Ciao a tutti!
Hello everyone, we hope this newsletter finds you well. For some reason our October newsletter did not get sent, so this month you get a double issue! It's pretty long, but there is a lot of good news to share. We hope you will be encouraged by it.
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Youth Activities
One of the things we have decided to do since our return to Italy is spend more time with the youth at the Florence congregation. The youth group consists of four kids/young adults: siblings Luigi (20) and Eleanora (15), and siblings Deborah (18) and John (15). The four of them get along very well and are all four great kids. All but John have been baptized. Since there is just the four of them we have been including the 4 Avanti volunteers in our activities too.
We decided to try and at least eat lunch together after worship once a month, plus do something fun when we can. For October we went to lunch at a restaurant called the 1950's American Diner (this is Violet's favorite restaurant. Until recently she called it the 1519's American diner). They have an extensive menu and pretty good burgers. All of the kids got burgers and shakes or cokes. None of them had eaten there before and they all really enjoyed it.
After lunch we went to an escape room. It was a lot of fun. This was the first time I had been to one. Thankfully two of the kids had done one before so they knew what we were supposed to do. We decided to do the room in Italian, even though three of the kids speak English well. This made us have to work together even more to figure things out. We did a zombie room and, thankfully, managed to escape without about 8 minutes left on the clock.
In November we decided to just eat lunch together. Unfortunately, all of the Avanti volunteers either had plans or were sick that weekend, so it was just Rebecca, Violet, three of the kids (Luigi had to work) and me. We also invited Giacomo as he has worked with the kids in the past. The kids wanted to eat sushi so we found a place close to the building. It was a great meal, but even better, a very good time. As I said these are all really good kids and we all get along well.
In December we plan to have them to our house for dinner and a game of dirty Santa. We look forward to getting together with them each month and hope that we will be a good influence on their faith. We were very happy in November when Deborah and John's mom said, "The kids were very excited to come to church today!"
Please pray for these kids, by name, and our efforts with them.
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