What's Not to Love?

It’s easy to struggle against and mourn what you’ve lost, and when you leave your home, job, country, church and friends, you lose a lot. What a wonderful discipline it is to practice gratitude for the things you’ve gained. Here are ten things I love about life in Lesina.

1. The climate.  (I might not say this in July and early August). In the morning I do school on the patio and the air is a perfect 20 degrees at 9 am. In the evening I sit out again and pop off an email or two at about the same temp. 

2. No bugs. Well, people continue to say there are, but for a Canadian this is like NO bugs.  

  

3. Fresh Mozzarella. Made daily, squishy, juicy, tasty, 13 euros per kilo mozzarella made from the milk of the water buffalo. The parmigiana and other aged cheeses are nothing to scoff at either.

4. Gelato Artigianiato.  Fresh daily as well; creamy, incomparably rich ice cream. A Sunday afternoon tradition for our family.

5. Pane.  Made to order daily, pick up at 8:00 am just around the corner, still warm from the oven, 2 euro for a round half kilo loaf of soft whole wheat.  Also known as "Breakfast".

6. The produce (I know, I know, there seems to be a food theme going on here). It is so fun for me to go downstairs, run across the street and gather my produce (which again is delivered fresh daily) for the day’s meals. The butcher cuts your cuts for you, the fish market gives you clams still in the shell for 2 euros per kilo. 

7. The products.  Italians like quality and it shows in the products.  I have never had such streak free windows or shiny chrome with minimal effort.

8. The market.  Once a week vendors set up along the avenue by the lake and you can find all matter of clothing, material, shoes, household products, curtains, linens, produce, even furniture for amazing prices. So fun to shop in the open air under canvas canopies.

9. The culture. I love that wherever I go all the little businesses are family owned and operated.  Brothers, Mothers, Fathers, Sons. The butchers, the bakers, the farm fresh Cheese-makers, the old dad alongside his two handsome sons at the shoe stall in the market.   Italians are super social and they are never in a hurry.  Everyone is friendly, and loves to talk. Sure, sometimes they like to be dramatic, but it’s fun to engage rather than walk around in your own little bubble. It makes one feel alive, warm, and connected. I love it and it is so conducive to ministry.

10. The vista.  I will never tire of olive groves,  poppy fields (or poppy-pops as Nicholas calls them), vineyards, shorelines, cobblestone streets, balconies cascading with vines and blossoms.  It’s not all romance and beauty; there is plenty of garbage, graffiti and dilapidation mixed in so as to create a Beauty and the Beast contrast. But mix it all up; the good, the beautiful and the ugly, the people, flavors, sights and experiences and you will find yourself smiling and asking, “What’s not to love?”

The Rest of the Story.

aka It's Not Over Till it's Over and It's Not Over Till God Says It's Over."

From the day we shipped our container on March 6^th nearly two months have passed.  In that time we have prayed daily for God’s grace as a covering over our shipment because we knew once the container got to Italy, anything could happen.  It could get held up without cause, inspected without cause, have items go missing, or completely disappear. 

On April 13^th, the day before our container was due to arrive in Naples we received an URGENT email from the company in charge of clearing and transporting our container from customs in Naples to our house.  The email told us that we must immediately furnish a variety of important documents to them which they needed to have on hand when the container arrived.  One of these documents was an official declaration of residency that we needed to get printed in our local town hall AND notarized by the mayor.  We received the email on Monday at 12:30 right when the town hall had closed for the day. 

On Tuesday, April  14th we managed to get all the necessary papers in order (no small feat, it took the whole day) and contacted the clearing house in Naples right before closing and they told us that fax would not suffice, we had to send the original documents to them by certified mail.  At that time the post office had JUST CLOSED so we had to wait till Wednesday morning to mail them.  

On Wednesday, April 15^th (day 2) we mailed the necessary paperwork to the clearing agent.

On Thursday, April 16^th (day 3) we requested and received confirmation that our paperwork had arrived and was in order and the clearing agent would be presenting our papers on the Friday the 17^th.

On Monday, April  20^th (day 7) we called the clearing agent for news and they informed us that clearance of a container takes 3-5 business days from the time the paperwork is received by the port authority. While he affirmed that we were not given any notice to provide the necessary paperwork he said he gave us all the notice he had and there was nothing he could do about it and that we would be required to pay $200 CAD per day from day 6 forward that the container was held in port.

