Tag Archives: Milan

Bitterness

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Bitterness is a strongman of the enemy.  Just as there are ranks of angels (like in the armed forces), there are also ranks of fallen angels and demons.  Bitterness is a high-ranking evil spirit, but it comes in so subtly and so gradually that we’re unaware that we have even strayed into the enemy’s territory.  Here’s how it all works:

Unforgiveness – It all starts with unforgiveness.  Someone hurts you.  They say or do something that hurts you.  You must understand that people were not made to hurt, betray, or be mean to each other.  It is not in our original design.  But under the influence of the demonic voices all around us, we can inadvertently say or do something that hurts another person.

You are probably not even aware of it, but there are voices speaking to us all the time.  There is the voice of God, and there is the voice of the enemy—and we don’t even realize that we are listening to the enemy and being influenced by him.  So when someone says or does something to hurt you, they are acting on what they are hearing from the enemy.

Then you respond, acting on what you are hearing from the enemy.  The enemy says, “How could she say that about me?” and you repeat it as if it was a thought born from your own mind: “How could she say that about me?”

Every time you think you might be over the hurt, the enemy reminds you of it so that you have a very hard time getting over that hurt.  Unforgiveness is a small spirit, but now that it has been welcomed into your heart, it becomes very hard to forgive.

Resentment – Then resentment joins unforgiveness.  Under resentment’s tutelage you vow never to speak to that person again, to never allow that person to hurt you again.

Retaliation – The spirit of retaliation goads you into getting some satisfaction for the hurt you’ve suffered.  Retaliation promises to feel so good, but in fact can get you into a whole lot of trouble.  Retaliation actively seeks to prevent blessing from coming into the offender’s life.  Now, ask yourself, who exists to prevent blessings from coming into people’s lives?

Anger, Wrath, & Murder – When unforgiveness is finally joined by its bigger, stronger brothers, it is very difficult to go back and forgive.  Of course, not all unforgiveness ends in physical murder, but it can often end in character assassination.  We’ve all heard of an unforgiving father say to his son: “You’re dead to me.”  In his mind, the father has murdered the son, and the relationship is as good as dead from then.

People think that negative emotions, such as anger, depression, and unforgiveness, are merely emotions.  In fact, they are not emotions at all.  They are demons that can be cast out or sent away.  I have suffered lengthy very profound bouts of depression.  I was unaware that depression was a spirit at the time, but during the worst depressions I suffered suicidal thoughts and even suicidal hallucinations that I knew were not originating from my own mind.  I wasn’t possessed, but rather, I was suffering terrible demonic oppression.

Bitterness wants to produce fruit in your life: hatred, cruelty, revenge, self-pity, hypocrisy, jealousy, competition, frustration, and confusion.  Yes, even a little thing like competition, which American culture says is healthy, is in fact a foothold for the enemy.  Think about how many times you’ve seen someone get frustrated that the game didn’t go their way, and they turn the board over, scatter the cards everywhere, or they let the game’s physical side become too violent.

Self-pity is not an emotion, it’s a spirit.  It brings thoughts of entitlement—entitlement that has been violated.  Once we become aware of the enemy’s tactics, we can guard ourselves from jumping to the enemy’s camp.  I don’t want to give the enemy even the smallest victory over myself.

Bitterness can be present in your life without you even being aware of it.  And once this process is begun, it is very difficult to reverse it.  Sometimes you will have lived under the influence of bitterness for such a long time that you might not even believe that you are bitter.

Let me show you how bitterness can enter in: the offender, under the influence of the enemy says or does something that is truly wrong, evil, and bad.  The spirit of bitterness has been standing by, and takes that moment of offence to push its way into your heart.  Were you wronged?  Absolutely.  That is how the enemy works: by pushing his way in.  There’s no waiting for an invitation.  When you’re at your most vulnerable, he pushes his way in and begins speaking poisonous thoughts to you, playing on outrage, embarrassment, humiliation, hurt pride, physical suffering, violated boundaries, etc.  You believe these thoughts to be your own, when they are not.  And thus, piece by piece bitterness builds until it has become anger.  Anger can be so strong and so swift that it is literally just a heartbeat away from murder.

