This is what the kingdom of God is like...

Last week I had the opportunity to attend my friend's cooking school with a group of Harding students! We made homemade pasta with tomato sauce; chicken with a mixture of spinach, pine nuts, and parmesan rolled inside; and biscotti. Everything was delicious!

This week I added two more students! One is a 29-year-old lady who found the Bible School online. She studied English previously but seems to have forgotten most of it. The other is a seven-year-old boy whose mother works at the Harding villa. He is adorable and brought his English workbooks from school to show me all the words he has learned!

Tuesday one of my students brought me a book by a Florentine author so that I can get some practice reading in Italian! Since she didn't have to go to work the next day due to a holiday, she stayed for three hours (until midnight)! Also Tuesday evening one of my students invited me to a pizzeria so we could have one last time to hang out before she goes on her summer vacation.

Tomorrow I'm going to work at the Italian Christian youth camp, Momenti sul Monte, for two weeks! The first week is for ages 6-13, and the second week is for ages 14-17. The theme is LOST: Stories of the Lost Who Were Saved, based on Luke 19:10, “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost.” Each day we’ll be studying a different character (David and Bathsheba, Naaman, blind Bartimeus, the prodigal son, and the thief on the cross), and I’ll be helping with the Bible classes (for which I have created a pin-the-eye-on-Bartimeus game!), the theater/chorus class, the sports, and I’m sure many other activities. Please keep this camp, both the children and the staff, in your prayers! I’m very excited about this opportunity to meet people from all over the country and hopefully touch some lives. And I will be getting lots of great Italian practice!

Our backyard has now been transformed from asphalt to grass! Here are pictures of the work in progress and the lawn one month after the seeds were sown. It's a veritable jungle out there, and we are excited about envisioning how this area may be used for hospitality!

"This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how.” ~Mark 4:26-27