Reporting From Bologna

We have talked a lot about Summer Projects during our time here.  Every summer, students from the States come for five works to work with us in connecting with students and sharing the gospel.  Last year, we had 21 students come, and the impact they had was great.  They are such an encouragement to us and God has used them in the most unexpected and significant ways.  We are currently preparing for this summer's Project.  Twenty-seven students will be arriving at the end of May, and we are asking God for big things.

I wanted to share with you a video one of the students made last summer.  Even in being here for only five weeks, these students got a great picture of ministry in Italy.  The video is two minutes and has lots of great footage around Bologna and with students.

It is such a privilege to be here. Please pray for our ministry. Pray for students' hearts to be pricked. Pray for us and for the students coming this summer. Pray God would use us mightily in the lives of Italians.

A Day in the Life

What does the day of a missionary look like?  It's definitely doesn't look like 9 to 5 at the office! No day ever looks the same.  Some times we love that, and sometimes it drives us crazy. :)

Today, for instance, Cody and the kids left the apartment around 8am to walk to school.  After dropping them off (he has to take them to two different schools), he took the bus over to Jesse and Tricia's apartment for our weekly prayer time.  Every Monday morning, our team gathers to pray for personal and ministry needs.  On Tuesday and Thursday mornings, we spend time working on further developing our language skills.  That could look like everything from sitting in a classroom, to studying verb conjugations, to purposefully engaging in Italian conversation for the purpose of language development.  Friday mornings we have a staff meeting.  And on Wednesday mornings, Cody heads downtown to work on administrative things (which is why you're more likely to get an e-mail from him on a Wednesday than any other day!).

But today, after prayer, he will meet Jesse for lunch and personal development.  Then they will ride the bus downtown to hang some posters around the university area.  These are posters that advertise a program we offer as English-language conversation partners.  On the poster is an e-mail where students can contact us, if they're interested.  Today they'll head to the part of campus where the Languages Faculty is located.

On other afternoons, Cody will meet students he knows for lunch or language exchange.  In the afternoon, he will usually go to the area of a specific faculty and try to engage students in conversation that allows him to gage their spiritual interest.  If they show interest, he will try to meet them again for cafe or invite them to an apertivi (pre-dinner appetizer time) we host on Thursday evenings.

Another place he goes to connect with students is a coffee shop that opened about a year ago.  It's called Itit (pronounced eateat), but we call it the Italian Starbucks, since it is the only thing we've ever seen that comes close to Starbucks here.  It's right in the middle of campus, and in addition to serving some more elaborate coffee drinks, it also has lots of places for students to just hang out and study (or talk).

Cody will head back to our part of town by 4:30, to pick up the kids after school.  On Mondays and Wednesdays, as soon as they get back from school, Cody and Gavin leave for taekwondo.  We'll eat dinner afterward, usually around 7:15.  On Thursdays, he will come home for a bit, but then head back downtown for the apertivi.  The kids know Thursday nights are Breakfast for Dinner, since Daddy will be gone. :)  If conversation is good, he won't be home until after ten.  And on Sunday evenings, he goes to a Bible study at 8pm that the pastor of our church does specifically for college students.  His heart is to provide a place where non-believing students can genuinely examine the claims of Christ in the Scripture.  Again, it is 10:30 or later before he gets home.

Interspersed amongst it all are also the ongoing relationships we have with non-students.  Last week that was a late night Chinese dinner with Fabio and Alessia.  I also try to meet Alessia at the grocery store once a week for language development and to continue learning about Italian food and culture.  There are birthday parties that sprinkle the week and the conversations with have with the parents of Hannah's friends when we pick her up from playing at their homes after school, or vice versa.

Office or not, our weeks are packed.  Praise God! As exhausting as it feels sometimes, we are really in a great rhythm of showing up in places where God is already at work.  We're just trying to keep up and continue to be sensitive to the role He wants us to play.  Thanks for joining with us and praying for it all!

