The Gesture that Did it
“For an hour, everyone’s been talking words, words, words, but you showed me a gesture," began Angelino. With deepest sincerity, he continued, "That tells me God MUST be real and that you MUST have a personal relationship with Him.” Angelino was blown away and filled with such joy, by a gesture so simple as giving him a Bible in Pietro’s kitchen at 1:15 in the morning. See, Pietro (a friend from church, name changed) had been hosting a prayer meeting that evening. As we were finishing up around 12am, he noticed his friend Angelino walking outside. Calling out to him from over the balcony to… Read more >>
Free
Seated on a bench in a local piazza, surrounded by a busy traffic circle, the noises of the city and Italian conversations all around, Giulia (name changed for security) encountered God's freedom and grace in a powerful way. We sat there munching on Roman pizza (let's be real; what else would we be eating?) when the conversation suddenly turned toward the topic of communion. I must admit, I was a little taken aback when she looked at me and offered, "I haven't taken communion in 17 years." She proceeded to share that it was 17 years ago that she committed a sin of which she's deeply ashamed… Read more >>
Who would have thought?
Who would have thought my ministry would begin at a pharmacy? Considering the subject of my last blog post, I'm sure you can only imagine that I've been making trips to different pharmacies here in Rome to get gauze, bandaids, medical tape etc. My first time in one particular "Farmacia," I really hit it off with Natalia (picture unable to load, name changed for security), one of the workers. She noticed my accent (let's be real: it's not too hard to hide) and she asked where I was from. She expressed that she really wanted to learn English and I mentioned that I used to teach English back in… Read more >>
From Crisis to Community
"Oh no. I have no one," was my first thought when I cut the tip of my finger in the kitchen on Tuesday. See, my whole team was in Romania that week at a pre-planned conference for which I wasn't eligible to register. So there I was, feeling totally alone in the new city, and then finding myself in what felt like crisis. Not knowing how to respond, I went downstairs to the always-smiling doorman, Rafaele, and, in my best-but-very-broken Italian, tried to explain the situation and ask for help. Providentially, his wife just happened to be walking by, and stopped to help me wrap my finger in… Read more >>