A New Week

Hello everybody,

We hope that you all had a great weekend and Epiphany. We are back at work and going about our week as usual. Last weekend, we had a great dinner with some friends who aren't believers. They wanted to have us over to recap from before Christmas. We have had some good discussion with them about spiritual things and have made a good friendship with them. We also took our time cleaning our house this past weekend because we have a little mold problem. Since many of the homes in Florence don't have dryers, we have to dry our laundry indoors. This of course, causes moisture and leads to things like black mold. We finally broke down and bought a dehumidifier, (thanks to New River) and hope to have a much dryer house in the coming days.

Carli and I have been searching and praying for a solution to Carli's job problem. She enjoys where she works, except she doesn't get paid on time. I spoke with someone in Florence at another school about Carli's predicament and so we sent her Curriculum Vitae over for the director of this school to look over. Please pray for this job that she potentially may get. We need her to be closer to home and not work so much so that she can devote more time to the ministry needs of the community.

Finally, please pray for our spiritual direction. We feel like we are where we need to be, but we are asking for clarity with how we can be used in this new church plant. We are willing to serve as much as we can, we just want it to be God leading and not us trying to make something happen. Our core group of believers is small but is united when it comes to making much of Jesus in this city. This is our prayer for our neighborhood, communities and nations within these city walls.

We wanted to post a picture of our square near our house. This square holds lots of people each and every day. The "Piazza" is something that we are unfamiliar with in the US but is part of the Italian culture. Tons of people from this section of town meet here throughout the day. Older people come to talk to life long friends in the morning and hundreds of young folks gather late into each night talking and smoking pot. This is where community happens for so many who are lost in Florence. Do we as the bride of Christ have a real community? This is a question every one of us should ponder.

Thank you for your support and prayers as we all work for His Kingdom,

Carli and Justin