Forgiveness is a decision, not an emotion.  You can decide to forgive.  And that decision takes follow-through.  There were some people in my life that I have had to forgive all over again every time they came to my mind.  And I always did so, hoping for the day when that decision to forgive would finally become an emotional fact.  But true forgiveness did not come until I went back (in my mind and memory) to the time of the offense and forgave it there.  In that final act of forgiveness, I had to consciously give up all my rights to be angry or outraged at the offense.  The next time that person came to mind, the thought that came almost reflexively into my mind was: how could she possibly have known how precious I am to God?  My only feeling toward her, even remembering what she had done to me was pity that she hadn’t known how precious I am to God.

Forgiving was made easier once I understood the enemy hiding behind the person used to hurt me.  In truth, I have also been used by the enemy to hurt other people.  When you truly can grasp the realities hidden from our eyes, it becomes so much easier to give people the mercy and grace that we hope for from them, too.

Giving in to a spirit of bitterness or forgiving as generously as God has forgiven us is a life-changing decision.  Bitterness can prevent blessings in your life.  And through bitterness, the enemy might use you to prevent blessings in the lives of others.  Worse than all that, it can bring curses, especially in the form of physical illness.  Anger, hatred, and bitterness go coursing through your veins like a caustic, like poison.  If you’re aware, you might even feel it burning in your veins.

Giving up your right to be angry at an offense can feel like dying to yourself—in fact, that’s exactly what it is.  But you won’t truly begin to live until you do die to yourself.  It’s part of God’s upside-down logic that turns the world’s logic on its head.  Why is it so hard?  Because you are making a frontal attack on your own pride.

Make a decision to begin seeing people the way God sees them—ask God to help you to see people the way He sees them.  You will find that you have more love and mercy for them, and forgiveness will flow easier and easier.  More than that, blessings will flow in your own life as never before.

So let go of your anger and bitterness!  God is good!

BBQ Becomes Ministry

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dance BBQ

There was music and dancing at the BBQ.

I was invited to a grigliata in Biella.  A grigliata is a barbecue.  This was for Pasquetta, which is Easter Monday.  I had just met Caroline, a missionary who I immediately thought could turn out to be a valuable collaborator.  Caroline is a sweet little Italian-American with a big smile and a bigger heart.

The day after Caroline arrived, I had a young missionary coming to visit from Prague.  It was exhilarating to watch Caroline in action with Debbie: now cheering her, now helping her, now questioning her false assumptions—and all done in love.  Debbie was here overnight, and after we saw her off, we made our plans to go to Biella.

When we got there, the BBQ was in full swing.  There was lots of food, music, dancing, and games, in other words: fun.  Even though I had already visited Biella a few weeks ago, the greeting I got was as warm as if I had been gone a year.

There was a young woman at the BBQ who I knew slightly: Bo.  She greeted me, then sat with Caroline, sharing her story for the next half hour or so.  I already knew a little of Bo’s story, but learned more from hearing her pour out her heart to Caroline:

I’m a gypsy from Albania.  Well, OK, my mother was a gypsy and my father was a Serb.  My father left before I was born and my mother died when I was five years old.  A nice neighbor took me in and raised me as her own.  At fifteen I was sold in a marriage contract to another gypsy.  He raped me, and I became pregnant with my daughter.  He was very cruel and controlling.  I can’t tell you all the ways that he abused me sexually.  So I ran away from him and came to Italy.

Bo told Caroline all this with no trace of emotion in her voice or on her face.  This much of the story, I had already heard.  Then Caroline asked for more details about her daughter and step-mother.  It turns out that they were in hiding in a town just across the border in France.  And the ex-husband?  He was looking for her in a larger town in France, where she had put her daughter in school back at the beginning of the school year.  Somehow, he had tracked her down there.  “He is waiting there for my daughter to go back to school after the holiday, but he doesn’t have the right to take her from the school.”

Many years ago, when I worked at a daycare center, I had seen a father under a restraining order snatch his child right from the yard, just by calling him to come to the fence and talk.  So I knew that the school’s rules didn’t mean that the daughter was safely out of reach.

But how had he tracked them down here—and why had he gone to the expense and trouble of following them?  The answer to the second question is a repeat of history: Bo had been sold in marriage, and the daughter, though still too young to marry, could still be promised in a marriage contract to be sold when she turns fifteen.  A more sinister possibility is that the daughter might be sold even now to traffickers for a life of prostitution.  Either way, losing the girl was a financial loss for the father.  Bo said that a virgin girl could be sold for as high as €10,000 for one night.  But whether traffickers or marriage, Bo wanted a better life for her daughter.

