let me love You anew.

as i was making scrambled eggs for breakfast, philippe reminded me of how beautiful the view is. how many people get to wake up, look out the window, and see a view like this? it's incredible.i've only been here a month and a half, and already the view began to seem mundane. when you see the same beauty over and over again, does it lose its beauty? does it lose its perfection? or is it only the perception of the viewer? because our view of the adriatic sea every morning? it doesn't change. it's still just as beautiful. but i lose sight of that beauty.

i wonder if it's the same way with God. when i'm close to Him, everything seems so beautiful, so wonderful, so new and ... perfect. and then i grow accustomed to it. i lose sight of the real beauty of knowing and being close to the Lord. the beautiful becomes the mundane. the thing is, it isn't the Lord's beauty that changes, but only my perception of it.

it's like when you're reading a good book. if you put it down for a while, you usually forget just how good it was. you have to go back, reread parts of it so that you can get excited again about that book. when i'm not close to Lord, i don't know what i'm missing out on. if i don't read my Bible, i forget how wonderful it is. if i stop talking to Jesus, i forget how much i loved spending time with Him.

Jesus, open my eyes to your beauty again.
in the words of shane and shane, i want to yearn for you. i want to burn with passion over you.
this life doesn't mean anything without Jesus.
let us see this beautiful view anew every morning. let us never fall into a mundane Christianity.

random things..

a few random things..

thing number one.
i realized last weekend just how picky i am at doing the dishes. it's ridiculous, i know. but it's true. everything must be rinsed well before i wash them otherwise they leave floaties. and i can't have any floaties in the water. you know, chunks of food or lettuce or anything. if there are floaties i remove them immediately. if there are no more suds on the top, there isn't enough soap to actually clean the dishes, so i refill the sink. maybe i'm crazy, maybe i'm OCD.. but i won't do dishes any other way. oh, and i only wash one dish at a time, so i don't put any in the water to just sit in the water and wait to be washed.

thing number two.
they sell wine in juice boxes here. like the kind with straws and everything. crazy :)

thing number three.
at the grocery store the other day, cristiana's cousin assumed that philippe and i were married. philippe is 45. it was weird. that has never happened to me before. at least not with a man so much older than me. we laughed. but i still thought it was weird.

thing number four.
this weekend is full of traveling. i'm excited :)

thing number five.
milk here is not refrigerated until it's opened. so you can buy 4 boxes (yes, it comes it boxes, too. like rice milk in the states comes in boxes.) of milk and they'll last you a couple of weeks. they won't go bad. it's pretty nice.

thing number six.
i made some really good tomatoes last night. well, i didn't make the tomatoes. but i made the oil/salt/basil mixture to dip them in. it was delicious!

thing number seven.
the wine that cristiana's parents make is potent. it's not bad, but it definitely isn't the wine that i'm used to. so i just assumed that, in general, wine in italy is stronger. but philippe bought a bottle of sicilian red wine (the best wine in italy is supposed to come from sicily) last night, and it was much better. not only much better, it was really really good. i'd highly recommend it.

i think that's enough random things for now. i need to get back to work.
but have no fear, a real update is on the way. and by "real" i mean that it will talk about the majority of my life here instead of my random thoughts :)

oh. and.
today is the halfway mark.
6 weeks left.

i'm going to update soon. i promise :)
and p.s. God is good. even when my emotions are up and down every day. (bipolar? hm.. i don't think so but it feels like it sometimes).
He is doing some great things here... i just need to be open to seeing them and acknowledging them for what they are.
that's all for now.. i need my sleep!

