Arezzo

Today, all of us from the Bible School, as well as several of the members of the church in Florence, drove about an hour and a half over to the town of Arezzo. There, we met with groups from the churches in Rome and Prato. There are still many cities in Italy with no non-Catholic churches, and one of the men from Rome, Paolo Mirabelli, has been organizing groups of Christians to go to some of these cities and pray there for the city, that people may be interested and that someday there will be a church in the city.

We met up outside the train station. We had a short devotional there, singing, praying, and reading scripture together. We sang "I Love You with the Love of the Lord" in Italian, English, Spanish, and Albanian, to represent all of us that were there today. The Spanish came in with a couple of families with the Prato congregation who are orignally from San Salvador. There are also many Albanian immigrants to Italy, including several of our members in Florence. We sang another song that was first written in an African language in the original African, Italian, Spanish, and English, even though none of the Ghanian brethren were on the trip.

We had a large supply of New Testaments at the building in Florence, so we took several boxes and we all wrote in the addresses and phone numbers of our churches in the front covers, and handed them out in the city. We made our way through town up to the old part of the city on top of the hill. In a piazza near the top, we sat on the steps by a fountain and had a devotional. We sang for a good while, and many people stopped to hear us. A Capella music is rare here. We gave a few people bibles. I met a couple from San Salvador (with the Prato congregation), Carlos and Elsa, as we shared a songbook.

After our devotional, we all wandered up by the cathedral at the top of the hill and into the park. There, we had one last prayer together before we all dispersed. From one side of the park, there was an amazing overlook over the city and the valley below. Anna, Christina, and I took pictures, of course. We then hurried back down the hill through town, still passing out Bibles and fliers as we went. One man we talked to was excited to see us out, and was sad that we did not have a church in Arezzo. Hopefully, more like him will take an interest and a new work can begin there. Overall, it was an encouraging day; it was beautiful weather to be out, and it was wonderful to meet some of the other Italian Christians.

I put my pictures from today on webshots, too. Here's the link for those of you who like to see the pictures: http://community.webshots.com/user/foreverfreebird2