It turns out that the father had tracked Bo down simply by watching her posts on Facebook.  Her posts and pictures on social media, intended to keep family and friends informed of her whereabouts, had also kept her husband informed.  Now he was threatening to take the girl, with the help of the French police.  If she doesn’t show up at school, then she will be truant.  Being a gypsy, the girl already has a lot going against her.  Truancy could jeopardize her asylum in France and cause the girl to fall even farther behind in school.

Caroline sensed that she was holding something back because she could just as easily bring the girl into Italy, apply for asylum here, and put her into an Italian school.  Bo said that God had told her to go back to Albania and get the gypsy divorce there.  But when questioned, she broke down and admitted that it was her step-mother that was pressuring her to go back to Albania.  The step-mother was convinced that this would solve the problem and get the husband off her back.  And Bo admitted that she was considering it.  But if she did that, she would have to take her daughter back to Albania with her, and there was a possibility that the gypsy council could decide that the daughter belongs to her father.

“Why would you even consider going back?” I wanted to scream the question.  Bo shrugged, having no answer.

I realized later that probably, having been the one who had sold Bo to this man in a marriage contract, the step-mother was pushing the gypsy divorce to save face in the gypsy community back home.

Caroline, seeing that there was a lot of cultural issues and some underlying issues that Bo was still hiding, made the wise suggestion that we all just stop and pray.  So we prayed and put the whole thing into God’s hands.  As we prayed for her, Bo’s shoulders shook as weeping erupted from within her.  Then we left her.

I don’t know what Bo will do or what will happen with her.  But we have done all that we can to help her make a good decision that will keep her daughter and herself protected.  I know that if Bo will depend on God for help in making those tough decisions, He will protect her and her daughter.  However, these are Bo’s decisions to make.  In the end, we each have to decide whether to trust God or not.

But I know this much: although God will not save you from the consequences of your bad decisions, He can be trusted to guide you and protect you when you surrender your life completely to Him.  God may take you by some ways you do not want to go, but His way is always better.  God is faithful.  God is trustworthy.  And as I always say: God is good!

Revival is Coming!

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bus

Today has been an amazing, great, fabulous, fun, wonderful day in the life of this missionary.  It started about 6:30 this morning, when Giorgio, a young man from our church, arrived after an all-night prayer vigil.  He needed a place to sleep, and offering hospitality is what I do—part of what I do.

So basically, I was waking up just as he was coming in to sleep.  Good timing on his part, since the first thing I do is to enjoy some quiet time with the Lord and read the Bible over a cup of coffee.  Being Saturday, I wanted to honor the Lord’s Sabbath by not doing any work.  But I work for the Lord, so it’s kind of hard to know what’s really work and what’s OK to do on the Sabbath.  I asked the Lord to help me to honor Him today, and He gave me a one word answer: delve.  I understood this as delving deeper into His Word.

I did spend more time than usual reading the Bible, then over breakfast, I watched one of Jim Staley’s Hebrew Alphabet teachings—delving some more.  Absolutely fascinating!  I encourage you to check it out.  The language of God is like none other on earth.  It is a supernatural language, it is a multi-dimensional language, this is the language God used to create the universe by speaking it into being.

I was watching the video about the letter Hey, and about three quarters of the way through the video, my calendar popped up with an appointment I had thought was next Saturday.  I had responded that I would go, and it was something I really wanted to go to.  So I got myself into gear, dressed, left notes for Giorgio, and went across town to the meeting.

This meeting was concerning Expo on 4 Wheels, a bus that’s basically a mobile church with a coffee bar and a library.  The bus is a joint effort between local churches and missionary organizations to focus on sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ at the Expo (1 May through 31 October) here in Milan.

It turns out that there are three major ways that you can help Expo on 4 Wheels:

  • Pray – The Expo will draw an estimated 21 million visitors from more than 130 different countries, many of whom have likely never heard the Gospel message. This is a unique opportunity to share the love of Jesus with millions of people.  But for this, they need prayer support.
  • Participate – The bus won’t be very effective without people getting out there and reaching people with the love of Jesus. Groups of any size are invited to participate.  To sign up, contact Missione REM.
  • Donate – As you can imagine, an operation like this costs a lot of money. If you want to invest in the Kingdom of God, you can do so on their website using PayPal or making a wire transfer: Donation.

