La Dolce Vita

What a week…

Without really meaning to, this week I plunged head first into a study of hope…

And of grace…

And of hopelessness…

And despair.The past few weeks so many people around me have been going through horribly hard things…

Sometimes as they talk to me it makes me feel so lost… but at the same time found.

I’m realizing that sometimes it’s when you don’t have the answers and you can’t solve the problems that you draw closest to God.

When you are weak, then He is strong.

Thinking back to college… it wasn’t so long ago – exactly one year ago this Mother’s Day… I remember great times, and I remember incredibly hard times.

Most of all I remember it was a time of great growth in my walk with Christ… but it was also an incredible struggle that came partly because of an incredible confusion along with an incredible pressure.

I felt like I needed to know exactly what I wanted to be, where I wanted to go, and where I was going to end up at for every step of my life.

I felt like I needed to have my five year plan hanging on a rope around my neck… Otherwise I was destined to be nothing.

And it was so frustrating to me, because I felt like I was surrounded by people who knew who they were and where they were going. It felt like they had it all together.

During that time a friend wrote to me and said, “God guided him [Moses] with a pillar of fire and smoke and he followed. Moses knew the final destination but the path was revealed as he went along. The same thing goes for us. We don’t know what the path will be; however, we know that the ultimate destination is eternity in Heaven”.

Those words comforted me so much. I realized I don’t have to know the steps, because God has already walked them. I don’t need my five year plan laminated, because He already has it under control.

I can’t imagine going through college having not known Christ was me every step of the way DESPITE what my major was or what job I had… Despite not having a 4.0 GPA, or being infinitely intelligent, funny, creative, or beautiful.

Because He holds it all.

My heart aches for Italy… for those college students living right in the middle of incredible beauty, fashion, art, culture, history, architecture, and food. But not having a clue about the One who fashioned those things…

For those people trying to figure life out while living in the middle of a place that searches so desperately for “la dolce vita” – the sweet life, but it is always is just beyond their reach…

I can’t imagine living life like that.

It just seems so frustrating, annoying, hopeless…

Pointless even.

They don’t know Christ – the One who created the sweet life, and He is the only One who can offer it to them…

And they haven’t even really had the chance to hear the Gospel before.

I hope… No I pray with all of my heart that our time in Italy can bring hope to Italian college students, and to everyone we encounter on every second of our entire mission.

Because I know that He can provide “la dolce vita” to everyone in a way that is beyond their comprehension – in a way that will completely blow their minds, change their lives, and provide light to their (and our) dark world… It’s my prayer that they will know that “La dolce Vita” is standing in front of them with His arms wide open, if only they will have ears to hear and a heart to believe…

Please pray that they will.

Prayer List

Howdy! For those of you that only know Italy for its food, high fashion, or naked statues, I'd like to take a moment to tell you about the mission field.

Most Italians identify themselves as Catholic but have fallen away from their church due to disillusionment and dissatisfaction with the way the Vatican plays a role in Italian politics. Talking to a few college students, we found that some were pro-religion, some anti-religion, but most expressed that they feel let down by the Catholic Church. That shows in the way "alternative" religions are spreading.

It makes Italy a very challenging area to spread the Gospel in. In a manner of speaking, it's already there, but may not be the focus or may be misinterpreted. What is clear is that Italians are seeking a direction. They long for spiritual fulfillment and will turn to whatever might be near.

We have several missionaries already in Italy, and they provided us with several items that they would like us keep in our prayers:

View Prayer List (pdf, 93k)
View Missionary's Prayer Calendar (pdf, 580k)

In case you lost or need a new copy of our training manual, you can download it from here as well:

Download Mission Training Manual (pdf, 1.1 mb)