Ciao a tutti,
We are sorry about the "Silence" but it is due to the fact that we don't have an easy internet access anymore. We are fine and more and more we are close to move to Sicily!
I'm still working for the last week and then finally we can have a chance to take some time off before "the hard joB" of packing all our house.
Tchad and Andrea are very well, they are working very hard in Sicily preparing the place for our coming and get more close to the people there. From What I heard Tchad is getting much better with the language there while, Andrea's is almost perfect.
We will beagain togheter after the 5th of September when we will go for a week to the reetre in Tuscany with some wondeful people of St.Thomas church.
Paolo is back to the hospital. He went there because he had again a strong headache so the doctor keep him there. Paolo will go to Verona to have the brain surgery after the 5th of September, so plase keep him in you prayer. He is very tired of all this situetion and sometime he is so discouraged to believe that he will died. We know that it is not true because God is keeping his life in His heands, but for him it is very hard to not worry about it.
Once again we want to thanks all of you for your prayer and love.
Lots of love and Blessing
Marco

Well once again a little while since the update. We are in Sicily on a month's holiday and preparing the ground ofr Marco and Cinzia's arrival in October. We've done a lot of cleaning and moving stuff and getting to know some people here. A lot of the stuff has been quite tiring and stressful and I am totally knackered.

God willing we will now get to relax now and rest properly. We have been having some rest - nipping to the beach and going snorkling lots - but we haven't really been able to relax properly as there have been other people with us.

Andrea has been in the wars (not me!! All changes). Yesterday she stood on a sea urchin and had a spine in her foot - she just pulled it out and carried on well hard. This morning a very larghe gate slammed onto her fingers and has mangled one up it is well black and this afternoon she disturbed a viper which was not amused. Praise God it didn't strike her as it is really poisonous. It was only about a foot long but the Italians were very nervous about it. It went a bit nuts for a while after I flushed it out of a hole with water on the steps upto our rooms and we had to kill it which is a shame but necessary with children around.

Our new address is Nuovo Centro Rifugio, Via Indipendenza 52/a, 95030 Mascalucia (CT), Sicilia, Italy and we have a new Italian landline number - 0039 095 727 00 86 - but we still have our UK one. However we don't have permenant internet access so if you catch us on the uK one ot will either be by design or fluke :-) But you caln leave messages - especially as it is my birthday on Thursday - hooray - we are going exploring and snorkling and maybe some pizza.
The trip here was tiring (11 hours driving fom Rome) but absolutely stunning - through the mountains down the spine of Italy - truly amazing. Etna hgasn't errupted though it is smoking a little and there have been some interesting noises coming from it. We are halfway between the top of Etna and the sea - probably about 10 km each way. It is bizarre to think that we are on the side of a volcano, it is also bizarre snorkling and seeing the solidified lava on the sea bed. The sea is teeming with life and anybody who comes to visit will have to come snorkling with us - it is so beautiful.

We've been eating a lot of fresh fruit from the land we are on - green and red grapes, peaches, different types of apricots, pears, cacti fruit to name some and all our vegetables so far have came from the garden - amazing stuff :-) Thats it for now....

Ciao a tutti! It's almost a week that Tchad and Andrea went to Sicily, but to us it seems much longer...we miss them! I know they are having a good time over there, and we are glad for them.
Unfortunally, Cinzia has not been so good during last week. She had some pain due te surgery she had last month, but we are confident that she will be well again soon. Please keep her in your prayer. Sofia is growing to fast. I cannot belive she is 10 months old! We are trying to teach her some words like Mamma e Papà,(mum and dad) but it is not easy. Cinzia told me that Sofia already called her Mamma couple of days ago, but I'm not sure about it. I told Cinzia that the first Sofia's word will be Papà, but she does not belive it. We will see who will be the winner...Ah, ah,. We would like to have some days off as a family. Both of us need some rest and we would like to celebrate our 8 years wedding anniversary (4 September) and the first one as parents somewhere. The problem is that we don't know where we should go. We could go to Sicily and spend some time with Paolo (you remember him. Paolo needs to go in Verona next month to have a brain surgery, and he is scare about it) or to go somewhere else just us. What do you think should we do? any suggestions? Please let us know.
I have the last 2 weeks work. During these days I have been thinking about these 2 years working in this company. It has been hard some times, but I had some fantastic times where the Lord used me to share the Gospel with some people I could never imagine! Praise Him for any singol time like that. We are almost ready to move to Sicily. The Lord is keeping to provide for our need and it's wonderful to see His hand above us making everyting easy for us.
we would like to thank you once again for your prayer and love to us. We hope to see you soon....maybe in Sicily :-) ....................... Lots of love and blessing
Marco Cinzia & Sofia

Hello everyone.,It's the 5:25 am and I'm working... I have been reading all the update that Tchad has been writing during last week and I'm thinking about the faithfulness of the Lord Jesus to His children. It is a little bit sad to leave the house where this adventure started two years ago, I sow all the picture we toke on it and I have been thinking to all the wondeful times we had in that place. It has been just uncredible how the Lord has blessed all of us using the house for His Kingdom. Praise Him!
Last week my boss called me to have a meeting in his office. He told me that he needed to speak to me about my future in the company. It was strange for me to hear that becouse I should have been the one to call him and talk about my future to him and not the opposite. Anyway, he wanted promoted me in a new position from September giving me more money and more responsability. He spoke for about 20 minuts and I was praying at the same time at the end he asked me: Marco what do you think about it? At this point I told him that I was going to quit my job at the end of August and he was schoked to hear that. While I was driving home I asked the Lord why this guy wanted to give me all that just now that I was leaving Rome to go in Sicily?
I did not have any answer from God untill Sunday, when somebody called me and told me that I was like Jesus in the desert when satan came to Him telling: If you want all these kingdom and richness will be yours. It was hard for me as husban and a father to saied NO to my boss, but I would like to praise the Lord becouse He was with me in that room and for all the time His voice was repeting the same words "Seek first my Kingdom......" I have my heart full of peace becouse He confermed His will once again for me and my family. We send all our love to each one of you thanking all of you for your prayer and love. May the Lord bless you reachly....Marco

Oh yeah went through the guest book and 124 unique visitors have stayed with us! Thats a lot of people.