So there was a lot of good information about reaching the world while there are lots of visitors here in Milan.  But when we started to pray, was when God really showed up and blew my mind.  The Holy Spirit reminded me of a vision that I had seen ten or more years ago:

I saw a lighthouse grow up out of Milan, and it gave light to the city.  It kept growing and gave light all over Italy.  It kept growing and gave light all over Europe.  And finally it grew so big that it gave light all over the world.

I understood the vision to be about revival.  But revival didn’t come, and didn’t come.  Friends said that revival would start in Sicily, in Naples, and other parts of Europe, wherever they were from.  One even told me that the big End Times Revival had already started in Sicily.  Finally I simply forgot about the vision.  Until today.

So when the prayer ended, I said that I had a vision to share, and told them about this vision, and about how I had actually seen it years ago.  A man immediately came forward and shared that he also had the same vision—and had it years ago, just like I had.  My excitement doubled with this instant confirmation.

Then we went out to look at the bus.  It is still being worked on, but it’s going to be beautiful.  There’s a very cozy and welcoming sitting area, a library area, and a coffee/snack kitchen.  I know the Lord is really going to use this bus, and all the people, churches, and organizations connected with it.  Revival is coming!

Then I came home and found a message from Suki, introducing me to an American woman (Italian-American in heritage) who is moving to Italy.  She doesn’t know exactly where or what she’ll be doing, but she knows that God has called her here.  Suki is God’s beautiful networking tool, and He has used her several times to connect people.  But it was the Holy Spirit inside of me, even more than Suki, that convinced me that I need to meet this woman.  So I’ve invited her to come for a visit.  But that’s a post for another time.

Revival is coming!  This is it: The Big End Times Revival!  If you want to be a part of it, you can follow the links above, get more information, register, get a team together and come to Milan.  You can also register on GoMissions.  I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to miss out on what God is doing.  God is good!

Exchanging Surprises

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After returning from Biella, I chatted on Facebook with my dear friend, Angelica. Suki and I visited Angelica at her home last year after Tony Anthony’s visit to nearby Modena (which I wrote about in last year’s post Encouragement from Above). From that visit was born a very deep and dear friendship. Angelica is one of those people who God has put into my life to encourage me, so visiting her was one of my priorities upon returning to Italy.
Angelica is Albanian by birth, so I wanted to tell her the exciting news about going to Tirana to pray for Albania with Operation Capitals of Europe, about Bogdan (her countryman) going with us, and especially about taking Albanian worship to the Feast of Tabernacles in Poland in October (all of which I wrote about in my last post Surprises).
Here’s our Facebook chat, after we set up a day & time for me to visit:
Angelica: can you stay here till sunday afternoon ?
only, if you can
Me: No, I can only stay for the day.
Angelica: ah ok
Me: But we can plan for a longer visit sometime
Angelica: would be great !
Me: I have something exciting to tell you!
Angelica: wow ! I can’t wait.
Me: But I want to tell you in person.
Angelica: good
Me: See you tomorrow!
Angelica: I have something good for you too…
you will like it a lot
Me: We will both have to wait
Angelica: hehehe yeah
I was so excited about telling Angelica my news that her surprise for me was almost completely eclipsed. I must admit, this is also what I do with any surprise. I am like a little kid when it comes to surprises and gifts, I get very excited and can’t think about anything else (if you notice, I’m also that way about the coming Rapture!). So what I do to enable myself to function is that I deliberately make myself forget that there is a surprise coming. This time it was so effective that I literally had forgotten all about it until after the lovely meal Angelica had prepared for me. First, I told her my surprise, about going to Albania and taking Albanian worship to the Feast of Tabernacles in October. Then she told me her surprise for me: she has talked to her pastor about having me speak at the Women’s Retreat in June. The pastor countered with an invitation that I speak briefly this coming Wednesday at the Women’s Tea.
This is a fabulous opportunity to encourage a local body of believers. I have never been invited to speak to any church or church group in Italy (or anywhere in Europe) before, not even my own home church in Milan. Of course, I said that I would do it.
After I returned home, Angelica wrote to me that her pastor said she had already gotten a speaker for the Women’s Retreat. The disappointment that she felt was obvious. However, a lot can happen between now and June. I have already prayed that if God wants me to speak at the retreat that He will open the door for me. I feel peace about it. After all, it’s out of my hands now. If God wants me to speak there, then nobody can stop me. Still, I am invited to speak on Wednesday evening at the Women’s Tea. So I have been praying for the guidance of the Holy Spirit about what to speak about. I have an idea what He wants me to talk about, but I always leave room for the Holy Spirit to flow and say whatever He will through me.
It’s possible that the pastor doesn’t really have someone else, and is just putting Angelica off to take the pressure off until she’s heard me speak. But whatever the case may be, I feel at peace about it because I have put the whole matter into God’s hands. I just want to be His instrument to bring healing, hope, and encouragement to these women, whether it’s only on Wednesday or also in June. God is good!