On Friday, April 24^th (day 10) we called again and he said that he had gone that day to inquire and the port authorities told him it still had not been processed.  This is 6 working days from when they received the paperwork.  Saturday was a national holiday, Sundays the port is closed.  At this point we knew they could hold our container for a month, enforce an inspection (at our expense) and allow the bill to mount to whatever amount they liked.  We were utterly helpless. 

God continued to challenge us through His word.  Notes from my devotional journal these past two weeks include;

 “It is good that I should learn to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.”  Lam 3:26

“You have taken up my cause, Oh Lord,” Lam 3:58

“You hear our cries for help and You deliver us out of our troubles. Many are the afflictions of the righteous but the Lord delivers him out of them all.”  Psa 34:4-9; 17,19

Welcome problems as opportunities to learn to grow in faith, trust, perseverance, patience and hope.  

“Do not lose heart. Be renewed in our inmost being every single day. Our light and momentary afflictions are preparing us for leadership in glory. Be afflicted but not crushed, perplexed but not given to despair.” 2 Cor 4:16-18

“Take heart, in this world you will have troubles but Jesus has overcome. Do not grow weary in persevering.”  

These are just a few samples, the pages of my journal are FILLED with promise after promise, exhortation after exhortation to wait confidently on the Lord, to persevere in trust and to make peace my breastplate.  I read and re-read and prayed and pleaded with God for the power to live these verses out.  I failed and succumbed to frustration and anxiety and anger numerous times but every time when I repented and returned to that place of trust I found a surer footing than I had previously known.

on Sunday, April 26^th (Day 12) we attended a province wide church service at the villa where we were married 19 years ago. There we met up with a gentleman who is a colonel in the finance department of the state.  When he heard our story he told us to let him handle it, that he would call his colleague in Naples and have our container released!

Monday, April 27^th (Day 13) the colonel called us to let us know that he had talked to the port authorities in Naples who had said they were holding our container pending inspection for drugs.  He vouched for us personally and told them we were full time missionaries and not to try to bleed poor innocents of money they didn’t have through unmerited inspection and detainment.  The port authorities agreed to release our container and waive the fees!

Tuesday, April 28^th (day 14) the clearing company in Naples contacted us and told us that our container would be released that day and that it would arrive at our house on Wednesday, April 29^th at 8:30 am and that they would be sending us the bill shortly.  Indeed we received a bill for $800 CAD, substantially less than the $200 per day we were told would be charged, but still not “waived fees” as the colonel had told us.  We contacted the colonel who contacted the port authorities who basically said “we reduced it by 50%, end of story.”

We really felt that God wanted to do more than just reduce these charges by 50% so we did not feel the story was over (little did we know!) I went to our room and knelt on the floor and laid it all out before God and told Him that if He wanted us to pay this money, that was fine, it’s all His money, He can use it how and where He wants.  But that if this was the enemy seeking to steal from God’s own that God would take care of business for us.  I did in that moment say that if we had to pay I would do so cheerfully, because God gives and God takes, and does as He sees fit.  We are just stewards.  We then looked at our shipping contract and saw that in no uncertain terms we were not responsible for any port fees in our door to door service.  At 11pm our time we received word from our shipping company assuring  us that they had already told the clearing agent that they would pay the bill so they didn’t know why he was sending it to us.  We slept easy, with smiles playing on our faces.

Wednesday, April 29th, 8:30 am the container shows up.  The driver hands us a bill for $800.  We tell him to call the clearing agent because our shipping company had emailed confirmation to him and us that they were liable for this bill.  He said “who is this clearing agent and what do I care about him.  I’m a driver only, pay me or I leave and the problem is yours.”

An hour later we manage to get a hold of the clearing agent who in turn tells us “yes, I got the email from U pack we ship, but who are they and what do I care?  How do I know they will pay me?   No, you must pay me or I will not release the container to you.  I will send it back and you will incur more storage fees and fines.”

Helpless, and unable to talk to our shipping company because it was the middle of the night for them, we went to the bank and made a certified check, paid the driver and unloaded our container.   We continued to commit the whole situation to God in prayer and 2 hours later, at 6:30 am north American time our shipping company wrote us a very sweet letter apologizing or all our stress and assuring us they will reimburse us the charges. 

