Not an April Fools' Joke

Monday night the church in Padova (half an hour away) hosted a concert by Chorale Harmonie, an acappella group from Marseilles! They sang in both French and English, and it was a very uplifting evening. Several of the French songs also exist in English, but not Italian, so it had been many months since I heard them, so that was a nice surprise!

In case you heard about the landslide, caused by a burst irrigation pipe, that derailed a train in northern Italy Monday morning, killing nine people... that was about two and a half hours north of me.

This morning I had another random encounter with a faraway friend! While I was in the market getting fruit, I saw a girl from Sicily (the complete opposite end of the country, an island no less, and a good fifteen or so hours away) who was here on a high school field trip, just like the other teens from camp I encountered last month!

Then in one of my English lessons this afternoon, I got to talk to a customer service representative at a bank in England, attempting to sort out some address confusion on behalf of one of my students. Never a dull moment.

This afternoon I changed out the display in the church window! Begonia had the idea from an e-mail she'd seen with a Bible on a plate, symbolizing how "man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord" (Deuteronomy 8:3b), so I found a couple verses and made a little 3D exhibit. The timing and theme of the display is somewhat ironic, since on Saturday the Ghanaians are having a day of prayer and fasting up at the church building. Here are a couple pictures, with some lovely street scenes reflected in the glass:

"I have treasured the words of his mouth more than my daily bread." ~Job 23:12b

My last post was long enough without including my latest apartment adventure, so I will close today with my April Fools' tale. At 11:30 p.m. on April 1, my electricity went out! At first I wasn't too concerned, since I was leaving town the next day, and I would have plenty of daylight to pack, since I never have to turn on my lights til dusk anyway. Then a few implications dawned on me: 1) No refrigeration. Hence a mass exodus of all my cold food to the fridge/freezer at the church building. 2) No heating during the night. 3) Ice cold mountain water shower in the morning. Having dealt with these minor inconveniences, I mentioned the problem to my landlords on my way to the train station, not knowing whether I'd have electricity upon my return from the youth retreat. To avoid the risk of burning down the whole building, I had left the power completely off, since there had been a suspicious burning smell when the electricity went out and when I had tried in vain to re-set it. Returning home Monday evening, I was delighted to find that my lights worked and noticed that a new breaker had been installed. On my way home from reclaiming my food from my surrogate fridge, I ran into my landlord, who told me that it had been repaired the day before. Props to my landlords on getting something of this magnitude accomplished on Easter, since Italy pretty much shuts down on holidays. [For example, on Easter Monday, my ladies' Bible study group leader was unable to find an open gas station.] Mission: Let there be light, 2.0 -- accomplished! And I live above a lamp store...