AUGURI e BUON NATALE!! MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

I'm sure by now for those of you in the U.K there is no ignoring that Christmas has arrived, here in Italy Christmas seems a bit more laid back. The shops are not heaving with people, the Christmas decorations here have not yet turned into street competitions to see who can have the biggest and brightest display and there is not one Christmas Cracker in sight! There is however a big tradition of the nativity with people setting them up outside their houses or in the shops, and still the tradition of eating clementines and nuts. Its so much less money orientated and much more family/food orientated; this leads us to say happy christmas and dont spend too much, dont get to stressed about what other people are doing, but remember Jesus in the midst of this holiday, passing on His message to people and showing HIs love amongst yourselves.

Past Events
Debate "the Bible: Fact or Fiction"-Thanks you so much for praying for the debate. We had a great time and were really encouraged. As well as the GBU group from Perugia coming to help, 6 non Christians came along all with very different opinions on the Bible. We looked at why is the Bible important, what is its major use for humans, and, how can we read the Bible. As well as looking at the authenticity of the Bible. Giovanni did a really good job of leading the discussion and keeping people calm. It was amazing to see how after Giovanni had shared with us various documents about how the Bible is the most historically accurate book in the world ever, with a 99.5% certainty, people still refused it as truth. Faith really is something which God has to produce as logical arguments and trying to convince people will never work.

Conference-8 of us left Siena and headed down to Pescara for the GBU's publishing house conference. We had such a blessed and challenging time. Don Carson lead the studies on the revelation of God throughout the Bible, it was great to reconsider the greatness of God and His Glory and think how privilidged we are to know Him and to be able to one day live in His presence. There was also the opportunity to get to know all the GBU groups across Italy, it was great to see so many Italians who really have a heart to see their friends and classmates saved. Graziella and Massimo presented Siena, in particular, the results of the questionnaire we had done, they did a really good job. We had some good times with the students and really praise God for the enthusiasm they came away with to study the Bible more and to be more involved with GBU.

Calenders-Lately at the book table we have been giving out calenders for the new year with a verse for each day wrapped up with a couple of chocolates inside to our friends who pass by. we have had some really great responses from people. Many were shocked that we wanted to give them a present without wanting anything in return. Some people even went away and then came back to talk to us about why we would want to give these out. One old man who often walks his dog in the piazza where the book table is received a calender last tuesday, then thursday when we were there again came and asked me "so who are you, you're not Jehovah's Witnesses are you? ", from there came a great opportunity to talk about the Bible and its message. This man is a fervent catholic, he told me how when he walks the dog he often prays to Mary to ask for help and sometimes to The Father. After discussing what the Bible says about prayer i asked him to try and pray to God directly, he said he would and then at the end said "but I wont forget to pray to the mother."

Catholics and Mormons- Leading on from that recently we seem to have had lots of opportunities to speak to other religious groups about their beliefs. A growing dialogue with the lady who runs the photocopy shop who is a practising Catholic with a big heart for Mary, a continued friendship with a Catholic student from Perugia, a group of girls who often pass by the book table and many others. Also last week we had a long discussion with some Mormons we met at the market which was left with the intention to hopefully meet up and study THE BIBLE together.

These people are so blinded, they hold the truth in their hands (the Bible) but do not recognise the authority of God’s word and seek to add their own ideas or theories of how to gain salvation when they really don’t have to. We’ve recently been listening to in the car Radio Maria (the national Catholic radio station in Italy) and have just been saddened by the way the certainty of salvation in Christ which God offers his so far from the lips of the Catholics in Italy. Please pray for the many people who read the Bible without understanding. We are praying to have more dialogue with some of the local leaders of these “churches” to read the Bible together in order that God might speak and change their lives, please pray for wisdom and that God would guide us accordingly.

Christmas Party-Tuesday 19^th December we had GBU Siena’s Christmas Party. With games, a quiz, presents, and a message given by Giovanni about the real meaning of Christmas . God 's hand was really at work with 11 non-Christians present who heard the Gospel, not only that but after the message each one of them was talking with one of the Christian students. God is so good, we thank Him for His faithfulness in this country. Please pray for those who heard the Gospel.