And that, my friends, is the rest of the story.

Shifting Sand

Looking back at the heavy fog that was our walking weather for most of the duration of our journey until now I almost miss it. It was comforting in some way. It muffled one’s senses and made it so that all I could focus on was the One who was going before me and beckoning “follow.” Now that we have come out into the open on the other side of the pass, I feel myself almost shrinking back at the glaring brightness of reality.  Here we are, with the panorama of our future stretching out in front of us in all its stark clarity, and frankly, it’s a little overwhelming.

I grew up a small town country girl in the mountains and loved to explore the piney recesses on horseback. Then I married and we made our home in the prairies where I grew to love the wide open spaces and the gentle landscape of planting, crops and harvest. Mountains are solid, strong and bold, the prairies are steady, sure and simple. Here, I feel as though we have stepped off of  sure, dependable terrain and are wading through sand, the deep soft  kind that pulls you in and makes you slip always to one side as you go, stretching muscles in your legs you never even knew you had.

I didn’t imagine it would be like this. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I had some romantic notion of what life would be like here that doesn’t line up with reality.  I knew, we knew… we KNOW very well the reality of life here.  Maybe that is what makes it so hard right out of the starting gate.  Maybe if we weren’t so keenly aware of deep rooted traditions, culture, reality, we would be cushioned by a little of that honeymoon phase. But of course all that would result from that would be a delay in the crash, and sometimes those delays make you come down harder than ever.  No, I wouldn’t pick that if I had the choice.

In a way, we are both experiencing the phenomenon of what is called “re-entry” in missionary vocabulary.  We are coming back to a culture we once were part of only to realize we are no longer part of it and never will be part of it the way we once were again. The things that have happened to make us no longer part of it are rich experiences and lessons that of course no one else has shared or can relate to and because of that you are an oddity. We both went through this when we left the ship and went back to our respective home countries 20 years ago, then again when we moved to Italy in 2000, then again when we moved to Canada in 2004 and now, oh yay, we get to live it all over again.

This phenomenon of being a cultural oddity has a word in missionary vocabulary, too.  It is called “third culture”. You come from one culture with its own unique shape and characteristics and you find yourself seeking to integrate in a new culture that has a completely different shape and characteristics .  Visualize Canadian culture as a square and Italian culture as a circle, and of course right away the old adage “square peg in a round hole” sums it up well.  When you first find yourself being torn out of one culture and dropped into another, it is inevitable that you feel keenly the jut of the angles that  are in juxtaposition to the shape your own life has taken.

In Canada we complain about the busy parking lot at Costco, having eight people in line in front of us at the till, the road conditions, computerized telephone services. Here, you can call a company or even the immigration office every five minutes all day long and never get an answer, and , surprise, surprise, no answering machine message to even try to glean information from if you wanted to.  Oh, and don’t expect anything to make sense.  If immigration says on the sign by the gate that their opening hours are from 8:30 am to 1:00 pm you would imagine you could drive the hour or more to their office any time between those hours and expect to be served right?  Wrong. 

What you won’t know and can’t know  unless someone gives you the personal cell phone number of someone on the inside who can tell you how to go about successfully applying for residency, is that you need to be in line by 8:30 when they open the gate because they will allow 70 people in and then close the gate and that is it.  Those 70 people get to go inside and spend their morning hoping and waiting to be seen.  We were the third people in line, and guess what they did, as we went through the gate, they checked and stacked our passports from the bottom up, so the first person in line was the last one to be served, meaning we were there by quarter to eight, waited till quarter to 12 and got out of there at quarter to one. Because two people who could only type with two fingers did both the gate processing and the paperwork processing inside.  Oh and good thing you thought of the right questions to ask that person with the cell phone because they would have forgotten to tell you what documents to bring and you would have had to go away and return and rewait three or four different times to procur the list of documents and photos and photocopies they require. Because they won't give you a paper that lists them, they will tell you when they get to that part of your processing that you need to go and come back when you have such and such.  And next time the same. Words can not begin to describe the insanity of the lack of system.

