Blessings for 2014!

My wish for everybody:

"May the grace of our lord be with you now and always may you stay blameless till he comes."

blessings for 2014!

Christmas presents in the nursing home

Two sisters of the church work in a nursing home here in Rovereto. Because there are many lonely people among the elderly, we had the idea to bring a Christmas present to all the residents of the nursing home. This present was: a calender, a Christmas card, a info card of the church, a soft cookie like thing and some sweets and chocolates.

On Friday the 20th of December six of us went to the nursing home.

What a joy to see the happy faces of the people receiving a gift. Many couldn't believe that we had thought of them and moreover came to bring gifts. Several asked how much they owed us, because in the world of today they couldn't imagine to receive something for free (and even more unlikely from people they didn't even know). Great great great! It has been a great and encouraging experience for us, but surely for all the residents and the personal (we had a gift for them too) as well!  We will do this again for sure. A little gesture can make a huge difference!

Three weeks in the Netherlands

Last Friday I came back home in Italy after 3 1/2 weeks in the Netherlands. The reason for my visit was an important birthday and because that was in the second half of November, I wanted to stay for the 5th of December: Sinterklaas! Do you know him?

This is Sinterklaas :-)

If you don't know him, just google a little bit and I'm sure you will find more information :-)

Reading my Sinterklaas poem

It was one and a half year ago that I had been in my sending church in Enschede. What a joy to "come home" and to see many brothers and sisters again after all this time! The same was true for two other churches where I went: a church in Heerenveen (= the city where I grew up) where I got to know the Lord :-) and a church in Brunssum where I have come every once in a while my whole life, because my grandparents lived near there. Lots of memories and lots of "re-union".

Three churches, three "angles" of the country

When I'm in the Netherlands it's not always easy to leave again and leave my family behind, but coming back in Italy is always a coming home again. It's strange to live in "two different worlds"... I think back to these weeks in the Netherlands with a lot of joy and I'm full of energy again to continue the work God gives me to do here in Italy!

The opening of the exhibition

Finally after a long period of preparation last Sunday we had the inauguration of the exhibition with Claudio Centin. We planned to have the official part at 3 pm, but the vice mayor of Rovereto wasn't there yet. When we were approaching 4 pm we were getting worried that maybe he forgot... But then in the end he arrived :-)

From left to right: Claudio Centin, Angelo (the elder of the Rovereto church) and the vice mayor.

Sunday and yesterday (Monday the exhibition was closed) lots of people came in to look at the pieces of art and to hear about the Message. Lots of people were touched by it. Praise the Lord!

Art in Rovereto

In the past few weeks the Rovereto church has been very busy organizing a, for us as a small church, big project. From the 3rd till the 15th of November there will be held an exposition with works of a Christian artist. This man makes art with materials that "already have a history", in other words: things we would throw away. These pieces of art are Bible related and create an opportunity to testify of our Lord Jesus Christ!

This week we are mostly involved in publicity. Hand out flyers on the streets and door to door, posters, etc. Since yesterday in the whole city you can find big posters to invite everybody to come:

The goal of this exhibition is of course to testify of our Lord! Besides that we hope to create lots of new contacts with the people visiting. As a church we have never organized something like this before, so everything is quite new too us as well. We trust that the Lord will bless this project, like He has always done. Will you pray with us the coming weeks?