My Heart Breaks

The beautiful view from our apartment! We saw fireworks out there on the coast from our apartment the other night, was quite fun! :)

Another view from our apartment, the baseball field! There are games, and it is fun to hear the sounds of cheering and baseball!

Laundry day again... not the best picture because there were ladies out on the balconies across from us, so I was trying to hide from them so they would not laugh at me for taking a picture of our clothes!

Yesterday was our last day of Italian language class. I had mixed feelings as we left. Our numbers are exchanged with the girls we have made contact with there and hopefully we will hang out some with them soon! Gabriella really wants to hang out with us and maybe go to the aquarium. I hope we can!

After class we went over to Jacob's Well because we were suppose to meet up with Andrew and Dustin for a session on Short-Cycle Church Planting (insert little circle with R in the middle). But instead we went to lunch with Dustin and our friend Melissa (the one from Ireland who leaves today). We were there for a long time and then all of us went back to Jacob's Well so Melissa could print her tickets.

After the friends left, we decided to stick around at Jacob's Well because we were going back out with Melissa and friends later, and there would not be enough time to go back to the apartment. So while Janae went out exploring the historical parts of Genova, like Christopher Columbus's house... I played some Wii bowling with Dustin and made a Mii... my arm is a little sore today! haha

I felt kinda sick yesterday, so please be praying that I don't catch anything. I had some coffee before we went back out with Melissa and friends, and it worked exactly the opposite of giving me energy, I felt like I had hit a brick wall and all I wanted to do was sleep! Then we went to this pizza place that was more like a pizza oven, I felt very sick there, but the company was incredible. I sat amongst the Germans! I spoke mostly Italian the whole meal, which must have impressed a lot of people because they kept looking at me really shocked that I wasn't speaking English to them... hm, all I know is the simple words like, yes, no, i don't understand, i don't know, and I like it! Apparently that is enough to know to have conversation!

After pizza we went and got gelato! I am almost to the point of ordering on my own, but I can't handle large portions because it is so rich in sweetness factors! So our Filipino friend, Andrew, has ordered for me before, but he gets me like 1 kilo of gelato... which is so hard for me to finish, so this time I asked Dustin to help me because I knew Andrew would go overboard! haha, so I got some strawberry, which was amazing... does not even compare to American strawberry ice cream, this was WAY better!

So after we ate gelato, we went for a walk to feel better after stuffing our bodies so full of food. We walked down to the port and then went to a plaza area by where we got gelato to have drinks with Melissa and some others who are leaving today to go back to Ireland. I had the most wonderful talk with Melissa's dad on our way back from the port. I shared my testimony and kind of about growing up on a farm and how God changed our lives when my dad became a pastor. He told me about his sons and Melissa. It will be so different not having those two around! Again, it was marvelous to talk to someone in the same language!

We then had a dishcrew time where we crowded around about 3 small tables at a bar (ok, this is not an American bar, this is an Italian bar, meaning that it is a little restaurant that has little to no seating inside, but there is seating under umbrellas on the street). We probably had about 25 some people crammed out there! My heart began to break as I watched this new group of friends we joined slam down the beer and light up the cigarettes. I was still recovering from earlier in the day, from whatever my body was dealing with so I did not talk much, but I observed a lot. What I learned last night is two things, drinking here in Italy is completely different than drinking in the states, but it can still be abused to some degree.

The other thing I learned is that people all over Europe need the hope of a Savior. This became the clearest while talking to my friend Evangelina from Germany at dinner. She told me about life in Germany and all I wanted to do was learn more. She told me that if a person in Germany was to say they are a Christian, everyone would label that person as a weirdo and pretty much be an outcast. Being a Christian is not cool. The cool thing there is to drink alcohol in excess, drugs, and sex.

My prayer is that those of us who do have our hope secure in Christ will be a light of love to our friends who need Jesus. I am also convinced that the same problems exist all over the world, my challenge to those of you who actually read these extremely long posts is for you to look around you and pick out people you daily interact with and begin to develop a deeper caring relationship for those people, even if you just plant seeds of truth and show them love, God will use that! Oh if we want the world to change and hearts to come to Jesus, we must be doing something! Everyone has a part to play, it is not only for 'missionaries' living outside of the U.S.!

Alas, as the hours continued ticking away last night, it came time to leave before our bus would stop running. Dustin walked Janae & I to the bus and we came back to the apartment we had left over 12 hours before! I crawled into bed with a broken/torn heart around 2 am, and now at 8:00 am, I am up again because of not being able to sleep. At least we do not have school today! :)

We meet in a few hours with the team and that should be fun. Please continue to pray for the Debelak's health. Thank you for actually reading these LONG posts.