Ben's Birthday on the Rails

Admittedly, this is more of a post for the grandparents. . . our Little B turned three on Sunday! And what did he want to do more than anything else?  Ride trains.  He is just a little bit obsessed. :)

The day started with Ben's requested breakfast of waffles.  They were YUMMY!

So that is what we did.  After church, we headed to the train station and hopped on a regional train to Ferrara.  The actually trip was only 31 minutes each way, but it was 31 minutes of shear delight.  It's hard to know what he enjoyed more--riding the train or just sitting and watching the trains come through the station.  He could have done it all day.

We had to hurry to the train station after church to catch our departure, so we enjoyed a little PB&J en route

In the middle of our journey, we spent an hour hanging out at the Ferrara train station watching trains.  The little outdoor cafe was the perfect spot.

Practicing his "3"

When we arrived back in Bologna, we went back home to enjoy our traditional birthday meal of homemade fried chicken nuggets and macaroni and cheese.  Ben's friend, Ruby, also came over to help him enjoy birthday cake.  It was a perfect day for our little guy!

Of course, he had to have a train cake!

Sweet Ruby, giving Ben birthday loves

This was a big step after last year's birthday when he was afraid of the candles and refused to eat any of his cake!

Recipes (a bonus post!)

I'm just getting it started, but I wanted to let you know about a new blog I've started to record some of our favorite Italian recipes.  There is a link on the side bar (to the right), but you can also click here to check it out.  There are only a few recipes there now, but it will be growing soon.  Feel free to give the address out to others who might be interested!

A Preacher Came to Visit

This is Preacher.  He is an 80 pound Goldendoodle sometimes mistaken by Italians for a sheep.

This is David and Nicole Hannah and their precious munchkin, Ruby Love (aka "Preacher's Parents")

This is Hannah, who is campaigning determinedly for a Phipps family dog, faithfully following through on her responsibilities to walk and care for Preacher while we dog sit.

Did I mention Preacher weighs more than Gavin and Benjamin combined?  

He is the most gentle, well-trained teddy bear of a dog any dog-sitters could ask for.  And though the youngest Phipps don't know it yet, he might just be warming mom and dad up to the idea of a Phipps dog. . . 

Downstairs Fun

Looking for the Pages usually listed on the right?  They moved to under our masthead!

One of the things we hope this blog does is allows you to "picture" what our life in Italy is like.  Obviously, there are a lot of differences between life in Italy and life in the States.  One such difference is the cantina (I'm not referring a Mexican restaurant here. . .).

I am not sure that cantinas exist all over Italy, but they are pretty common around Bologna.  Since Bologna was fairly decimated during WWII, most buildings have at least been built in this century.  Where as the average age of a building in Florence is probably 800 years old (no joke), the average age of a building here is probably 120.  All of that to say, the newer buildings took into account such things as automobiles and storage.

Underneath our apartment building, we have both a garage and a cantina.  Our garage is so small that if we didn't back into it, the door wouldn't be able to close because of the height of the back of our station wagon.  And it's so narrow that to be able to get out of the driver's side door, the passenger's side mirror has to almost scrape the opposing wall.  Absolutely it's a pain, but we are so thankful for it!  Not every apartment comes with a garage.  In fact, if you do have a garage, it's quite popular to rent it out.  The going rate is about 100Euro a month.

One half of the garage area

Our cantina is also under our building. It's in a long hallway than runs the length of our building and only residents can access it.  It's like a little storage unit. We had no idea cantinas existed before we actually arrived in the city, so we were blown away at the idea of having a little bit of storage space for things like luggage and bikes.

One of the hallways of cantinas.  Ours is just to the left.

It's really not a lot of space (maybe 4 feet by 12 feet), so to fit bikes in, we have to maximize it.

Since we don't have a backyard to speak of, the garage area of our apartment building has become a great substitute.  The kids can't just run down there, but it's ideal for riding bikes in a substantial but secured environment.  And when you live on a busy intersection in the middle of a city, that is a great blessing.