For the next few weeks there will be no GBU events. We’ll take this time to give out calendars in the villages around where we live, going door to door. Also New Years eve weekend we’ll be at another camp (organised by the church). Its going to be quite a family atmosphere, and there should be quite a few non-Christians there so please pray for a good time together and that people might be saved.

We also look forward to having friends and family stay with us over the next few weeks.

That’s all for now. Please keep praying for us, well, not so much for us as for the people we meet, that God would help them understand all that He has done for them and that nothing would hinder them from accepting Jesus as Lord.

Hannah and Giovanni

Pictures...the famous Vigile, Giovanni giving out GBU flyers, Our little book table, and, a few of the students.

Hope you enjoy the pictures, having lost our cable we borrowed one off a guy from church we've now downloaded all the pictures off our camera, photos as far back as our honeymoon!

Things are going well and we have seen increased interest in GBU events. At the Bible study the other week Antonello, a guy we met at the book table, came along. He was pretty opiniated but it was great to see him open the Bible and learn more about God.

At the language exchange we have had some new people along which has been good. In a recent lesson based on the subjunctive we discussed some current affaairs, it was good to be able to share a Christian point of view with them. I've also started meeting up with one of the foreign girls to play duets together which has been a real blessing. She has an evangelical background so its a good starting point to try and encourage her spiritually.

A few weeks ago we also started a questionnare amongst students at the book table and in various other faculties. Through the questionnaire, which challenges where people get their satisfaction from, what makes them happy, and whether they believe in God, we have been able to give out a letter with our view on happiness and satisfaction as well as having many Gospel conversations with students. Over 300 students have done the questionnaire. We hope to publicise the results in the student caffeteria and have a discussion before Christmas. Praise God as well for the different students who have been helping us with the book table, they have been a real encouragement to us. Its great to see the students themselves willing to share the Gospel, be it with people on the street or their friends.

Tuesday we're holding a debate on "The Bible: fact or fiction?". We'll be looking at the trustworthines of the Bible, as many of the students we meet even if they're Catholic do not recognise the Bible as truth. I think this attitude is a conseguence of the general ignorance towards the Bible (its only been 100 years in Italy since the Catholic church permitted people to have their own Bible), and Postmodernism. Many students have been invited but its difficult to know how many will come, as people have so many obstacles between wanting to come and actually coming.

Also church wise we've been blessed with some really precious times together. We generally have wednesday and friday night free so we're trying to invite all of the young people and couples round. Its good to get to know people personally and be able to have some input in their lives, we thank God. Youth group, the teenagers, and, 9.37 continue to move forward.

PRAY

• Debate on Tuesday-that people would come, that Giovanni would be able to introduce and guide the debate well, that there would be the opportunity to share the Gospel and that this might be a challenge to students to actually read the Bible
• 9.37-Giovanni was actually in Valle d'Aosta (1 hour from turin) this weekend with one of the young peolple from 9.37 trying to work on the website. Pray for Davide who is the webmaster, that he would have time outside of his business dedicated to working on the 9.37 website. Also pray that more young Italians would be challenged by God's call to support and serve in His Mission, and that God would use this project to help support young people.
• GBU conference-Next weekend about 8 of us from Siena will be heading down south to the GBU publishing house's conference. Pray that we would have a good time of fellowship together and of spiritual growth. I'm looking forward to hearing preaching in English! Don Carson will be speaking, pray that God would use HIm to challenge, teach, and, shape all who go.
• Pray for all our students...Luca, Graziella, Sara, Veronica, Aida, Luca, Massimo, Lavinia, Saed, George, Caterina, and our new friends...Lucio, Arianna, Antonello, Melissa, Hannah, Victoria, Eugenio, Mara, Erika, Stella, Francesco, Elena, and, Alessandro

The reality of living in Siena…

Tuscany and Umbria are according to many Italians the regions where God is blasphemed against the most. Tuscany actually has the lowest percentage of evangelical churches. Gradually we are starting to see more and more the hardness of the Tuscan people in the reactions we see as people pass us by.