Surprises

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I have just gotten back home to Italy almost two weeks ago. After a four month absence, I had several things that had to be taken care of immediately. Once those things were taken care of, I could do my favorite thing: visiting the people who are important to me. These are dear friends who pray for me daily. I do the same when I’m in the US, but sometimes I have to be content with a phone call, mailing a card, or sending e-mail because of the vast distances involved—I have praying friends in the US on both coasts and from north to south, so going to visit is not always an option.
My first visit was to my favorite church in the whole world: the church of Biella. Biella is a small city north of Turin, and this church has the friendliest people of any church anywhere. They actually argue over whose turn it is to host me. The pastor is a good friend of many years, and his preaching is so full of the Holy Spirit anointing that nobody could ever complain that going to church is boring.
Last year the church bought a bar. What they call a bar in Italy is as much a coffee shop and sandwich joint as it is a bar, and more than that, it functions as a meeting place where often you can also enjoy live music. So when friends decide to get together for a coffee, they will go to their local bar. The church’s bar is far more than a typical Italian bar because in addition to indoor and outdoor coffee shop space, it has two big rooms with tables for eating (with a foosball table for the kids in the room farthest back), a good-sized courtyard and beyond that, a large gravel bocce court.
When I told Felicity about going to Biella (she and the core of Biella’s worship group came with me in September to bring Italian worship to the Feast of Tabernacles in Kalisz, Poland), she wanted to come, too. I admit, I told Felicity, hoping that she would come with me. I travel alone most of the time, and I’m fine traveling alone. But having the company of a dear friend is so much better. So Felicity brought her guitar, and it turns out that God had an assignment for us at the church’s bar.
But first there was a divine appointment on the train. The train to Biella can go either to Novara and change or to Santhia and change. Either way takes about the same amount of time. I usually go by way of Santhia because it costs something like twenty cents less, and I used to be a coupon-clipping housewife, so twenty cents saved is something I appreciate. When I bought the train tickets, I had on my walking glasses and not my reading glasses, so I didn’t notice that the tickets said via Novara. The conductor pointed it out as he checked our tickets just past Novara, so we were already committed to going by way of Santhia. If I had noticed, I would have made sure that we changed trains in Novara, but I hadn’t. But that turned out to be not so much because of the wrong glasses as it was a divine appointment on the train from Santhia to Biella. I had seen a woman get on the train and ask in Italian if it was the train to Biella. She sat by herself near where Felicity and I sat. We were speaking English, and as an American, her ears perked up. When she heard Felicity say something about music, she couldn’t keep to herself anymore. It turns out that she is a singer/songwriter and she’s touring, playing in bars all around Italy. We spoke to her about our faith and she was so touched that she gave Felicity a couple of CD’s.
We arrived in Biella around lunch time, but everyone who usually picks me up from the train station was busy, so Pastor Fabio sent Silvestro to pick us up. I had never met Silvestro before, and he had only enough time to take us from the train station to the church’s bar, then he had to go because his son was getting married in a couple of days. It wasn’t until I talked to Giuseppe (the bass player and leader of the worship team) that I put it all together: Giuseppe told me that his daughter is getting married in a couple of days . . . to Marco, who I then realized must be Silvestro’s son.
Anyway, Silvestro dropped us off at the bar and went to finish the wedding preparations. Pastor Fabio had told me that he wouldn’t be able to come pick us up from the bar until around 4 that afternoon. So Felicity and I enjoyed a nice piadina (sandwich wrap) in the sunny courtyard. Just as we were finishing lunch a man came into the bar who was very clearly drunk. He ordered a beer and sat near us, scrutinizing us because he had never seen us before. When he heard us speaking English with each other, he began interrupting. I don’t normally mind someone interrupting a conversation like that—in fact, it’s often a divine appointment, as with the woman on the train. But his interruptions became increasingly disruptive and we even noticed a hostile undertone to them.
Felicity looked at me and said, “I think we need to do some spiritual battle.” So she pulled out her guitar and started to sing praise songs. I immediately felt like I should be dancing, but aware of how weird my holy dancing looks, I hesitated. But then I got up and danced, and I felt the flow of the Holy Spirit as I danced and Felicity played. I sang along with her, sometimes in counterpoint, sometimes in harmony. The drunk tried several times to stop our worship, but seeing that we were not going to stop, he gave up. He went inside and came back out with another beverage: water! He made a few feeble efforts at stopping the worship, but his heart wasn’t in it.
Please understand something: the decision to do spiritual battle was not against the man.