Hannah has also starting taking up rollerblading.  It's just called "inline" here, but a couple of her friends are into too.  It seems so grown up, but she's really having a great time with it.

Just before we left the States, Gavin mastered riding with no training wheels.  He had also grown so much that he needed a bigger bike when we returned.  There haven't been too many warm  (or dry!) days yet, but he's asked every opportunity he's had to practice his new skills.

Sweet Ben has loved, loved, loved being able to bike with the big kids.  I think he could literally peddle around down there for hours.

Buddies

Last Saturday, when our family was down in Florence, I got a text from my friend Kim.  Her husband, Ben, works for Caterpillar here in Bologna, and over the past two years, they have become dear, dear friends. We have so much in common and just really enjoy them.  Their friendship has been a real gift of FUN for our family.  An especially sweet gift has been their almost six-year-old son Drew.  He and Gavin hit it off from the beginning and have loved doing together all things boys love doing.

So Kim texted on Saturday to ask us to pray for Drew, who had broken his arm really badly.  They had gone to one hospital and were on their way via ambulance to another hospital.  The break was so bad they were going to have to do surgery. 

On Sunday when we got back to Bologna, we made a huge Get Well poster and put together a bag of goodies for Drew and went to see him.  It was our very first trip to an Italian hospital!  He had been transferred to the orthopedic hospital in town (the best in Italy), where there was a brand new pediatric wing.  First word was they would do surgery on Monday.  Monday came and the doctor determined his arm hadn't been put in the correct position.  They would have to reposition it and wait for the swelling to go down before they could operate.  

The surgery finally happened on Thursday.  As Drew killed time in the hospital waiting for surgery, Gavin was so concerned for him.  Almost every night he asked if we could go see him.  Visiting hours are very limited, so we could only go between 5:30 and 8pm.  We made a couple of trips before the surgery, I went and hung out with Kim and Ben during the surgery, and then we made a trip back on Friday, as soon as he was able to have visitors post-surgery.

Drew and Gavin in the play room at the hospital

Trying to help Drew learn to do a puzzle one-handed for awhile

There is a toy here popular among boys called BeyBlades.  They are kind of glorified tops (and available in the States too).  Drew had been wanting to get one, but ironically Kim told him he couldn't until he learned to ride his bike (how the accident happened that caused the broken bone!)  So on the first night we visited, Gavin had to bring one to him.  Gavin is obsessed with them, so it was one more thing these Buds could do together.  

To begin with, Gavin would hold the launcher and Drew would pull the rip cord to send it flying.  But then, as all boys would, they decided they had to battle each other (this is what BeyBlades do--they "battle"). 

After a week in a foreign hospital and surgery to insert three pins in a ugly broken bone, there were two normal boys battling BeyBlades.  What a joy!  Obviously, we are so, so grateful for this great friend God has provided for Gavin, but we it was just as much a blessing for us to see Gavin's tender heart expressed in wanting so much to be with Drew this week.  We treasured being able to help Gavin love on Drew.  And we treasured being able to love on Kim and Ben during the week too.  

God has (and is continuing) to build a great community for us.  We find ourselves with relationships in a multitude of different realms, and yet each meets such a different need in our lives.  It was just right this week to be able to really walk beside some of those who have become so dear to us here.

Valentine's Day

We had the most perfect, least-planned Valentine's Day ever.  We celebrated with the kids and enjoyed a low-key evening at home.  Of course there were flowers and chocolate, which makes every Valentine's Day perfect.  The flowers were for me (Jen) and the chocolate was for Cody.

How do say love with chocolate in Italy?  A chocolate salami, of course!

It's taken me three years to give this one a try.  It just seemed so. . . unnatural.  Wow, have we been missing out.  It was incredible!  Just like fudge.

It made for a very happy husband indeed. :)