Whew, just got back from jogging with Brian - we broke through another level today - jogged for 4 minutes/walked for 2, five times for a total of 30 minutes. It feels really good to push through the pain and discomfort, knowing that my body is burning fat, building muscle and that my lung capacity is improving.
I feel a similar way about our conversations today. We met again from 8 to 5 with just a few short breaks and though we were tired, sleepy, and we didn't always agree on everything, I feel we were able to really push through and get to a new level today as a team. We're trimming away unnecessary things, building new and healthy habits and improving our ability to work together toward a common goal. Thanks for praying!
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Monday, August 13, 2007
Ancona Team Retreat - Day 1
We just finished our first day of meetings and I couldn't be more pleased. We are meeting at the Rotert house today, tomorrow and Wednesday. Matt & Angie are watching the kids for us this week which is a real blessing. We dropped the kiddos off before 8:00 and started our conversations with a mug of Swedish coffee and some pastries. Today's agenda was mainly team-building and I feel we were able to lay a really good foundation for the next couple of days' worth of conversations. Tomorrow we will be revisiting some of our team's core values and documents as well as talking about the vision for what's ahead. Thanks for praying!
Sunday, August 12, 2007
Ancona Team Retreat - Takeoff
At 20:00 we kicked off our retreat at our house. Jacob volunteered to take care of the kids while the adults shared a worship & prayer time. Here was his 'order of service':
-opening prayer
-icebreaker: what are you thankful for?
-sing three songs (in italian)
-Bible story
-coloring page
-closing prayer
Meanwhile, the adults (Heather & I, Brian & Heidi and Marcus), gathered to pray, sing and worship together. Afterwards, the guys and older kids went up to Forte Altavilla to lay on the grass and watch the shooting stars.
I'm excited about the next three days - there's lots to discuss. Tomorrow, Monday, we will be focusing on team building, looking at lots of things, among them some of Lencioni's principles of teamwork. Thanks for praying!
-opening prayer
-icebreaker: what are you thankful for?
-sing three songs (in italian)
-Bible story
-coloring page
-closing prayer
Meanwhile, the adults (Heather & I, Brian & Heidi and Marcus), gathered to pray, sing and worship together. Afterwards, the guys and older kids went up to Forte Altavilla to lay on the grass and watch the shooting stars.
I'm excited about the next three days - there's lots to discuss. Tomorrow, Monday, we will be focusing on team building, looking at lots of things, among them some of Lencioni's principles of teamwork. Thanks for praying!
Monday, August 6, 2007
Trigger
I've often said that the hardest thing about living overseas is watching my kids adjust back-and-forth between American and Italian cultures. Whether at school, at home, traveling, at play, however it manifests itself, it is the hardest thing for me to accept about cross-cultural ministry. Today, I was able to pinpoint one of the triggers for this sentiment.
I've recently begun jogging again, thanks to the promptings of my teammate, Brian. We drive up to the Cittadella park and jog around for 30 minutes. It is a beautiful setting: a park on the top of a hill overlooking the city inside the walls of an ancient fort. There are lots of families with kids at the playground and people laying on the grass or walking around. As we were jogging this evening, I saw two grandparents sitting on a bench, baby grandchild in a stroller. They just sat there together, smiling, looking at their grandchild...no hurry, no rush, just enjoying the cool, summer evening with their grandchild.
Gulp.
While our parents do a good job of keeping in touch and showering us with love, both while we are away and 'at home', it is a gut check every time I see it. It makes the times when we do return to the U.S. that more special, that more important. It pushes us to pack in as much time and as many memories into those weeks and months as possible. It encourages us to be creative in how we communicate with grandmas and grandpas. In the end, it makes us grateful for having the kind of parents we want our kids to spend time with.
I've recently begun jogging again, thanks to the promptings of my teammate, Brian. We drive up to the Cittadella park and jog around for 30 minutes. It is a beautiful setting: a park on the top of a hill overlooking the city inside the walls of an ancient fort. There are lots of families with kids at the playground and people laying on the grass or walking around. As we were jogging this evening, I saw two grandparents sitting on a bench, baby grandchild in a stroller. They just sat there together, smiling, looking at their grandchild...no hurry, no rush, just enjoying the cool, summer evening with their grandchild.
Gulp.
While our parents do a good job of keeping in touch and showering us with love, both while we are away and 'at home', it is a gut check every time I see it. It makes the times when we do return to the U.S. that more special, that more important. It pushes us to pack in as much time and as many memories into those weeks and months as possible. It encourages us to be creative in how we communicate with grandmas and grandpas. In the end, it makes us grateful for having the kind of parents we want our kids to spend time with.