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Ephesians 6:12

We recognized the spiritual forces at work in his drunken combativeness. As we worshiped, he settled down—an outward sign of the enemy retreat. At that, Felicity began singing in Italian so that the man could understand that we were singing about Jesus. Because silencing the enemy was not the entire point, sharing the love of Jesus was! But we couldn’t do that until we had the enemy silenced.
Giuseppe told me that he is taking the whole Biella worship team to Poland in October for this year’s Feast of Tabernacles. He didn’t invite me, and I didn’t expect him to. I felt like I was the midwife who helped this baby be born, but now that it was walking, the baby didn’t need me anymore.
Upon our return to Milan, Felicity told me that I should tell Bogdan about my upcoming trip to Albania. Bogdan is Albanian and he is very committed to praying for his country. She also said that he would probably be interested in going to the Feast of Tabernacles as Albanian worship. So she set up a meeting with Bogdan for the next day, and I told him first about going to Tirana to pray for the capital, and then I told him about Tabernacles, and how there was no Albanian worship there. He was very excited about both prospects, checked his calendar, and found that both time periods were open. So it looks like I will be midwife now to Albanian worship at the Feast of Tabernacles. God is good!

Nomadic Kindred Hearts

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Yesterday at the conference I met Rosy.  Right from the start she seemed to be the most interesting person in the room.  I met her just before the Ladies Coffee, which was a social time built into the conference.  I didn’t register for the Ladies Coffee right away just because the idea of a Ladies Coffee didn’t really appeal to me.  I don’t really fit in with most of the women there.  But the Holy Spirit had urged me to register for it at the last minute, so I did.  I asked Rosy if she was going to the Ladies Coffee, and she said that she was.  So we went off together, leaving her boyfriend, Bobby, to attend the next session without us.

Rosy is doing something that I had always dreamed of doing, but never had the freedom or the resources to do: she lives in her fully-equipped camper van and has been traveling around the country since she was laid off from her job.  That’s a courageous and daring thing to do, and I admire her a lot for doing it.  When I bought my camper van in 2011 (see my first book, Look, Listen, Love) I had thought of doing that, but in Europe.  My camper was stolen, which put an end to that dream for me.  Nevertheless, I still think about it sometimes when I’m traveling around in Europe.

Rosy also blogs.  So there we have a lot in common: writers, nomadic at heart, plus we’re both attending the Pre-Tribulation Rapture Conference, so we both keep our ears open for the trumpet’s sound.  I love all the new friends God has for me!  God is good!

The Pre-Tribulation Rapture

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Greetings from Dallas!

I am here attending the Pre-Tribulation Rapture Conference.  The conference has only just started, but already God has been very merciful, helping me through what could have been a couple of bad logistical problems.

The first was the drive to the airport.  I left Asheville yesterday morning to drive my son home to Chapel Hill, and then turn back and on to the airport in Charlotte.  I had budgeted about seven hours, even though Google Maps had predicted that the total trip would take only a bit over five.  I had added an extra hour to my driving plan so that we could have lunch together at his local sushi palace.  Leaving him on his doorstep with a full stomach and sushi leftovers, I headed on toward Charlotte.  Google Maps either didn’t know about the construction on Highway 85 or that it was the tail end of Thanksgiving weekend and certainly both played a part in the drive time taking every bit of seven hours.  I didn’t really hit delays until about 35 miles outside of Charlotte, but I was really glad that I had decided to head straight to the airport and not take my time.  In the long term parking lot, I hailed a passing bus that had just gone by the shelter before I could get there.  The driver graciously stopped for me even though she was not at an official stop when she did it.  On entering the airport, I was especially glad that I had my boarding pass with me and no luggage to check.  The flight was delayed by nearly half an hour, but that’s not a problem when you have no connection to make.  It gave me an opportunity to breathe and even get a light dinner before boarding.

