour into next semester.

Let me state the obvious: this vision is COMPLETELY IMPOSSIBLE without God doing it. We have before us something that we are unable to produce without the Lord. And how cool is that?! Being here in Italy, we have all been entirely stripped of having anything to offer the Lord. We don’t speak the language, we don’t blend in, we don’t really know what ministry looks like here, as we’re all used to our respective ministries in America. But in that, we are being forced to rely on the Lord each and every step of the way. We need your prayers more than anything! For the Lord to move here and for wisdom and guidance for us.

Please pray for us to be bold on campus.

Please pray for us to clearly recognize those that God would want as leaders in this ministry.

Pray that we would trust God and step out in faith in new ways.

Natalie

Tags: Vision