We’ve been in the university at least twice a week with the book table; we’ve given out hundreds of flyers explaining GBU and publicising the different events we do and have been helped by some of the students which has been good. We’ve had a number of good conversations with different students and also with the Vigili. The Vigili are part of the police but to me seem like glorified traffic wardens, they check permissions of the cars, market stools, direct traffic, and sometimes give tourist information to lost Americans. Every time we’re at the book table at least two different vigili pass by and ask for our permission slip. We’ve managed to have some good Gospel conversations with them. Please pray for a guy called Matteo who after having told us to move one day in quite a rude way actually ending up having a really long conversation with Rocco (elder of the church) and received a New Testament, he said he would like to come along to church one day.

Although we’ve had some good opportunities seeing the reactions of the students as they walk past has been quite difficult. Seeing people laugh as they read that we’re a Christian group, or just swear in your face as you give the flyer to them is not easy. Don’t worry we’re not ready to pack up, we’ve just been really saddened by people, their hostility towards God and the Bible, we’re offended because God himself is offended in the way people don’t even think about him, or are just so rude towards Him. We are really appealing to God’s mercy for these people and ask you do the same in prayer.

So that’s news on the book table. The Bible study has been a real encouragement to us. Last year there were just 4 people going along and so far we’ve had an average of 12 so already a lot more than we expected. We’re going through a different book of the Bible each week, Giovanni’s writing the studies and then different students lead. The studies have been excellent so far, really getting stuck into God’s word. We’ve also had a couple of non-Christians come along which has been great. Please pray for Lucio especially (he lives with a guy who comes to church) he's Catholic by name, doesn’t read the Bible, or go to church, but seems to show belief in God, he comes out with some really good answers to the questions but hasn't really grasped salvation yet.

We also started a language exchange to meet non-Christian students-after handing out over 300 flyers we had two new girls the first week and none yesterday! Many students said they would like to come but unfortunately the association with Christians and the Bible doesn’t help the publicity. Pray students would get over their ideas and presumptions about Christians so that we might be able to befriend students and also that the Christian students would bring their friends.

Also had a welcome night for students on Tuesday. We didn’t realise before but there was actually a massive concert for all students on in the main piazza in town!! Anyway 3 non Christians came along which was good in the sense that in Italy you kind of always anticipate zero. Also a few Christian students who haven't been involved in GBU before came along to support us. Lavinia, a student who became a Christian about a year ago shared her testimony for the first time which was great for us to hear and for her to do. We had a great time together and the non Christians that came really enjoyed themselves and said they would like to come to the Bible study next week, we keep praying.

OK what else…ah, youth group. We’ve enjoyed meeting up with the young people every Saturday night. They’re a great group and really want to know God better. The other week one of the young people lead a study on Moses; it was all about the fact that Moses had many excuses for God when he was asked to do something. We were then asked what excuses do we often give to God when He asks us to do something like evangelism. Then what happened? Well Giovanni then lead the next part of the evening, putting the study into practice. We split up into pairs and went out into town with some questionnaires and tracts. We were to go among the young people and do these questionnaires as a way to share the Gospel with people. Many of the youth group were very worried at first in fact I was with a guy who had never done it before and really didn’t want to. In the end he ended up sharing the Gospel with one of his friends who we did the questionnaire with, it was just great to see him get over all the anxieties which can come when we have to step out for God.

The group for teenagers has started with just 2 girls coming along. Giovanni and I have enjoyed getting to know the girls as they are the only teenagers in the church, they’re lovely girls. We are hoping in a couple of weeks time to go to some of the schools and give out flyers over the coming weeks.

I think that’s enough to recall so far, there’s always so much to say. Please continue to pray for these things and 9.37. As a church we’re also organising a youth camp for the weekend of the 29th. There should be about 40 Christians there as well as a good number non-Christians from Siena who will come along for various meals. Please pray for this.

