Fellowship

Well the last few weeks have been pretty crazy. We have had a lot of events going on here. I have started going to a local pre-school to teach an English lesson to the kids there.  We teach them colors and songs. One day we were talking about the senses. When we asked the kids what they smell with their nose, first response from almost every kid was "cafe." Italians really like their coffee.

Angela with the kids at the pre-school.

We had another cooking school recently and also had a ping pong tournament one night. We had some members from the church come as well as students. Some of them brought friends who are now taking classes here. Everyone keeps asking when we are going to have another one.

Cooking School



Ping Pong Tournament

We also celebrated the most recent Italian festival, "Carnivale," at the local retirement home. It was so much fun and so funny watching the residents throw confetti at eachother.

Ryan with a resident.

Also we celebrated what Italians call "Singles Day." It is not an "official" holiday, but a lot of people still like to celebrate it. It is the day after Valentines Day...haha. We spent it with some of our students.

Singles Day!

I recently got three new students that I am really excited about studying with. I really like reading the Bible with students here. I love to hear from a person with a completely different background than me. The questions they ask are very thought provoking and they see a lot of different things in the verses that I had not thought about. A lot of them are truly interested and seem fascinated by some of the stories and the things we believe. I have also been able to talk to some about different things they deal with, a lot of which are very similar to things we deal with in America; issues anywhere from divorce, body image, loneliness, etc. Some problems seem to be worldwide.

It hit me the other day how I am so often surrounded by people here from completely different lives than me. A few weekends ago we had a devotional/retreat with the women from the Churches in Tuscany. It was held here at the Bible school. There were people from Albania, Honduras, China, Indonesia, Italy and America. It was incredible, one to think about how big the world is and how many different lives there are, but also how we all have a connection with each other. The topic of our discussion was "Fellowship." This is something that seems to get overlooked sometimes.

Acts 4:32-35 says, "All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had. With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And God's grace was so powerfully at work in them all that there were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought  the money from the sales and put it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need."

The speaker on a video that we watched talked about this verse, along with several others. The speaker in the video talked about what the first church looked like. "There was a sense of mission together. This is what He meant by 'fellowship.' That's a lot different from a potluck. It's this idea that we're one now, we're family."

I have been thinking a lot about "fellowship," especially because of the living situation here at the Bible school with all of us in one building. There are people here constantly and they are all watching us interact with each other. The speaker said, "I can tell you, Jesus forgives you, Jesus forgives you, Jesus is forgiving. But that's not enough. God says, 'I want to show Jesus to the world.' So that means I need my brothers and sisters around me, and when we offend one another, but we keep forgiving. And then suddenly, the world looks on and goes, 'I've never seen that before.'"

John 17:23 says, "I in them and you in me- so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me." This whole idea of unity and fellowship is something that has never really hit me before. It's more than going out and telling people about Jesus, but also being united with each other so that when the world looks at us they see something different by the way we interact with each other.  We have to have each other to show that kind of relationship. We cannot do it on our own. "There is something about our unity that makes the message believable."

1 John 4:11-12 says, "Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us." In a way, we have to have each other to show God's love, it was meant to be this way. We were not meant to do it alone. I wonder what it would look like if there was true complete fellowship and unity among all believers, something more than just civil and surface level relationships.

I hope all is well with everyone. Thank you for all your prayers, support, and comments! I could not do any of this without y'all. Your encouragement means more than you know. :)