Wherever you go, whatever you do, be prepared to spend at LEAST two hours waiting to, and then filling out paper work.  And I am not kidding.  Just to open an account at the post office yesterday we spent two and a half hours with TWO people taking down our information, every single personal piece of information you could possibly fathom, including places of birth, the equivalent of our SIN numbers, identity card AND passport numbers, I can’t even remember what all, and just like in hospitals back home, they don’t just ask you these questions once but you go through a series of questions for one form and then repeat and repeat the same information at least four times to get through four different forms that are about four pages long each. We must have each had to sign our names about twelve times to complete the paperwork for our account.

The same was true for getting insurance for our van and ordering our kitchen from Ikea.  Truly, it is almost frightening.  Every move you make requires almost every possible piece of information about your identity.  Why in heaven’s name  Ikea needs to know where we were born is truly beyond me, but I think it’s because there are 60 million people in this country and identity and possible mixup between the 20,000 Giovanni Macarone’s  is an issue.   All this to say, with there being so much paperwork for us to go through this first month and the fact that you need to wait in line for at LEAST half an hour here wherever you go, often an hour or more, it has been exhausting and time consuming.

And then there’s the kids. Doing this as forty something, conscious and seasoned adults is one thing, and by no means a small thing. We have six beautiful, sensitive, amazingly tender children in our care and keeping who have stepped into the sand with us. Yeah we know they have a bit of the honeymooner in them. Especially since they love sand.  But sand can get old when it gets into your comfy shoes and rubs along your tender skin, when it blows into your eyes and you weren’t prepared to shield them with your hand, when it’s so hot it scalds you feet.  They are experiencing that too.

Italians are nothing if they aren’t opinionated and comfortable stating those opinions as fact. Because to them, their opinions are fact. So wherever we go we get two reactions without fail.  1. We are wonderful 2. We are crazy.  Italians are drawn to our family, the number of kids, the way they play together, take care of each other, their manners and our closeness as a family unit. It is wonderful  and rare in their eyes.  But it is so foreign to them, and their immediate response is one of concern for our kids.  Why would you bring them here?  Why would you uproot them from a safe, comfortable, secure, wonderful life in Canada and come to this? How will they survive being ripped from a 5 bedroom house in the country and crammed into a two bedroom apartment on a main drag?

We know very well what they mean by “this”. Especially here in the south. Wherever we look we see situations that make you catch your breath.  It’s not apparent on the surface but the reality of people’s coffers and scraping by day to day is inevitable when your only prospect is to take a temporary job planting tomatoes or else start learning German in the hopes of getting a job in a country that actually has a thriving economy. We know people who are doing both.  And yet when I hear these concerns over and over I have to say in my head, “Get thee behind me, Satan!”  For how the enemy would love to use these words and concerns to plant fear and anxiety in my life in regards to our children.

So here we are, wading through shifting sand, catching our bearings and our breath, taking in the cacophony of new sights and sounds (and it really is a cacophony) and seeking to do it with grace, and hope and joy, which are the things we most want to represent here.  And when our footing seems unsure, which is with most every step, we have a sure hand to hold and we are learning to cling to it and find comfort and strength in this one sure thing, that “when all around my soul gives way, He then is all my hope and stay.”

All Roads Lead to Rome

Another week has passed, and that means seven days of drifting, taking our bearings, and watching the horizon for a glimpse of Terra Firma.  I feel like a kid holding a treasure map and trying to work out the markings only to realize that I have been holding it upside down.  Turn it around and suddenly your eyes focus and you can get your bearings.

This whole journey started with Coen's "You should come to Zambia!"  and then was clinched with Mike's "Oh Yeah!  And then you should go to Italy!"  We could all see how Zambia could provide a time of great personal growth for us, as well as help solidify a vision and a foundation for our future work in Italy.  Since the idea for Zambia came first, logically, we assumed that time in Zambia would be a precursor to our move to Italy.

Last week we felt like we were standing at a crossroads with about 30 signs pointing every which direction and our heads were spinning.  I can't even begin to describe all the different scenarios that presented themselves to us when it came to the different possibilities in regards to the who/where/when/what of applications and order of events when it came to dealing with one organization (Operation Mobilization) in three different countries (Canada, Italy and Zambia) with three different time frames.  I will spare you the tailspin and tell you about the day that we got clarity.