Adoro Gesù

(translation: I worship Jesus)

as hard as the last few days have been, my spirits have now been lifted.
1) worship music does wonders for a person's attitude.
2) miracles do happen...

yesterday they took out the respirator/ventilator thing and he could breath on his own! he was/is weak, but he's improving. and tomorrow morning they are going to put in a pacemaker that they had said in the past they couldn't put in. prayers, even from around the world, are heard. how exciting :)

also, i'm going to this youth conference in Bari, a city about 3 hours south of here. it's going to be great...
the title, "perque io vinco", means "because I win." the theme is based on 1 John 5:4, which says, "For every child of God defeats this evil world, and we achieve this victory through our faith."

it's next saturday. and then sunday/monday we're going on another road trip. assisi and sienna here we come!
i'm excited.

so. i feel like i've been on a kind of emotional rollercoaster. or just a big drop and then a big, sudden hill. the thing is, it happened before i even found out about my uncle doing so much better. the Lord does great things, huh?


let us press on to know Him
let us press hard into Him
and as surely as the coming of the dawn
He will respond
oh, that we might know the Lord...

handed over.

I'm a little bit tired... I'm a little bit jaded...
And I need someone to tell me "you can make it..."
I'm a little bit tired... I'm a little bit jaded...
And I need someone to tell me "you can make it..."

I know your fear and I still believe you can descend without the wings to fly... And in time you'll carry your food for ammunition compass strength across the wire now...

gavin mikhail
handed over

dizzy. kids. food. uncle.

a lot has happened this week since i last updated.

wednesday morning i woke up and was too dizzy to even stand up. so i didn't go to the office. thursday they told me to stay at the base again and take it easy so that i didn't get sick again. laying in bed is not one of my favorite things.

so friday and saturday were full of scrambling to put together the program for the park, which went very very well. it was cloudy and a little chilly so there were less kids, but it was still a good time.
afterwards, we went out for pizza. good pizza. i think all pizza here is good though. i also had this little breaded/fried thing that had a zucchini flower in it.. it was good.

sunday morning was church, which was pretty good... and THEN we went to cristiana's parents' house where we had an incredible meal. seriously, it was authentic italian food and soo good! appetizer was tomatoes with basil leaves on bread. next was (i forgot the name of it..) a type of lasagna that's made with pasta that is already cooked. the pasta was like fettucini, but wider and shorter. it was wonderful but the portions were huge.
that was followed by some cooked greens, an eggplant/garlic dish, and sausage cooked over the fire.
watermelon for dessert.

i sat next to cristiana's father who told me all about an old general in the army, how to make a kind of scrambled eggs, and told me that i had a lot of siblings. most of this took a long time for me to understand, but still it was great. that man is so loving, so joyful, so full of the Lord, it's incredible. he started telling a funny story and put his arm around me, and every time he laughed, he would pull me close to share his joy. i had no idea what he was talking about, but it made me feel loved.

today. my mom told me that my uncle john is in ICU at a hospital in georgia, where he lives. he's had a degenerative heart disease for a while now, but i didn't realize it was progressing this quickly. basically, he's on a ventilator/respirator right now, but the part of his heart that is causing the problem is inoperable. the outcome doesn't look good.
please pray for a miracle.

i also got a ticket today. on the bus. because i didn't punch my ticket as i got on because my hands were full of groceries. go figure that the one time i don't punch my ticket, there's a guy checking tickets. argh.

it hasn't been a good day.
and i want to go home.
not just because of today, though. because of a lot of things.
i need more encouragement from the Lord.

andiamo a fare spese

(translation: we go shopping)

i'm working on creating a small curriculum to teach conversational english. lessons start next week :)
at the same time, i am learning even more italian in the process. exciting!

did you know that milk is not refrigerated here until you open it? kind of like a jar of jam.. not refrigerated until it's opened. weird. so we buy these boxes of milk that don't expire until december. weird.

and every time i go to the grocery store, i find something else that is so different than at home. like last week... they had rabbits for sale. and by rabbits, i mean whole rabbits sold the same way that chicken breasts are wrapped/styrofoam-plated. including the head. it was gross. apparently the meat is pretty good, though. hm.

i'm tired. and we just got a lot more things to work on this week. including having the children's program for the park planned out by 1pm tomorrow. ouch. better get moving on that!
-e