Prayer Life

Hello Everyone,

As May is coming to a close we are asking that you pray for our prayer life. We both have felt a lull in our prayer life lately. Our body here is currently going through a weekly sermon series on the Lord's Prayer. It has been both convicting and challenging to think about the Lord's Prayer line by line. Last week we focused on the line "thy will be done". After the sermon we as a couple talked about how we can remember certain times in our lives that we specifically remember praying for God's will to be done. We usually pray that part of the Lord's Prayer when we are in the middle of making a big decision or waiting on the outcome of a big life event. We remember praying for His will to be done when Justin left to serve in Romania or when we were engaged and waiting to be married. We asked for His will to be done when we were praying about moving to Italy. These are all big life events that we did genuinely yearn for the Lord's will to be done.  In reality praying for His will to be done should be a part of our daily supplication. Our prayer in the coming weeks is that the desires of our hearts and our daily lives would be aligned with the desires of God's will for us.

We ask that you please be in prayer for two men. Marco and Luca (not our son). Marco is in his forties.  He has been seeking the Lord and growing in his love for the Lord. Please pray that he would continue to seek after Him and that we as a body would be able to love him and serve him well. Luca is a young man in his mid-twenties. He was a former student of Justin's. He lives in our city and Justin ran into him about a month ago at one of the festivals. Justin explained that we are serving in a local evangelical church and that is the main reason why we moved to Budrio.  He has come to some of our Sunday gatherings as well as our Thursday night bible study. We are asking that the Lord draws Luca to himself and that his heart would be open to the Gospel.

Thank you for praying for us,

Justin, Carli, & Luca

May Update

Hello Everyone,

We feel like we blinked and we are already well into May. The weather is finally starting to warm up here. One of our favorite parts about spring in Italy is all of the festivals that happen. Lately there has been one almost every weekend. We have found that it is a great Gospel opportunity to get out and talk to people...while also trying some delicious food. So far we have had a chocolate festival, fish festival and a spring produce festival.

With the weather being so nice we have also gone on many walks in the evening. Sometimes we just walk and talk about how God is working in our lives. It is so refreshing to take a step back daily and talk about our struggles and our joy. Often times we see new contacts we have made or we meet new people out walking. You would be surprised how many people stop and ask us about Luca. Italians love babies!  We are making new contacts daily which gives us opportunities to share God's love with others daily. That's one of the great parts about living in a small town. We are thankful for God opening new doors with people and we pray that He would cultivate those contacts for His kingdom.

We are doing well as a family. Luca is eating lots and growing quickly. We are learning so much through parenthood. In the tough times of little sleep and not always knowing how to comfort him, God's grace and love have been so sweet. We were so thankful to have Carli's parents the first two weeks home with Luca. They were a great encouragement and a tremendous help.  It has also been very sweet to see our church family here love on us and Luca.  We are looking forward to reinforcements coming next week with Justin's parents coming for a visit. When we were choosing a name for our baby one of the reasons we liked Luca so much was because it means 'bearer of light'. Our prayer is that through his life he would bring joy and the light of the Gospel wherever he is.  We have already seen ways that he is pointing us to God in just the three weeks we have held him in our arms.

Please be praying for us as the busy season of summer is quickly approaching. We have lots to prepare and look forward to. Please be praying for Justin as he is preaching and leading worship this Sunday. Pray for him to have a clear mind with the language and that the Lord would give him the words to share. Pray for our ongoing contacts here. As always please feel free to email us with ways we can pray for you or with an update in your life. We really enjoy staying connected with our brothers and sisters.

Love you all,
Carli, Justin, & Luca