In order to avoid the expense of renting a car that I would really only need twice a day, I had selected an airport hotel near the conference site, which was another airport hotel.  My plan was to take the shuttle to the airport and then catch the other hotel’s shuttle.  My hotel’s shuttle departs for the airport every hour on the hour starting at six AM.  As I thought about this plan, the enormous hassle and potential of hours lost waiting for one shuttle or the other began to worry me.   Rather than worry, I simply prayed instead.  After a good night’s sleep, I had thought to catch the six AM shuttle to the airport and arrive finally at the other hotel in time for the conference start at eight.  Good plan, but I missed the six AM shuttle.  I decided that it would be OK if I were a bit late for the conference.  And who knows?  I might arrive on time for the conference anyway.  So I got a quick breakfast and signed up for the seven AM shuttle.  The shuttle driver was there, and he asked me what terminal I was going to.  I told him about my crazy shuttle plan.  He wanted to know where the other hotel was, and I told him.  He said that since he had only two stops to make this morning, he would take me to the other hotel.  In fact, he said that he’ll be working all week, and that he would take me every day, assuming that he doesn’t have a lot of stops to make.  That is an answer to prayer, and one I would never have thought to hope for!

So once again, I’m feeling like God’s favorite kid.  God is good!

Cousinly Love

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One of my friends on Facebook is my cousin, Carmelita.  Her posts are always funny and clever and interesting.  And here’s the thing, I had never met her before.  We’re fourth or fifth cousins, and we met through her work on the family genealogy.  Carmelita lives in Austin, so I wanted to meet her while I’m here.  We arranged to meet at her house, where she could show me old family photographs—old like from the 1800’s some of them.

I gave myself an hour to get to her house, which the GPS said was plenty of time.  It wasn’t.  A smart device like that, and it didn’t take traffic conditions into consideration!  I arrived about 20 minutes late.  Carmelita wasn’t upset about that because she was working from home, so she could just continue working while she waited for me.  She came out and hugged me in the driveway.  Then she said, “Gosh!  I hope we like each other!”  I said that I didn’t have any doubt because I already like her, based on her posts.

We went into the house, and her house has lots of great photos taken by her husband, and lots of cool very Texan stuff.  I love her house!  And she has three very affectionate cats.  Yes, Cousin Carmelita and I are definitely compatible!  She brought down the panoramic picture of the 100th family reunion, and I showed her Mom and Daddy and Grandma and my older son.  She knew my branch of the family very well.  Our family descended from a Texas pioneer couple who had thirteen children.  The family grew exponentially from that beginning, so it is a very large family.  I’m from the oldest daughter, while Carmelita is from the fifth son.

Then I discovered that we have even more in common: Carmelita writes.  Today she is starting a novel for National Novel Writing Month.  The idea is that you write a 50,000 word novel in one month.  It doesn’t have to be a good one, but it must have a beginning and an end.  This is not her first time to write a novel for the contest.  I was impressed.  I’ve written two novels three-quarters of the way through, and then lost interest.  For me, the problem is that I find real life so much stranger and funnier, more tear-jerking, exciting, gut-wrenching, and unpredictable than anything I could possibly make up.

Since I am making up for a severe Mexican food deficit, she took me out for dinner.  The food was not traditional Tex-Mex, but excellent and unmistakably Mexican.  We were surrounded by pirates, witches, fairies, and zombies—it being Halloween.  Austin people celebrate their weirdness and encourage each other to do so with the ubiquitous bumper sticker: Keep Austin Weird.  I’m sorry, but I think the rest of the world is just not weird enough.  I love Austin!

We returned to the house, carefully dodging trick-or-treaters, and I met Carmelita’s husband, Nigel.  They seem to be a really good match.  He’s just as funny and nice as she is.  Before I left them, Nigel took our picture with our great-great-great-great grandparents (well, a picture of them).

CunninghamsWe meet at last!

You know, I think Cousin Carmelita and Nigel like her eccentric missionary cousin from Italy.  I certainly like them!  God is good!

Speaking at Church, Part Two

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In praying before any speaking engagement, I always ask the Holy Spirit to come and speak through me—though the actual words are more like: “God, if You don’t show up, I’m screwed!”  And I pray like that until I feel that release that says that Heaven has heard, and God has responded.

