Buon Estate a Tutti!
That means, "Happy Summer to Everyone!" You didn't know you would get an education in the Italian language when you signed up for our newsletter did you? But here we are.
Rebecca, Violet and I hope that you all are doing well. We are all doing just fine, although we had covid last month. It really was not bad at all and we are all back to normal. The worst was we had to quarantine until we tested negative which took about two weeks each (Violet and Rebecca's weeks overlapped, so that was good).
Despite the set back and a few lost days we have much to report about the work in Italy.
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Bible Studies
All of our Bible studies continue to go well, though most of our students are starting to get ready for their summer breaks. As you might remember most Italians take the entire month of August off and many of them take July too. This usually means we have few studies during those months. As the weather gets hotter the students start to get a little more inconsistent with making their studies. Thankfully, most of our students have stayed engaged the last few weeks.
Last month we reported on the baptism of Fabrizio. I am happy to report that Fabrizio and I continue to study each week now that he is a Christian. I am hopeful that these studies will continue for a long time and that they will help him mature in Christ. One of the blessings of Fabrizio's Christian life is he has a lot of Bible knowledge already and a good foundation from which to start. In our last lesson we talked about his obligations as a Christian. He was very engaged in the lesson and is happy to know that he can be a leader in the church and even preach. The very next Sunday he led a prayer in worship for the first time. In our lesson we also learned about our obligation to tell others the Gospel. Fabrizio had already invited his cousin to come to worship that Sunday, but he told me he would be more mindful of inviting others.
Rebecca's studies with Alice and Marina continue to go well. They are two of the most dedicated students that she has and want to meet every week. This is interesting as they both grew up in communist countries (USSR and China) where religion was banned. Alice, in particular, has shown great interest in the Gospel and, though she has not obeyed it yet (nor does she seem close) she has talked about visiting worship. Please pray that she makes that a reality soon. I will be preaching in Florence in two weeks and I plan to invite her personally. Please pray that she does come. I have worked a few times with a new Italian tutor (we will only meet a handful of times to help me with a few gaps in my abilities) and I plan to invite her and our old tutor, Elizabeth. We ask you to pray that they come as well.
Studies with our other students are going well too. One thing we are trying to concentrate on now is finding new Bible students, rather than English through the Bible students. We will always use the English through the Bible program and we very much like working with our students through that program, but if we can find people, like Fabrizio, who only want the Bible that will likely result in more conversions. To that end we are working with World Bible School to set up their program in Italian. That will take a while, but Lord willing we will get it launched in the coming months. Please pray that we find those searching souls.
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Other Congregations
Unfortunately, I was sick with covid the last Sunday in May so we have not been to Pistoia in a while (they had to cancel us in April because most of the congregation had covid), but we were able to get to Prato and Milan in the last few weeks.
Fabrizio had come with us to Prato in May and they insisted on me inviting him back this month. Now that he is their brother in Christ they wanted to see him to congratulate him and welcome him as a brother. Fabrizio is a very friendly person and all of the members seem to like him a lot. The feeling is mutual and he was happy to come along. I taught Bible class on Acts 10 and then I preached. The Acts 10 lesson can get interesting because of the emphasis on the baptism of the Holy Spirit. That is a subject that many Christians have questions about, or are confused by. I think I was able to answer all of their questions. The class keeps me on my toes because they ask a lot of questions, which I do not always understand. Thankfully, they can usually communicate them in such a way that I eventually get it and then I can answer. I think there has only been once in the last few months when I had to say, "I am really sorry, but I can't figure out how to answer that in Italian, let me get back to you." Of course, I never got back to the person and they never asked again so it wasn't important. That is just a joke, I did answer them the next time we met.
This particular Sunday in Prato we were invited to Julianna's house for lunch. She is 88 years old (which she will tell you at least once every time you see her). Her son Giuseppe and her grandson (Maurizio) and granddaughter (Belinda) are very faithful members of the church. In addition to our family, Fabrizio, Giuseppe, Maurizio and Belinda three others were invited to lunch as well. Sunday lunch in an Italian's home is an event and one of the best things you can experience. First, you get a pasta dish, which is usually overflowing, then you get a meat and vegetable dish. We had roast beef that was tender and flavorful. We were shocked when Violet said, "They serve this at my school sometimes, and I like it!" We had no idea and were further shocked when she ate several pieces. Fabrizio led the prayer before dinner. The conversation included a lot of laughter and funny stories, but also talk of spiritual things. The brethren in Prato desperately want to grow, please pray as we continue to try and work with them to that end.
