Recent blunders in la citta bella... :)

Ciao ciao my dear friends! :)

Hello from Rome! I pray with all my heart that things are going well for you wherever you are. I pray the Lord is working in your life and you feel known and loved by Him---- cause you are! :)

Things are going well in Rome -- ministry is really taking off. I have met a few sweet Italian girls who have been really welcoming and kind to me. It's REALLY great to see that God loves these Italians so much and that He has been working in Rome for a long, long time.... That ministry here isn't something I'm inventing or creating or starting, but yet, something I'm stepping into and get to be part of. Praise the Lord for this privilege! :)

Here's a picture of the street I live on from our tiny balcony:


Also, when you move to a foreign country, you tend to need things like beds, desks, chairs, a dining room table, etc. so you can fill your house with "normal" house things so you can function and do life. :) Therefore, we have made a few trips to Ikea to purchase cheap, Swedish home accessories that require self-assembly. While at Ikea, I got to eat a delicious dinner of Swedish meatballs, boiled potatoes, and Swedish lingonberry sauce. AND-- to top it all off, we definitely heard an "Abba" song blasting on the in-store radio.... hahaha.... That was seriously the cherry on the sundae for my Swedish warehouse experience. :)

Here are some of the guys on our team, having quite the time in the moving van we rented:


And here we are, on Ikea trip #2... When all was fine, until we walked out of the store with all of our bags, into the rain. Not just little rain, or sprinkles, or a mist..... but buckets... cats and dogs... POURING... haha however you say it, we walked for a long, long time with all of our stuff, using public transportation, in the rain. BUT -- Thanks to God's grace, we were able to still have a good time and praise Him even in the storm. :)

This captures the point in the evening when the one brown paper bag had just about had it:


Andd.... to give you one more blunder... Our beautiful, palace of an apartment (Palazzo in Italian)... has had some... problems? to say the least... with its water. We got a note from a very frustrated downstairs neighbor, telling us that because of our water usage, that it was "literally raining" in her apartment. Ahh!! Since then, it's been about a week and a half/2 weeks... and we've had floors ripped up, showers ripped out, water shut off, washing machine/kitchen sink back up... etc. etc. etc.... Hahaha... Life in a new country, in a new apartment, always has its hard times, even in Rome! :)

Here's what one of our showers looks like:

And here is the other one (since this picture has been taken, we DO have a new shower installed! Praise God! But we just can't use it yet).

And... for my favorite picture..... You can see what they pulled out of our drain. No wonder it was raining in that poor woman's apartment--- GOLLY whatever that huge nasty hairball is... that was the problem (I think?). :) We have deliberated in our apartment to decide what it was, and here have been some of the guesses so far:
A) Someone's toupee
B) Someone's old pet squirrel/guinea pig
C) Someone's pet lion's hairball
D) ???

:) Maybe you can come up with a great answer. Whatever it is----- I'm just glad it's out of our shower pipes and out of our apartment.


Praise GOD in the midst for His provision----- I've been learning a lot lately that sometimes I'm only satisfied in the THINGS that God provides (showers, food, money, relationships, etc.)... and while I thank and praise God for those things that He provides... I totally miss the point and forget that the ULTIMATE provision is in HIM --- In the person of Jesus Christ. HE is our ultimate provision! Praise Him for that, and I pray I continue to grasp this more and more!

With lots of love,
Ella :)

Nuovo Inizio in Tuscany :)

Ciao ciao ciao!!
We are finally here! :)

Nuovo Inizio ("noo oh voh een-eets-ee-oh"), means "new start" or "new beginning," and that's exactly what it has felt like for the past week-ish, as I've moved to Italy.

I feel like I have so many stories to tell, so much to say, but it kind of overwhelms me to try to fit it all into words. SO - I added a ton of pictures, because the old expression says, "A picture is worth 1000 words" --- so I pray with all my heart that you'll be able to enjoy seeing the sights of the Tuscan countryside and experience a little of what I did this past 3 days.

We got into Rome on Monday, 9/15, and throughout that first week, we worked on a lot of administrative & "settling in" details.

On Sunday 9/21, my teammates & I boarded a train for the countryside in Tuscany. We got to the "Fattoria" (Italian for "farm"), and spent then till today (Wednesday), with new staff members for Agape Italia in all different cities around Italy. Some of the National Staff members were there, and it was so great to meet them and other missionaries in different cities to share how the Lord has brought us together, to move to Italy, to share the love and hope of Jesus with these beautiful people.

PLEASE feel free to email me if you want more stories or more details--- I'd love to answer any and all of the questions you have--- I just feel weird about writing all of you a novel for right now. I'll get better at this whole blogging thing as I continually work on processing this whole transition, and trying to be a much more concise writer. :)

I'll leave you with a quote, and then my pictures --- again, please email me if you'd like to chat further. With much love, Ella :)

A 08-09 Rome STINT team tradition: The Piramide. :)

My lovely teammates! Front row: Kanda, Jenny, Kerry, April.
Back row: Jimmy, Sam, Ella, Chris, Brian

Look at this cute little mister with whiskers! :) Some of us called him "Shadow," and others, "Spooky," but either way, this friendly barn cat was our friend all week long. :) Here is Jimmy showing much love to our precious little friend. :)

The cook for the entire conference (Barbara), agreed to stay a whole hour after her shift was supposed to be over, to help us learn how to make a few Tuscan dishes. She taught us how to make a traditional Tuscan lasagna-- not with the Bolognese meat sauce, but with the Tuscan meat sauce (Tuscans use Olive Oil, not butter... because Tuscany is in the South of Italy where the Olive trees are plentiful-- where they aren't in the North so the people of Bologna use butter in their meat sauce.) Anyway, this woman was a sweet friend and I couldn't understand much of what she said (as she spoke in all Italian), but she did show us how to make a great Lasagna, as well as a spaghetti dish and a steak dish. Delicious! :)

A beautiful pink rose in our backyard :)

Olive trees are fascinating. :)

A lovely fence post and some plants. I wish I knew what kind they were!

What we looked at in the backyard behind la Fattoria. I can't believe how lovely it was!

La piscina = the pool. :) WAY too cold to get in --- but pretty still, to look at. :)

The back of la Fattoria!

100%

Praise the LORD! I am at 100% of my total support needs!!!

THANK YOU to everyone who stepped out in faith to make this possible. Thank you for your prayers and for your financial support. I am so excited to have you on my support team this next year, as together, we reach Italian students with the love and hope of Jesus! :)

A few weeks ago, missionaries with Campus Crusade for Christ going to 27 countries all over the world were brought to Copper Mountain, Colorado for training and briefing. One night, my teammates and I got to go to Vail for a little bit to have fun and see the sights of the beautiful Rocky Mountains. Aren't they lovely? :) We even woke up one morning to see SNOW (haha yes even in August!) covering the surrounding mountains at Copper Mtn. Even the Colorado natives on the news channels were saying that the amount of snow that fell in the area was "a little abnormal"! :)

My teammates and I had a wonderful time at training. I just love 'em to pieces!

Praise the Lord for a wonderful time in Colorado!