Unfortunately, that doesn’t make my physical symptoms (dry mouth, shaking hands, etc.) go away.  But I carry on nevertheless, and that’s what I did at church last night.

There was a really good turnout—about 30-35 people.  I had a PowerPoint all ready to show them, but no way to connect my computer (with its HMDI port) to the TV screen (with its S-video port).  Oh, well!  Rather than worry about that, I just forged ahead, and they all listened intently, even without the visuals.  I only knew one person in the room.  That means that the church has continued to grow in my absence.  God has always put me into growing churches, so I love that.

Since I didn’t know them, I could easily assume that they didn’t know much, if anything, about me.  So I started with how I had come to this church and ended up in Italy and my call to ministry (recounted in most of my books, but in greatest detail in Graceful Flight).  My story reveals that I am not a super saint, but just an average person.  This was important for them to know because people tend to think of missionaries as perfect people who have their lives together.  Nothing could be farther from the truth.  I know some missionaries with defects far worse than I’ve seen in the churches in the US.

I don’t remember what all I talked to them about, but at one point I was led by the Holy Spirit to speak about Catholics.  Someone always asks about why there are missionaries in Italy, since it is a Catholic country.  Italy is a Catholic country, and the vast majority of Italians identify themselves as Catholic.  But many of them only go to church for weddings or funerals.  And there is a vast difference between faithful (faith-filled) Catholicism and the superstitious practices of pseudo-Catholicism that are very common in Italy: kissing the picture of a saint instead of praying; crossing themselves whenever they pass the door of a church, but never entering in; hanging a rosary on the rear-view mirror as a kind of “insurance” against accidents.  They live like the rest of the world, cheating on their taxes, having affairs, stealing from business partners, etc.  But because they have been baptized (as infants), and they do these superstitious practices, they think that that they are good with God.  In reality, they have no relationship with Him at all.

The Charismatic movement among Catholics has been around in the US for decades, but it is only just beginning in Italy.  I told them about how God has used my Catholic friend, Gessica, to show me true faith among Italian Catholics.  The truth is that we don’t need to “convert” Catholics.  What we need to do is to help them discover true faith.  And when you do that, some will come out of the Catholic Church, wanting to explore faith that has none of the old rituals; while others remain in the Catholic Church, enjoying a fresh understanding of the meaning behind the familiar rituals, and sharing that with other Catholics.  Several of the people there have Catholic family members, and this gave them hope for their families.

The response to my talk was overwhelmingly positive.  Because I had shared about Kalisz, Poland, and taking Italian worship to the Feast of Tabernacles for the first time, someone asked me what Italian worship sounds like.  Here’s where my nerves betrayed me: I went completely blank.  They named some songs that I know in Italian, but I simply could not remember the words.  Oh, well!  If every talk went perfectly, I might be able to claim some of the glory for myself.  But as it was, God got all the glory because in my weakness (and nervousness) He revealed His great power to teach and reveal the important things about missions in Europe.  God is good!

A Travel Promise from Father God

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Yesterday and today could have been very difficult travel days, indeed.  I had bought my round-trip tickets to Malta separately from my round-trip tickets to Rome.  I had planned a 4 hour layover to claim my bag and check in to my other flight.  If anything went wrong with my Malta flight, it could have cost me the flight back to Milan.  (Remember my post from April titled Six Hours Late?)

Likewise, the potential for problems loomed for today’s travel.  I will be meeting Nina at the airport after she drops off her son’s fiancée at another airport.  If there is a traffic snarl or something goes wrong, and Nina doesn’t get there in time, what do I do?  Go ahead and check in?  Give up my ticket and wait?  And Buck will be meeting us at the airport in Sofia, and driving us to The Promised Land Complex, about 2 ½ hours away.

Such travel plans fraught with possibilities for problems used to keep me awake at night.  But this time I prayed about it, and decided to leave it all in God’s hands whatever happens.  I slept very well both nights, and yesterday morning before traveling, God told me very clearly that His message to me for the day’s travel is Psalm 81:6, “I removed the burden from their shoulders; their hands were set free from the basket.”  God is promising to carry my luggage for me because I’ve let go of my baggage.  By that I mean that since I decided to just trust Him, He is promising to take care of me the whole way.

Your might be wondering what is today’s travel promise from God.  Proverbs 3:6, “In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make straight your paths.”

And He has!  God is good!  Whatever comes, God is good!