Youth Summer Camp

For those of you who have been reading our newsletter, you have seen that this past month we were preparing for our annual youth camp here in Budrio. Overall, we had a great turn out and were able on a daily basis share the Gospel with 42 kids from 12 to 18 years old. Even though it was tiring, we were able to make new contacts with parents and families who are interested to know what we believe as a church and want to visit a Sunday gathering. We are praying for these parents who have contacted us. We are asking the Lord to give guidance and truth to them and that we can show them the love of Christ. We were please to see our Mayor Gulio come again to thank those who served during camp. We are praying for him and those who work in the city hall of Budrio. We are asking the Lord to give us wisdom and grace as we work alongside the leaders of our community and be the light of Christ to them.

Hot and Happy

Even though Summer is here and we have been suffering from the heat we are so happy to be a part of a church that does life together. This summer we are going through 1 Timothy together while meeting in different homes throughout the Budrio area. This time is so important for us because it allows us to spend more time with our church family and get to know them. It is such a priviledge for us to serve Christ alongside folks who are sold out for Jesus! Our prayer for this summer is that our church grows ever more closer together as we live out our vision for this city and the Kingdom of God.

Your word satisfies me...

The Psalmist writes, "How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!" (Psalms 119:103)

Lately, I have been convicted about the time that I put into studying the word of God. It can be difficult for us to find time to spend with the Lord in the middle of all of our responsabilties. Day by day goes by and we realize that almost all of our time with the exception of a few prayers was taken up by things we thought were worth doing. Then, at the end day, we fight the temptation to feel guilty over the lost and wasted time of what could have been our time in the Word.

My prayer that I pray today for both you and my family is that we would be people of the Word. We would not be influenced by the stresses and distractions of life, but that we would hope in the anchor of the Word of God and seek it more than anything else in life. Earlier in Psalm 119 the writer says, "Oh how I love your law! It is my meditation all the day." (Psalm 119:97) The question I ask is, do we love to meditate on the Scriptures all day? Is this something that we love to do or is it something we feel we must do in order to balance our sin and lack of intimacy with God? I for one have struggled with this. My prayer is that we fight as Christians the temptation to put the Bible off and not just go to it with our flesh in mind but our spirit. It is through the spirit that we discover the beauty and excellencies of Christ.

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

Our Son is Here

Hello Everyone,

We are so thankful to you all for your prayers for us this past week. Our son Luca was born last Tuesday at 4:51pm weighing 8lbs 3 oz. Even though labor was tough for Carli we could not have asked for a better experience. The doctors and midwives who took care of her were by far the most helpful we have ever encountered. We are now looking ahead with this amazing blessing that God has given us and ask that you pray with us to always hold our blessings like Luca with open arms to God knowing that Luca is the Lord's.

During this week we have learned much in finding patience with eachother and especially Luca. These past nights have been difficult for us as he wakes up every 2 hours to eat. We know that sleep deprivation will not last forever and we want to take in every moment that we have with him during this time.

Please pray that the Lord molds us to the type of parents He wants us to be for Luca and that our hearts are always more satisfied in being loved by our heavenly father than with the love of being earthly parents.

We love you all!

Carli, Justin and Luca

Our Apartment

Hello Everyone,

The goal of this post is to give a peek into not only the obvious ways we are sharing God's love, but also how we hope that in the practical day to day things we display the light of Christ. Some of the prayer requests we had before our return in February was for ease in finding a doctor, renewing our visas, and finding an apartment. For this post I am going to focus on how God has provided an apartment for us and the friendships that have already started from living there.

Our new landlord is named Anna Maria. She is a very sweet women in her 70's who lives in the same building as us with her cat.  From what we have learned about her so far we know that she loves to joke, really enjoys life and art.  She along with everyone else in the apartment building are eagerly waiting with us for our son to arrive. It has been over 50 years since this apartment building has had a child in it. So you could say that Luca will have no shortage of people loving him.  Our first week in the apartment we met another one of our neighbors, Fausta. She too is a women in her 70's and also a bit of a spitfire.  One day when we were moving boxes they were both outside the building talking. They invited us to sit and chat for a while.  This quickly turned into pulling out the lawn chairs, a bottle of coca-cola, and talking for two hours.  I mentioned to Fausta that tulips were my favorite flower and that the ones growing near us were beautiful. She quickly went inside to get scissors and cut me four tulips. She said that her grandma planted them and that she loves when they bloom each spring. During this time with them we also got the share our desire to have a positive impact on the youth of our city as well as serve in the local evangelical church. They were both interested to know more about this as the see the need for our youth to have positive influences.

Our prayer is that as our friendship with them continues to develop, that they would see the joy of Christ in us. Please be praying for their hearts to be open to the Gospel and for our lives to display it.  We hope to meet more of our neighbors soon, but in the mean time we are so thankful for the warm welcome we feel with these two ladies.

We also welcome good old fashioned snail mail to our new apartment.
Our address is
Via Antonio Gramsci 34
Budrio, Italia (BO)
40054

Thank you for praying with us,
Carli & Justin