It's B-A-C-K.........

Yes.

My camera is home.

This is what the children think of it...

Emma

I'm happy cause you're happy

Lily

Oh great, not another one

Micah

Good! Now you can take pictures of me

Thoughts of children: narrated by me

Treats from really nice American friends...

A while back I blogged about why I like volunteer teams. Among one of the many reasons I like them, is the American treats they bring us. Well, sometimes we can find American things here. But when we do, they cost a lot, and it isn't worth paying for them.

On occasion, wonderful people, specially named Tiffany (who happens to be quite a cool person) treat us to nice American treats found in Italy. This blog tells my story....

enough said.

and yes I did put pieces of white chocolate in the middle of the muffins.

YUM

World Cup 2010

I like soccer. Going to Brazil a few times has increased my liking for it. For the last World Cup, I was working at Ruby Tuesday's and had nothing to do but work and watch watch soccer. So I watched practically every game. It was fun for me, but really... who in America really watches the World Cup? There were few people who shared my interest.

BUT, now I live in Italy. Let me remind you who won the World Cup in 2006....... Italy. Being that Italy is a soccer nation and the defending world champions, the World Cup tends to be a big deal here. I didn't watch every game, because there are a ton, but I did watch most of them. I watched every USA game and every Italy game. Of course I was pulling for Italy, but well everyone here knows that the team is too old to do much. But still, we watched. It was fun getting to experience the World Cup in a passionate soccer country.

As you may or may not know, Italy didn't make it through the first round. So I fell to my first love, Brazil. Now, Spain was favored to win this cup, but I still was rooting for Brazil. Until it dawned on me that I would be in Spain for the final game. After discussing with Paul, we decided we wanted Spain to win so that we could be there for the celebration. Well folks.... watch and see...

International World Changers

This past week the International World Changers team was here in Naples working with us. It was a fun time, as I always enjoy having teams here. We were able to build some good relationships in the piazza and were able to better some relationships built from a previous team. Here are a couple iPhone pics from our time in the piazza.

Of course soccer is always on the top of the list...

I don't remember where the ninja game came from, but it seems to be a big hit

This little old lady was so thankful that we gave her a bible small enough for her to carry around. She asked for Michelle's address in America so she could send her thank you notes.

Some of the sweetest memories from this week came from watching Micah have a heart to see the people believe in Jesus. She put her artistic skills to work to help open up some relationships.

There was another missions team from Ireland in our piazza this week. We worked with them as they brought their style to the piazza.... a little Irish dancing.

One of our volunteers, Penny, sharing her testimony in the piazza as one of the Irish guys translated.

I like working with the big volunteer teams because I get to have my "own" group for a week. I love getting to know them and walking alongside of them during their time here. Plus I make great new friends and get to have new wisdom poured into my life. I also think it's funny to watch them try to adjust to our culture!

Jared here is just loving all the pizza and pasta he ate. This is my team enjoying their sit down lunch for the week.

Jared was even nice enough to play games with Jenae.....

And that is my IWC blog. Maybe I'll write more later, except I'm going to Spain tomorrow and have way too much to do.

i don't like sand, but this place is real pretty

So I dislike (I choose this word over "hate" because I just taught Alessia how to say it, not good) sand very much. In fact, I dislike it very, very, very much. It bothers me. I never went to the beach growing up, and maybe the second time I ever went to the beach, I stayed for a whole summer. Sand is one of my enemies. But, Italians like the beach. And since I need to be Italian, I decided I needed to take some sun at the beach and change my skin color a little.

I took a beach day on Monday. I took the train out to Sorrento and just had a day to myself on the beach. It was relaxing. I read a book and changed colors a little. Yes, the sand bothered me.

Then on Tuesday night, a friend asked to go to the beach on Wednesday. So I headed out to visit my sand enemy yet again. I changed colors again, and this time I took a few pictures. The beach here is not the big, white Florida beaches. Instead they look like this...

The best part is getting in the water and looking up at the surroundings. It's pretty sweet. I normally don't feel like I live in the Italy that America thinks of, just because Naples is Naples. But when I go out to the little surround cities and the Almafi Coast, I remember I live in Italy.

We walked up and around the town after our morning on the beach and this is the view down to the beach...

Marta and I decided maybe we could live there...

I guess my new skin color makes up for my dislike of the SABBIA(sand)!!!!

VBS 2010 Daniel... in English

This past week we had our version of Vacation Bible School. We used it to teach the kids English and Bibles stories at the same time. We had about 9 Italian kids and it was a great week. A little culture shock for Jenae and Brittany, but good for them. I enjoyed working with the kids. Most of the kids had been a part of Kala and Ellie's English classes so they were excited to use their English and to learn more. We taught them new vocabulary, we told them the stories of Daniel, we taught them songs in English, and of course played games.

On Friday we had a parent night. The moms came so the kids could show what they learned. They read the story of Daniel to their moms, in English, and they sang the English songs all by themselves. It was great to see them so excited about it. Here are some pictures from our crazy, busy, fun week.

The kids getting ready to start a game of Ninja

I did the music for the week. We were teaching the kids the movements that went with the song.

Shannon giving the English lesson for the day.

Working to perfect our English songs.

Micah and Emma, playing with the big parachute.

Jenae's thoughts on preparing the snacks.

Giorgia came to play with Alessia one day.

Our whole group.

Why I Like Volunteer Teams

I will start by confessing that, yes, of course one reason I like volunteer teams is because they bring fun American things. BUT, there are many other reasons, both fun and serious, for liking volunteer teams. Let me list a few for you...

Reasons List:

• They are American
• They bring a fire and passion with them that remind me why I was called to Naples in the first place.
• I get to see God do HUGE things in their hearts
• I get more peanut butter
• Sometimes they remind me of people from home. sometimes in a real freakish way.
• Occasionally they have weird tattoos, in weird places
• I tend to laugh a lot when teams are here
• I meet great new people, that I might hang out with when I go back to America
• The change to live in a house with 7 children arises
• I meet another person that can be just like Emily Moore
• I get some great encouragement from some great people
• People come to know Jesus
• People do nice things for you, even when you don't deserve it
• I can speak English

Ok I'll stop now. I'm sure I could go on and on. It can be really tiring having teams here, because we wake up earlier and go to bed later than normal; and we do it for 8 days straight. Props to Il Capo for working real hard and a whole bunch. I really enjoyed working with this last team. We saw three people accept Christ in the neighborhood we were in. God worked through prayer and it reminded me of a lot of things. I'm convinced that this is God's city and that He has called us here for a reason. So we better keep telling people about Jesus.

I just ate a whole ton of peanut butter. Whoops.