Oh, also Monday we’re going to a small town nearby with some of the young people to give out new testaments to Muslims. It’s the end of Ramadam (their biggest celebration) so there should be quite a few people there (more than 200). We were asked by a guy who works amongst muslims to get a group together. Please pray for our protection and willingness on their part to receive the Gospels as many muslims respect the Bible and if they read it we believe their lives can be transformed.

Sorry there are no pictures this time, we’ll try for the next entry. By the way we’ve had our first day of rain here today, it looks like winters coming!!

Ciao Ciao

These past couple of weeks have been really good and slowly slowly things are getting back to a more normal pace of life (honeymoon is officially over!). Here’s our latest news…

PARTY IN SICILY
Last week Giovanni and I took a 12 hour train journey to Giovanni’s home in Sicily. We were there just three days to have our final wedding party at Giovanni’s home church. There were over 100 people there, about 40 from Giovanni’s church, 30 from different churches around Scily and about 30 non-christians made up of family and school friends. We had a great time, we watched some of the DVD from the wedding, shared our stories and future plans with people,sang a hymn together, took part in some silly games courtesy of Giovanni’s kind friends, as well hearing a message from the Bible.
The message was about having Christ as the focal point in a marriage and how true love can not be shown, experienced, or understood without knowing Christ. It was such a clear message; pray that people’s lives would be changed by the amazing love of Christ as our lives have been changed.
After the party we went for an ice-cream with some of the young people it was really nice to catch up with them again; some of them have even offered to support us. We were really touched by their commitment to us and also excited to see Italians willing to give money to God’s work. As we’ve said before many Italians don’t think about tithing let alone supporting full-time workers so its great to see God changing His people here in Italy.
Please pray also for Giovanni’s family. While we were there things were quite difficult and tense at home. Pray that the Lord would be in their minds, hearts, actions, and words as they live with each other

CHURCH
We are now starting to realise a bit more of what our ministry will look like here in Siena. Over this past week Giovanni preached in the mid-week meeting, we cleaned the church after there was a huge leak from the apartment above, met with some of the students to plan for GBU, started designing publicity for future GBU events, Kate (GBU worker in Perugia) came to stay one night, took part in the prayer meeting, youth group, and just generally spent time with different people from the church.
Sunday’s service was good too, we were introduced officially to the church and then all went to the elders house for lunch. Every Sunday after church everyone is welcome for lunch there, its really lovely to spend time together outside of church meetings. There were about 23 people there this Sunday and Giovanni and I had opportunities to speak to the different young people/students. The guys then went to play football while I went jogging with the elder’s wife. We had a good chat about the church and things to do this year. The elder and his wife have really opened up their family and life to the church we look forward to helping them.

UPCOMING EVENTS

* GBU BIBLE STUDY and BOOK TABLE start again the first week of October. Giovanni will be writing the Bible studies. We will be going through the whole Bible book by book. Pray for Giovanni as he prepares the studies.
* NEW EVENTS-This term will see the trial of a language exchange and an open discussion group to try and reach students with the Gospel. Pray that students would come and that Christian students from the church would get involved in helping.
* GBU WELCOME NIGHT 17th October-an event for new students. We are going to search for a location tomorrow so please pray for that.
* FLYERING-as well as the book table Giovanni and I are planning to be in the university everyday flyering for GBU as well as doing questionnaires with the students.
* LETTERS OF INVITATION-we also plan to make and distribute some hand-made invitations to the villages around were we live, and in town inviting people to the church. We hope to involve the young people in the making and distributing of these letters. Pray for the organisation of this and wilingness of people to help, we’ll let you know when we start distributing
* TEENAGERS-there’s already a good youth group in the church (age 17+) but there is no work amongst secondary school kids. One of the young people has a burden to start a work amongst young people and has asked Giovanni and I to help start something. We are going to use this next month to pray, plan, organise, and publicise so please pray for this new ministry in the church.
* 9.37-At present Giovanni is continuing to co-ordinate this national youth project keeping in touch with the different members and helpers and is trying to get invitations from churches around Italy to present the project. We are also organising 9.37’s first national Conference (May time) and a missions trip to Moldova please pray especially for these two events as we really need God’s help and wisdom in organising them.

