A few tid bits

I need to get better at posting on this thing, but anyways this week has been really busy. Something you should know about Italy though is that you can only really accomplish one thing per day. So my days have been full, but with really only a couple of events per day. I have been in language school, which has been really good and I am definitely learning. My teacher's name is Milena and we always ask her random questions about where to find good meatballs, what the mafia actually does, and how to properly use italian hand gestures. As of right now I MIGHT be able to carry on a converstaion with a 2 year old, so that is progress.

OK here is some Salerno trivia. The patron saint of Salerno is San Matteo (aka the Matthew who wrote the book in the Bible) and when he died they cut his body into pieces and spread him out all over. The exciting part is that we have his arm...yes his actual arm. It is kept in a crypt in the Duomo ( the big church in the middle of the city). So last week was a festival celebrating San Matteo and there were concerts and fairs and markets and then a big parade. I'm pretty sure all of Salerno comes out for this parade where they carry large statues of various saints surrounded by flowers and such. When these statues pass, people throw confetti and flowers from their balcony and cross themselves. And when the San Matteo statues passed there was quite a bit of hollering and clapping, but apparently in the past women have fallen to the ground and wept. Just a quick note...Jesus was not involved in this parade.

So we're trying to have a get together for all the students that were involved last year and the new believers from this summer, which is quite exciting because this is the first time I have had any contact with students. Yesterday we split up calling all the students and we were all a little nervous because we are just assuming that they speak English and that they will have some kind of idea of what "Agape Italia" is. I actually spoke with 3 girls and they were precious! One girl said "it would be beautiful to meet you". That made my freakin day! I loved it! Talking to these girls really got me excited about starting to do actual ministry with students. I think it really helped to connect a voice and a name to "italian students" that I've been praying to have a heart for, but had no idea who they were.

That's all for now.

P.S. I like comments!