Storming a Castle

Again, we have to apologize for the lengthy delay since our last blog. Our stuff arrived from the States! It was one of the happiest days we can remember in recent memory. We can't even begin to describe the morale booster sleeping in our own beds provided. The kids still haven't gotten over having their toys again. Talk about Christmas in October! Being in our own apartment has been another huge step toward feeling settled. It wasn't seemless, however. We just got Internet back last week. We've blown more fuses than we care to count. And we've had to learn new bus routes from our new location. Oh, and did I mention the printer cable I fried accidently?

As this blog serves to witness, our life has been a freight train since March. After we had unpacked the last box and hung most of the pictures, we sat on our couch in the living room and thought, "We made it. Maybe life will return to normal." Of course, as I wrote earlier, it's definitely a new kind of normal. Still, we feel like we're slowing down for the first time in six months. It's a good feeling.

In our last prayer letter, we had asked people to pray for some family fun. Because we have had so much to accomplish in the past months, we feel like we've been painfully short on play time. This past weekend, the other couple we're working with, who have a car, invited us to go with them to a little town about 25 minutes away that has a real life castle. The kids needed to hear no more to be on board! I've included some pictures from our little adventure (that's the kids in the "torture chamber"). We were back by lunch, but it was such a boost of refreshment to get out of the city and explore a little. We're adapting to urban living pretty well, but there's somthing about being in the country that breathes some rest.

Even though there have been some great "pick-me-ups" in the past month, we have also experienced some of our first cultural adjustment challenges. There have been some days of great discouragement. When you hang pictures on your walls, there is a new sense of "Wow, we're really staying here for a long time." But you know, the bottom line is that our hearts still break for Italians to know Jesus. The other day, I was waiting to pick up Hannah from school, and I was just overcome with compassion for all the parents I was surrounded by. They work so hard. They just looked so worn out. I want so much for them to know joy. Still, sometimes when you're completely frustrated that you need yet another plug to make something work, it's hard to remember the bigger picture.

Some happy things we've discovered: grocery delivery to our apartment (a life-saver!), a grocery store that has really good tortilla chips (we haven't found any good salsa yet though), a park pretty close to our new apartment that has a wooded trail--you can almost forget you're in the city, a really yummy and really cheap Chinese restaurant, novella wine (wine made from the harvest's first grapes), and a really cool castle in Dozza.