This past Sunday we were in Milan. Usually when we go to Milan we need to leave right after worship to get Violet home on time to get homework done and get ready for school the next day. Since she got out of school last week we did not have that problem this time so we were able to stay for a fellowship meal, which they call an "agape." The Milan congregation has a high percentage of Filipino members so the meal was eclectic. I happen to love Filipino food (it is not unlike the food we ate in Micronesia) and it was interesting to eat lumpia (kind of like a Filipino egg roll) with lasagna (exactly like lasagna). The fellowship was great and we were able to speak to many of the members about issues in the congregation and their desires to grow. My lesson that morning was on Isaiah 6. My points were: Isaiah saw his God, his sin, his salvation and his mission. After the lesson some of the members discussed with me that, that final point is the hardest. In other words, to find God and salvation is easy, but then to share that salvation with others is difficult. Based on that discussion I am going to concentrate more on encouraging them to do the little things that can help people to Christ, like just inviting people to worship. We have recently finished a class on evangelism, but they continue to need help in that regard.
Please pray for our efforts with all of these congregations. Like most of you reading this, they all want to see their congregations grow, but they struggle to do the work of evangelism.
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Preaching in Prato. One of the nice things about this picture is you can't see me.
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There are no children in attendance at Prato. Rebecca decided when we go she would teach a Bible class for Violet (while I teach the adult Bible class). We are hoping we can encourage others to invite children for the class.
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There was just enough pasta
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I remember in Micronesia I was always the tallest...with Marco and Moisés.
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Some of the ladies of the Milan congregation.
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Florence Youth
This month, as it will be our last activity with the youth until September, we decided to take the kids on a surprise trip to an amusement park called Cavalino Matto. Imagine Disney, but with fewer rides, no Disney characters, less attractions and gift shops and much smaller. In fact, don't imagine Disney as it is really nothing like that. Cavalino Matto is pretty small, but they have some fun rides and a few shows they perform. The nice thing is, if you go during the week, which we did, there is basically no crowd. This means you can walk right onto almost any ride without waiting. We brought Violet with us and she had a great time. The kids enjoyed it too. I was not sure if they would or not because, as I said, it is pretty small, but they loved it. We ate lunch with them, but the rest of the time they pretty much rode rides on their own. We would pass them every now and then on our way to another ride, and they were always chattering away and very happy.
One thing we talked about with them is that we have done a lot of fun activities this year, but we need to do more spiritual activities and Bible studies. They agreed so starting in September we will have a monthly devotional in addition to our fun activity. We are hoping to get them to start inviting their friends to both as well. They are all very willing to do the spiritual things too, which is good. The problem is that they are always extremely busy. John and Eleonora, for example, have school 6 days a week. We will try to schedule devotionals on Saturday evenings, but three of the four kids are in orchestras and often have concerts on Saturdays. I am sure we can work it out, even if we have to do the devotionals on Sunday afternoons.
Please continue to pray for these kids as we try to assist them and their parents in their walk with Jesus.
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Debora, Luigi, Eleonora, and John
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Family News (Which, let's be honest, is really just Violet news)
We are all doing well. That's it, that's the whole update.
Okay, I will tell you a little more. Violet finished the 3rd grade the week before last and I really can't believe it. This has been, by far, her best year academically and all of her marks are up. They do not really do grades like we think of them, they just have three levels for each subject: advanced, intermediate and basic. Violet has, until this year, mostly been at the basic level. This is understandable as she has to learn everything in her second language, which we do not speak at home. However, this year she has caught up to the other students and go almost all intermediates and advanced. Her teacher told me that Violet is at the same level as all the other students in her class and her language skills are indistinguishable from an Italian. She also said Violet is the sweetest girl in the class and the most well behaved (which is most important to me).
Because Violet's birthday is in July she almost never gets a birthday party with her friends (they are all gone on vacation in July). So this year we decided to throw her a party early. I decided to ask the mothers of two other summer babies (Noemi whose birthday is in July, and Sofia whose birthday is in late June) if they wanted to throw the party together and they both agreed it was a great idea. Then they basically planned the whole thing, which worked out nicely for Rebecca and I. We had the party at a park that is used only for private events and the kids had a great time. There is a young woman who works at the park that entertained them for a while with games and they also had a scavenger hunt. It was a very nice party and Rebecca and I were able to talk to the parents, most of whom stayed for the party. We were able to talk a little bit about what we do, which will, hopefully, open doors for the Gospel. One of the moms asked if we could teach her older son English through the Bible. We might see about adding him to our Monday night class which has a couple of younger students. Hopefully, that can lead to more studies and eventually growth of the body in Florence.
We thank you all for your prayers and your continued support. We love you all and appreciate all you do for us!
The Shanahans
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Violet had an emotional goodbye with her teacher. In elementary school the students keep the same teacher for grades 1 through 5 so they get very close.
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