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...

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.

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.

-Proverbs 4

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.

Italian Nobility to be Wed in Tuscan Castle

I'll be leaving tomorrow morning, early, to drive to this Tuscan castle to help perform the marriage ceremony! Please pray for safety, wisdom and boldness. Pray that my life and my words might challenge the people and that the thoughts I share would be God's thoughts and that they might penetrate and be used for the growth of the Kingdom.

Fun with Uncle Tim and Aunt Shauna

In no particular order and with no captions...here's a little summary of our time together so far. We are packing the van and getting ready to head out on a two-day whirlwind tour of Pisa and Florence - see you when we get back!

New Arrivals

Last Saturday, our 2007 Pathways team arrived in Ancona. The team is comprised of 4 people, Jen (trip leader), Rae, April and Brian. They will be helping us out until the first part of August. Please keep them in your prayers!

Then, last night at around 21:00, my brother, Tim, and his wife Shauna, arrived by train in Ancona! Two of their bags didn't show up and they had a train delay which meant they spent 9 hours getting from the airport in Rome to our house, but they are here and we are glad! To top it off, it was their Anniversary - we are touched that they would want to spend it with us.

He Who Doesn't Jump

Milan had just won the game against Liverpool in Athens, becoming the Champion's League's victor. Maurizio and I head down to the area between the Post Office and City Hall, where crowds gather to celebrate. We parked a few blocks away, and began to hear car horns and air horns and when we climbed the steps of the post office building, there was a fair-sized crowd gathered opposite us on the steps of City Hall. Almost without exception, every person was donning the Red and Black of the Milan team. We sat and enjoyed the show.

"...chi non salta, nero, azzurro, e'...e'...chi non salta, nero, azzurro, e'...e'..." Among others, this was the chant that we heard. Let's break this down as it captures the spirit in that piazza well:
CHI NON SALTA: he/she who doesn't jump
NERO: black
AZZURRO: blue
E': is

A couple of details to help you understand: if you were chanting this, YOU WERE JUMPING. While black and blue can indicate a bruised, and beat condition, which you might interpret in general terms as the loser of a fight, in this specific, Italian soccer context, 'nero e azzurro' are the jersey colors of the Inter team, the arch-enemy of the Milan team.

So, an accurate translation of this chant is: "If you aren't jumping up and down you belong to the losing enemy!" The chant was accompanied by screaming, whistling, clapping, fireworks, flags, banners, posters, flares, hugging, laughter and of course, jumping. Scooters and motorcycles cruised by, honking horns, drivers standing and engines gunning. Overloaded cars and trucks, too, drove by slowly, people hanging out of windows and yelling and cheering.

While entertaining to watch, I was reminded of the first time I attended an Italian soccer match and the question that we asked as a team afterwards - how do we capture this passion, which lies dormant in the heart of every Italian man, and give it to God?

Nowhere else will you see it here. Businessmen, grandfathers, dance instructors, bankers, college students, grade-school kids, housewives, you name it, they were there showing their excitement, their joy, their loyalty to their team but these same people will go days or weeks or months without letting this passion show. So, one might venture to say it is because of their usually passion-less lives that when the opportunity is afforded them, they express it with extra force. OK, maybe so, but my question is, in all of life's events and activities and moments, what is it about a victory on the soccer field that really brings it out?

I know. Jumping isn't the litmus test to inherit eternal life. It isn't as if God will say someday, "He who doesn't jump, hell-bound is, is." But, it is indicative of the spiritual condition of the people here - calm, calculating, compartmentalized - at all costs avoiding the brutta figura, but somehow, a team from a city 5 hours away wins a soccer match against a British team in a stadium in Greece and all inhibitions are cast aside. Suddenly, the guy who runs the bank is jumping up and down next to the guy growing vegetables for a living. Luxury sports cars are riding side by side with old, beat-up delivery vans, both holding screaming fans inside. Lines are crossed, walls are torn down, if only for a few hours and I simply ask, how?

The flip-side of this is that in this Gospel-saturated land, where the words of the Gospel, while still powerful, fall on desensitized ears, disciple-making is about living with the people and showing them Jesus. So before asking them why they aren't 'jumping for Jesus', I need to be sure I'm not becoming 'he who doesn't jump'...