I have lost all track of days, it may have been Wednesday last week.  I was going about my day feeling like I was carrying a house on my shoulders.  All of a sudden I had this realization.  "This would all be SO much simpler if we just moved to Italy after the house has sold, got set up there in home and ministry, and then pursue the possibility of Zambia at a later date together with them." (our leaders in OM Italy).

No sooner did I think this thought and I felt like that house lifted right off my chest.  I took a huge breath, let it out in a cleansing sigh and smiled for the first time in days.  I sent up a quick prayer that God would continue to give confirming clarity on where the road sign was pointing.  When Pietro got home I told him about the thought I had had.  His eyebrows just about hit the roof and he exclaimed, "I was just thinking the same thing as I was driving home!"  Not only that, but that very same night we got one phone call and one email from two influential people in our lives who suggested this exact same course of events.  As we discussed it with friends, it was continually confirmed as "just making sense."  We both went to bed and slept like babies for the first time in a whole week.

So amidst the jumble of people and places and processes, one road sign stands out.  And lo and behold, it points to (463 miles northwest of) Rome.

An Unexpected Journey

I feel like Bilbo.  The opening scene finds us skipping around our little shire, happy as larks, eating, drinking and being (generally speaking) merry.  Yet the prologue to this story has already revealed that we are being invited on an unexpected journey.  Just like Bilbo's companions, we received this "invitation" that really left us more in the dark than informed at first.  You have read the prologue, a month has past, and the introduction is now being written, right before our eyes, and we would like to share.

When I wrote my last note, "Prologue Revisited", I really told you everything we knew.  That our family felt we were receiving an invitation to "pack the necessities" in essence, and get ready for an unexpected (and completely unknown) journey.  In the past month, our story has continued to unravel, sometimes gently rolling, sometimes with almost supersonic intensity.  I would like to share with you the introduction to our story.

It begins with me hitting send on "Prologue Revisited" but in order to tell you that beginning I need to tell you a little flashback.  When we felt that God was inviting us to "Get Ready", we both felt without a shadow of a doubt that that was to get the farm ready for sale.  In discussing it, although we were both in agreement, we wanted to lay out a fleece of confirmation and invite God to boost or seal this conviction in our hearts and minds.  We love this farm and wouldn't give it up if we weren't sure He was asking us to and had a plan for our lives.  The fleece that we laid before Him was that if He wanted us to sell the house, that He would orchestrate it as such so that when word got out that we were preparing to sell, people would come to us and tell us that they wanted to buy our farm, without us even having to list it.   We weren't thinking quickly, we thought maybe, possibly God might bring an interested party to approach us next year, which is how long we knew it would take us to get our house ready for sale.

Within a minute or so of posting my "Prologue Revisited" note on FB I received a private message.  This message in essence said, "if and when you move, we are interested in buying your property, please let us know."  Um... okay, that was a confirmation for us that we were moving in the right direction.  But of course we are humans, going in blind and so we continued to lay fleece after fleece before God asking Him to continue to give us signs of how to proceed here.  The next was in the area of our finances.  Looking at how God has blessed us and given us equity in this property and through other financial means that is so beyond anything we could have contrived ourselves (we call Him our great Equity Manager), we feel that He has given us this capital not for us to "enjoy" but as an investment to fund our lives and work in the future.  But we are not business people, and stocks and bonds and all that jazz make our eyes glaze over.  So our next fleece was to lay our capital (or what will be our capital once we sell and pool our investments and savings) before Him and ask Him to show us how it can be used to generate income for our future.

That second week after writing "Prologue Revisited" we were with friends who are savvy business people who also have a complete heart for using their business to generate income for God's work.  When we shared our current stage of waiting on God they were both very of one mind of exactly how we could use that money to generate income.  With their help they laid out a plan of how they could be part of managing this plan in a way that as long as our capital remained in industry, we would be able to make a regular salary that would go very far in paying for our monthly expenses whatever we end up doing.  

With that duck in a row, three weeks after writing Prologue Revisited we then were able to say, God... where are you taking us?  What's the plan here?  What are you asking from us and how are we going to get prepared and ensure we have the tools to do the good works that you have prepared in advance for us to do?  Within days of praying that prayer, Coen and Suria Scholtz arrived in our little rural farming community, 2 miles up the road with two daughters that just hit it off like lemon and merengue with my girls.  As we spent a weekend listening to Coen and Suria share their stories and their passion, we were butter in their hands.  A couple that also left everything to follow a call that they didn't know where it would lead, but it has led them to amazing heights of service and blessing.  Not only did I love their stories, but I loved their persona's.  Both Pietro and I looked at each other as we drove away and for the first time in our lives we felt like we had "seen Jesus" with skin on.  They awoke a fire and a passion so deep in us that as our pastor said recently, it was like a burning bush on the prairie.  