Sorry for the delay in the update a bit of a busy time for the past week.

To follow up on my last post we went to the gypsy camp where we had a real strange time. For the first time it felt like we had no grace there, also for the first time we got robbed - only some euros from the car, but still it has never happened before. There seems to have been some kind of a disagreement in the camp because normally we would go to one house and loads of children from other houses would come streaming out but thisa tme just a few did and they were threatened with stones so they didn't hang around. The elder of the section of the camp we hang out in forbade us from giving food to some of the other families too. It was a bit of a frustrating time.

On Saturday (I think) Jess headed off to the UK with Leah who was heading back to the States from the UK. Jess hung out with some of the guys that she has met here and had a great time. She's fallen in love with England and is starting to talk proper English - finally.

On Monday evening at midnight some guys from Sheffield came in for a short mission & holiday break - Liz, Bex, Rachel, Tom (all have just done FORM) and Nigel, a good friend of ours.
Tuesday we headed out into the city centre with a load of food to hand out to the homeless and to the beggers and to offer to pray with them - the trouble was there weren't too many around, they've all gone on holiday for August and are plying their trade near the coast. We split into two groups and the boys bumped into Leoni (picture below). Massive respect to Nigel and Tom who just layed hands upon him and called upon the Holy Spirit.

Tuesday midnight and Joe Gibson arrived along with Jess back from the UK. Wednesday we said goodbye to Jess who was off to babysit our neighbours children for a few weeks and the rest of us went up to the church in Frascati and cleaned and painted for the day. We really appreciate all of the help that the Form guys gave and also so do the church. Thursday was chill at the beach day followed by prayer and prophesy for each other in the evening. Friday people went into Rome and then we said goodbye to the UK gang and also Chris who headed off into Rome to listen to God. We spent the day packing up furniture and cleaning.

Saturday we had time with Marco and Cinzia and moved a load of the stuff here onto one of their balconies. Sunday was our last church service in Frascati and we also explored the caves in the hill above a bit. Oh yeah we also had Jess and Chris back for a few days.

Harriet and Sophie leave tomorrow , Jess went off again today and Chris also heads off tomorrow so tomorrow evening it will be just the two of us for the first time in a long long long long time........... We meet the landlord on Wed to sort out keys deposit etc - please pray for our deposit being returned to us.

Tom, Leoni, Nigel 

Nigel and his for 1 euro 

Joe and his 12.5 euro picture off a pizza box 

Joe, Tom, Nigel (front), Rachel, Sophie, Harriet (front), Liz, Bex 

Amazing. Paolo has been steadily improving over the past few days and this is just fantastic. The doctors are talking about moving him up to Verona for the operation in the next few weeks - incredible progress. Just shows that praying does work :-)

As I write this I am preparing to head to the beach to week's to watch Roberto's two children. They speak no English. So it should be a great two weeks. I am scared but excited to spend time with them and to be spending time at the beach. It will be a good way to end my stay in Rome. It is very bittersweet as I say my goodbyes and look ahead to see that the summer is coming to an end. As I have said before it has been an amazing time with Tchad and Andrea and everyone else here and especially with God. I am so thankful that I was able to come and I look forward with expectation to what is to come next.

I will miss being here though and all the late nights playing speed UNO and hanging out meeting new people. I have made so many new friends. And the morning prayer times. And just being here. I feel like their house is a place of peace and a place to seek God and find Him. I have grown and been stretched to new things. It has been an awesome summer. I came here to look for the answers to some questions and I found much more than just the answers. I wait paitently now for what is to come.
Jess
Psalm 73

So today was supposed to be my last day in Rome. I was supposed to catch a plane this afternoon but after seeking God a lot He has opened a door for me to stay longer. It is very exciting. Tomorrow I will head to a town where I will stay for two weeks to house sit and watch two children. I am excited about staying longer. And I wait with expectation during the next month (I will not head back to the States until August 28th now) over what God is leading me to.

It is really weird to not be heading home but really amazing at the same time. I am writing this post from Coventry. Yesterday we went and explored London. I love London. I love England. And I have started the job search and visa application to stay in the UK. I am just praying for the right job. And the right door to open up. Every time I have made the trip up to England from Rome I experience a peace that I have never experienced before. Praise God. He is opening doors and providing opportunities to seek Him more and more.

I have been looking back at the past six weeks and it is awesome I can see what God has been doing and where He has taken me. It has been an amazing journey and I have been able to spend time with incredible people and create new friendships. I have been broken and challenged and stretched but have experienced joy and God's grace. I feel different like God has molded me more over the last six weeks and that He is continuing that process all the time. He has changed my perspective and view on a lot of things. It has been really good to step back and rest in Him. I am excited to be where I am now. He is taking me to something new and I wait to see what it is. Thank you again for all your prayers. I can see them being answered everyday.