Monday, July 23, 2007
Lots of Lasts
As I've looked back on our team's history, I laugh at how many transitions we've had. The last couple of months have been building up to what I believe is one of the biggest our team has faced yet. On July 31st, Matt & Angie Crosser will transition out of their full-time status on the GoAncona team and become full-time team leaders of the GoVerona team.
Matt & Angie arrived in Italy in March of 2001 into a team context that was still storming and heading into norming. In the past 6 years since then they have become some of our closest friends. We've seen each other's ugly sides and been with each other through the best and the worst of times of this ministry in Ancona.
Since being accepted as the leaders of the new team, we have continued to work together toward a smooth transition and it really has been. We've talked lots about this month and how there would be lots of 'lasts' and yet for all the talk and preparation, I'm beginning to experience the reality of those words and thoughts. Last retreat, last outreach event, last English lesson, last staff meeting, last team meeting, last...you get the picture.
We will, of course, still see them for the next three months while they prepare to head back to the U.S. and we will still stay in contact when they are up North, but still, the reality of a post-Crosser team is starting to set in and I find myself full of emotion and anxiety.
Thanks Matt & Angie for your years of service together. Thanks for the laughs and meals and prayers and tears and dreams and new technologies and new TV shows and for everything else in between. As the lasts start to dwindle and fade and become replaced with lots of firsts up North, we wish for you a great new life and ministry in the fair city of Verona...
Matt & Angie arrived in Italy in March of 2001 into a team context that was still storming and heading into norming. In the past 6 years since then they have become some of our closest friends. We've seen each other's ugly sides and been with each other through the best and the worst of times of this ministry in Ancona.
Since being accepted as the leaders of the new team, we have continued to work together toward a smooth transition and it really has been. We've talked lots about this month and how there would be lots of 'lasts' and yet for all the talk and preparation, I'm beginning to experience the reality of those words and thoughts. Last retreat, last outreach event, last English lesson, last staff meeting, last team meeting, last...you get the picture.
We will, of course, still see them for the next three months while they prepare to head back to the U.S. and we will still stay in contact when they are up North, but still, the reality of a post-Crosser team is starting to set in and I find myself full of emotion and anxiety.
Thanks Matt & Angie for your years of service together. Thanks for the laughs and meals and prayers and tears and dreams and new technologies and new TV shows and for everything else in between. As the lasts start to dwindle and fade and become replaced with lots of firsts up North, we wish for you a great new life and ministry in the fair city of Verona...
Wednesday, July 4, 2007
Shadows
The view is always incredible. But on a summer night, sitting on the steps, the Marchegian shoreline stretching out before you, lighting up the sky, it really is something. The wind was strong, carrying to us whispers of conversations mixed with sounds from the shipyards far below, the whining of high-speed drills and saws - an eerie mix, like the growls and cries of beasts emerging from the inky sea that surrounds us.
We sat on the steps of the city's Cathedral, ancient steps built hundreds of years ago on top of the ruins of a pagan temple built in times even further removed. The statues of lions stood as guards behind us as the wind whipped our hair about and played tricks with our voices.
Beautiful setting for a difficult conversation. Romantic backdrop for hard questions and tough decisions. As we sat and talked with one of the members of the summer team, a guy approached the place where we sat and sat on a step below us. He fumbled around to light a cigarette and then to remove his guitar from a red, nylon case. He hummed and strummed, adding his song to the sounds around us, and in this stranger I saw a shadow of the young man sitting beside me.
Somehow the stranger helped, the shadow strengthened my resolve. Standing at a crossroads, difficult decision to make, I saw clearly what was at stake and which direction to take. At any point, I guess we all stand there, at that crossroads looking left and right, and through the fog, we can probably make out the shadow of what we could become. Our future is not written for us, but in an incredible demonstration of faith in us, we are allowed the privilege to carve out our life, to choose our path, all with the hope of returning to Him who formed us.
We sat on the steps of the city's Cathedral, ancient steps built hundreds of years ago on top of the ruins of a pagan temple built in times even further removed. The statues of lions stood as guards behind us as the wind whipped our hair about and played tricks with our voices.
Beautiful setting for a difficult conversation. Romantic backdrop for hard questions and tough decisions. As we sat and talked with one of the members of the summer team, a guy approached the place where we sat and sat on a step below us. He fumbled around to light a cigarette and then to remove his guitar from a red, nylon case. He hummed and strummed, adding his song to the sounds around us, and in this stranger I saw a shadow of the young man sitting beside me.