Coen talks about "putting your yes on the table" to be part of God's plan.  We both said, Coen our yes is on the table but we don't know who or what we are saying yes to.  We know that God is telling us to get ready but we don't know what He is telling us to get ready for.  We have figurative tickets in hand to get on the train, but we don't know the destination.  In talking with us and hearing our life long passions, strengths and weaknesses both Coen and Suria urged us to come to Zambia and receive leadership training under a man named Christopher Agenbag.  They spoke so highly of his influence in their own lives that we were like, if this man impacted your life and ministry, sign us up.  Amazingly, because Africa was never on our radar and even when we went home, both thinking without a shadow of a doubt that this is what we were going to do, there was a lot of raw emotion as well, because we are quite seasoned travelers, but Africa is a whole nuther story.  And going there with 6 children takes it to a whole new level. 

Last Sunday after google searches and you tube videos we sent an email off to a few key people in our lives, asking them what they thought of this.  One of these people was Mike Hack, in Africa.  That night when we went to bed, I was all of a sudden hit by the realization that we were talking about selling everything, packing up 8 suitcases and moving to Africa for six months to receive leadership training for..... we didn't know what.  That made me break out in a cold sweat.  So then I started to pray, saying "God... is that what you are asking us to do?  Walk into this blind?  Take a wild leap of faith and just trust that you have a plan and you will reveal it when the timing is right?  If that is what you are asking from us, God, then please give us the courage and faith to do it.  But if it's not.... that would be really great.  If it's not, could you please show us what we are getting ready for?"

I fell asleep with these prayers tumbling around in my head, and in the morning when I woke up and turned off the alarm on my phone, there was a message from Mike.  "Yes!!!!"  he said.  "Do it!!!  Christopher is the best of the best, we all learn so much from him, and when he is done with you I have a job for you."  He went on to explain that he has a heart to see a similar training centre to what Christopher runs in Zambia (but it services all of South Africa) set up at the OM base in Italy to service the entire Mediterranean region.  OM Italy recently took over a beautiful centre in the North of Italy (I will post a link at the end of this note) and has the vision for mobilizing missionaries to go out into the Meditteranean but needs manpower.  And needs manpower that is equipped and wired to understand the culture.  

We both just looked at each other with eyes wide and hearts saying.... "of course."  I mean, the puzzle pieces just all fell into place and the picture became crystal clear.  And for the first time pure excitement charged us.  I mean there was always a little element of excitement but mostly overwhelmed by a whole lot of other not so positive emotions, mostly related to fear of the unknown, but THIS?   We were MADE for this.  

This is not the end of the story, the pace did not slow down after this but the week continued to unravel with machine gun fire intensity as Mike says.  But I will share "the rest of the story" for another day.  Today I just felt if I didn't start to tell the story, it would run away on me and I would never be able to do it justice.  And we need your prayers as we move forward through this obstacle course of preparation.  It seems like each day the timeline shrinks and and the list of things to consider grows.  We find ourselves routinely feeling a bit paralyzed about how we are going to get "from here to there".  So we would love to invite you to be part of praying us through!  

Ways that you can support us today.  Pietro is meeting with his department this morning first thing.  Maybe as we speak.  He needs to give a sort of notice without being able to give an exact notice.  Please pray for a good communication on his part, and favor and blessing from his boss.  They are hiring and training one employee to take Joe's place which has been recently vacated, the suggestion will be to hire two people and Pietro can train them both, one to replace Joe and one to replace himself.

Tonight we will be meeting with the Evangelism and Missions Committee to share our story and request the blessing and support of Salem Church in this endeavor.  

Please pray for continued clarity to hear and see and know how we are to move forward each step of the way.  There are so many decisions to be made and things to be done that as I said, it can be a bit paralyzing.  And the pace of the story is such that I do believe I will be writing alot more frequently :)

Love you all and thanks for being part of our story.  Check out the OM Italy base here;