That’s all for now!! There’s lots of things going on but we pray that in the midst of ideas, events and meetings, and our weaknesses that nothing would take away from how great God is, praise be to Him! Keep praying

Siamo in Italia!! We're in Italy!! Its been 2 weeks since we first step back onto Italian soil and we are starting to get settled. We have so much to praise God for already...

• MISSIONS CONFERENCE-As you now as soon as we got back to Italy we went off to a big Christian conference here in Italy. We collected our new car from Perugia (the car in itself was a blessing from God as a believer in Peruia sold it to us for a reduced price), picked up a student and a missionary on the way, and drove up to Rimini. There were over 300 people there (about 1/3 were foreign missionaries). It was great to see so many people at a conference which challenged all of us to live a missionary life, a life totally surrendered to God's service. Giovanni and I also had a little table with information about 9.37 (national youth project which Giovanni's co-ordinating). The conference was a great chance to speak to young people about stepping out for Christ and also to meet leaders of churches form all across Italy. Giovanni also had 5 minutes in one of the main sessions to share about this praject. Pray people might be moved not necessarily to join the project but to take on the biblical challenge of Matthew 9.37.

• HOUSE-After the huge blessing of having a 2000 Euro discount off the yearly total of the rent we didnt know what to expect of the house itself, well, its absolutely gorgeous. We were so shocked when we arrived nearly crying with joy. In the house itself is all we need and we haven't had to buy anything new, there's everything cutlery, pans, teapot, bed linen etc. We've already had our first guests (a family from my home church), we shared some very precious moments with them at our house, in Church, and Siena, and thank God for their support to us. So be assured there is place if anyone wants to come and see us and the church/student work here in Siena.

• CHURCH- We have already spent quite a bit of time with the elder and his family and some fo the young people in the church which has been just great. They have all been very welcoming. Letizia the elder's wife came ladened with a food bundle including tea bags for our first few days here in Siena and has already had us round for dinner. Sunday morning we were in church for the first time and felt really at home there. We were really encouraged to see how every member of the church was involved in the service especially the young people. Keep praying for our relationships with the people in the church especially the young people/students with whom we'll be working.

Thanks for all the messges and e-mails we've had already, sorry we haven't replied. We're currently sitting in an Internet point in town and dont have internet at home.

Please continue praying for these different things and for these first steps in Siena as we look at what we can do for the Gospel here. We're off to Sicily wednesday night for a few days for our final wedding party at Giovanni's home church so please pray that we would have a good time with family and friends especially as we'll be sharing with them about what we'll be doing here in Siena.

Thanks guys.

We'll leave you with some photos of us in our new home/church..

Hello everyone and welcome to our new blog! We hope you enjoy reading what we're upto, seeing piccies, and writing your own messages to us as well.

As most of you know, Giovanni and I got married on the 22nd July, in Nottingham, England. God gave us a great day together with friends and family it was fab! We started our wedding preparations with nothing but God seemed to have everything in hand. He provided us with a cake, food, cooks, wedding dress, a nice vintage car, photos and a video, the honeymoon, some beautiful flowers, houses for Italians to stay and much much more. We're just so thankful to God, and all the people God used to make the start of our marriage together so amazing.

We leave the U.K monday (28th August) to go back to Italy for a Mission's Confrence, and then look forward to moving all our stuff to our new home in Siena. Please pray for us in this time of transition, we can't wait to get stuck in at Siena; we will be involed in working for a church amongst students in the university as well as working with Christian youth around Italy.

Well, we just wanted to fill you in on how the wedding went, here's some photos for you to enjoy...

Giovanni and I looking very smug!

My brother Mark and I walking down the aisle

Everyone