Today was an amazing day we finally began the distributions for Catania. We were able to build a team from 4 different churches to help with the distribution. The first school there was about 200 students and went very well. The principle of that school was very excited and happy with the project of the Book of Hope. She was pleased that each of her students was receiving something of great value for their personal lives.

After the finishing up with that school we move on to another high school with 1200 students.
We could defiantly feel that God had answer our prayer and He was moving before us to prepare the way for us to share about His love to each of the students. We were already to begin the class room by class room distribution when all of sudden we felt as if we were in the middle of a spiritual battle. Right in front of the principle office a huge fight broke out. This really caught us off guard we weren’t sure what was really going on so we just back up and began to pray.

After a few minutes things calmed down and the principle gave us the okay to begin. What was so amazing is that after the confusion had stop it felt as if God brought a sprit of peace abound the school. And then for the next hour we were able to enter 55 different classes and speak to 1200 students about God’s love and how they can have a personal relation with the Lord Jesus Christ.

They students were so receptive and open to what was being said that when they were handed the magazine they immediately began to look through the book. Most of them read page 45 (where the plan of salvation is written out) right away.

When we were about to leave the school after the distribution we notice a girl had come to the office and was making copies of some of the pages in the book. So we were able to ask her a couple of question and wonder way she was making some copies. She said the book was very interesting and she wanted to share some of things in the book with her friends. The whole project of the Book of Hope is such a great testimony of how great our God is. He has opened the doors to share His love in the public school and at the same time light the fire of evangelism for many Italian Churches.

Thank for your prayers regarding this project and we ask you to continue to pray that more schools will be open for us to share and present the love of Christ to the students of Italy. Also pray for those students who have received the Book of Hope that they may come to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.

God Bless you,
Marco

Ciao a tutti...
I would like to thank all of you for your prayer. I had a very good day going from one school to another. I spoke with 4 different director and some of them were very happy with the magazine. We are going to distributing the Book of hope in two weeks to different school in Sicily having the opportunity to reach 5000 student!! praise the Lord.
Please keep pray for this project and for all the people involve in it.
may the Lord bless all of you.

Good morning everyone
We are going (scott, Ugo, and myself) to different school in Catania. The first one will be one of the biggest school here (4000 student) and we will try to speak to the directors of each school presenting the Book OF Hope. Please pray that God will guide us and He will open the doors for us in those schools. Please pray that we will be able to talk to them and that each one of the directors will be open to the Book giving us the opportunity to give the Book to the student.
Thank you already for your prayer and support to us.
May the Lord bless you reachly today!
Marco

Hello guys!!
What can I say.... it is different. Tchad and Andrea left. after 16 months togheter they went back home and right now there is a mix of filling in our heart and may be we don't even understand completly what happened. Anyway we are very happy for them and for the new season they are going to start with God. I know that the Lord has always the Best for His children and for sure He will bless in a great way Tchad and Andrea's lives. Last night we had our cluster night and the guys here wanted make 1 minuts of silent for Tchad and Andrea becouse it was the first cluster without them.
The night was cool! we had Scott Steelman with us and he challenged all of us to understand if we know where is God! We had couple of no-church people and it was great to see them very interest in what we were talking about.
Everybody loves and miss you lovely Andrea and ponchio!!
May the Lord give you what your hearts desires.
Lots od love
Cinzia, Sofia and marco

Well just over a week ago we arrived back in Sheffield! It still seems very strange. We have been in touch with Marco and Cinzia and they are doing okay - we miss them!

Our parcels arrived from Italy totally destroyed, I mean seriously damaged - big slashes down the sides and holes in the boxes. There were literally things falling out of them - extraordinary. We insured them, however, the Italian PO has said that you need receipts to prove what was in them - we'll see what develops this week. We are missing a load of stuff and our computer has taken a battering, when I openned it up pieces fell out.

We have had a fairly quiet week on Wednesday I applied for a job online and within 3 minutes I had the agency calling me and they set me up with an interview the next morning. That went well and I have a weeks trial starting tomorrow morning - all very fast.

We have just been to Blackpool for the weekend for Andrea to see the cats (and her parents and sister) which was nice and we are awaiting the return of Liz and John from a weekend trip to Germany to meet up with some missionary guys there.

Safely back in the UK arrived here at Casa Lovell at midnight last night after a stop in Northampton to see Lois, many thanks to Lovely Andy and Libby for picking us up and driving us!!

Off to church now :-)

Ooops on the last post I said that we were off to Simona's parents for dinner last night, however, after it was Turi, Sara and Paulo's parents. Today we had lunch with Simona's parents after taking Sofia to play in the snow high up Etna for the morning was a great time!

Well yesterdaty was fun we had a key meeting with Dario and Melinda (from the huddle) whom we all believe God is calling to get really involved with Marco and Cinzia. It went really well but afterwards driving home the road went from a biway to a one way road without me seeing the turn and I mounted the curb to avoid oncoming traffic and blew a tyre (and wheel). Praise God everybody was okay and we had a spare. We walked back along the bit that was one way and found the sign in the middle of the road where another vehicle had already smashed it down. Whilst we were sorting it all out another car did the same thing except they didn't realise they were in a one way section and stormed on by oblivious to oncoming traffic going nuts! Anyway God is good and we are all okay. Got a new wheel and two new tyres today.

We have just had lunch with Cinzia's parents and are about to have a meeting with the "council" of the land that we have been staying on, to talk about the fact that it will only be Marco and Cinzia now. This evening we are having dinner with Simona's parents - Simona was another Sicilian in Sheffield for a while :-) and is now in Argentina.

Welcome Russian Federation!

Population:
143,420,309 (July 2005 est.)

Population growth rate:
-0.37% (2005 est.)

Life expectancy at birth:
total population: 67.1 years

Ethnic groups:
Russian 79.8%, Tatar 3.8%, Ukrainian 2%, Bashkir 1.2%, Chuvash 1.1%, other or unspecified 12.1% (2002 census)

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