Somehow the stranger helped, the shadow strengthened my resolve. Standing at a crossroads, difficult decision to make, I saw clearly what was at stake and which direction to take. At any point, I guess we all stand there, at that crossroads looking left and right, and through the fog, we can probably make out the shadow of what we could become. Our future is not written for us, but in an incredible demonstration of faith in us, we are allowed the privilege to carve out our life, to choose our path, all with the hope of returning to Him who formed us.
I'm writing out clear directions to Wisdom Way,
I'm drawing a map to Righteous Road.
I don't want you ending up in blind alleys,
or wasting time making wrong turns.
Don't take Wicked Bypass;
don't so much as set foot on that road.
Stay clear of it; give it a wide berth.
Make a detour and be on your way.
I'm drawing a map to Righteous Road.
I don't want you ending up in blind alleys,
or wasting time making wrong turns.
Don't take Wicked Bypass;
don't so much as set foot on that road.
Stay clear of it; give it a wide berth.
Make a detour and be on your way.
-Proverbs 4
Friday, June 22, 2007
OK - so it wasn't nobility
Well, going into the whole wedding deal, I didn't know a lot of details and was relying on the Italian elder involved. I left Ancona around 7:45 and arrived precisely three hours later at the castle - absolutely everything you would imagine a small, Tuscan castle to be.
As I met people and talked to the wedding party, I figured out that this was a young, American couple who just really wanted to have their wedding in Italy. The groom's whole family was there as well as the bride's father. In attempting to plan this wedding from the U.S., they did a websearch for a non-denominational, non-Catholic, church and came across the Church of Christ site and contacted the elders in Rome. When they found out that they wanted it done in English, they then contacted me. About a dozen believers from the churches of Christ of Rome, Prato, Pistoia and Florence were there as witnesses. There were three of us performing the ceremony.
It really was a pretty hodge-podge service, thrown together at the last minute with the poor bride trying to answer questions through a translator. The elder really held an evangelistic focus throughout the service, having those in attendance read Scripture and sing hymns. The keyboardist that the castle owner had contracted to play was clearly more used to performing in night clubs as half-way through the service he played a jazzy version of the Beatles' 'Yesterday', at the end, running his fingers down the keys and saying 'yesterday' in a breathy voice.
Apart from the awkwardness and unpreparedness, it really was a beautiful, little wedding. There is a chapel in the castle, small, with tall, tall ceilings. It is poorly lit and adorned with all the normal Catholic paraphernalia. The bride looked wonderful in a beautiful dress - the groom, of course, dashing. They were very patient as the ceremony was performed in two languages and as they learned some Italian customs as they went. The parents of the bride and groom were in tears by the end and were so grateful for our willingness to come.
Afterwards, the family ate a lunch together and the rest of us gathered on a terrace in the woods outside the castle walls to eat an Italian picnic. There was poetry, jokes, hymns and prayer and then we left to go home, happy to have been able to serve a family and hoping that our words and actions ministered to them and helped the young couple get their new life together off to a good start.
As I met people and talked to the wedding party, I figured out that this was a young, American couple who just really wanted to have their wedding in Italy. The groom's whole family was there as well as the bride's father. In attempting to plan this wedding from the U.S., they did a websearch for a non-denominational, non-Catholic, church and came across the Church of Christ site and contacted the elders in Rome. When they found out that they wanted it done in English, they then contacted me. About a dozen believers from the churches of Christ of Rome, Prato, Pistoia and Florence were there as witnesses. There were three of us performing the ceremony.
It really was a pretty hodge-podge service, thrown together at the last minute with the poor bride trying to answer questions through a translator. The elder really held an evangelistic focus throughout the service, having those in attendance read Scripture and sing hymns. The keyboardist that the castle owner had contracted to play was clearly more used to performing in night clubs as half-way through the service he played a jazzy version of the Beatles' 'Yesterday', at the end, running his fingers down the keys and saying 'yesterday' in a breathy voice.
Apart from the awkwardness and unpreparedness, it really was a beautiful, little wedding. There is a chapel in the castle, small, with tall, tall ceilings. It is poorly lit and adorned with all the normal Catholic paraphernalia. The bride looked wonderful in a beautiful dress - the groom, of course, dashing. They were very patient as the ceremony was performed in two languages and as they learned some Italian customs as they went. The parents of the bride and groom were in tears by the end and were so grateful for our willingness to come.
Afterwards, the family ate a lunch together and the rest of us gathered on a terrace in the woods outside the castle walls to eat an Italian picnic. There was poetry, jokes, hymns and prayer and then we left to go home, happy to have been able to serve a family and hoping that our words and actions ministered to them and helped the young couple get their new life together off to a good start.
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